An investigation into accounting and business students’ employability beliefs

Figures & data

Table 1. Data exclusions.

Data	Observations	Excluded Observations
All responses	70,258	N/A
Field of study: ‘Accounting’ or ‘Business and Management’	18,372	−51,886
Valid Student ID	18,238	−134
First Responses	14,428	−3,810
Australian Institution	10,597	−3,831
Prior education does not exceed high school	8,104	−2,493
Complete data	8,089	−15

Table 2. Descriptive statistics of participants.

Features	Business (n = 4,973)	Accounting (n = 3,116)
Independent Variables – Categorical	Count (Proportion)
Sex
Female	2,657 (53.43%)	1,570 (50.38%)
Male	2,299 (46.23%)	1,528 (49.04%)
Other	17 (0.34%)	18 (0.58%)
Stage of Study
Year 1	2,046 (41.14%)	1,255 (40.28%)
Year 2	461 (9.27%)	327 (10.49%)
Year 3+	2,466 (49.59%)	1,534 (49.23%)
Study Load
Part time	590 (11.86%)	344 (11.04%)
Full time	4,383 (88.14%)	2,772 (88.96%)
Employment
None	1,447 (29.10%)	1,258 (40.37%)
Casual or part time	2,937 (59.06%)	1,546 (49.62%)
Full time	589 (11.84%)	312 (10.01%)
Study Mode
In Person	3,154 (63.42%)	2,072 (66.50%)
Online	932 (18.74%)	647 (20.76%)
Mixed	887 (17.84%)	397 (12.74%)
Independent Variables – Categorical	Count (Proportion)
Year of Response
2017	32 (0.64%)	22 (0.71%)
2018	336 (6.76%)	163 (5.23%)
2019	814 (16.37%)	1,012 (32.48%)
2020	1,068 (21.48%)	636 (20.41%)
2021	1,382 (27.79%)	730 (23.43%)
2022	1,341 (26.97%)	553 (17.75%)
Independent Variables – Numeric	Mean (Standard Deviation)
Age	21.63 (4.32)	22.18 (5.46)
Employability Dimensions^a
Self awareness (1–6)	4.63 (0.80)	4.58 (0.84)
Program awareness (1–6)	4.72 (0.81)	4.80 (0.82)
Communication skills (1–6)	4.73 (0.65)	4.58 (0.71)
Digital and technological literacy (1–7)	4.85 (0.84)	4.85 (0.86)
Problem solving and decision making (1–6)	4.56 (0.72)	4.52 (0.75)
Goal-directed behaviour (1–6)	4.47 (0.77)	4.51 (0.79)
Identification with commitment (1–5)	3.78 (0.77)	3.78 (0.77)
Reconsideration of commitment (1–5)	2.84 (0.94)	2.91 (0.98)
Self-esteem (0–3)	2.17 (0.48)	2.16 (0.49)
Academic self-efficacy (1–7)	5.27 (0.84)	5.26 (0.87)
Ability and willingness to learn (1–6)	4.60 (0.77)	4.62 (0.81)
Perceived program relevance (1–5)	4.02 (0.55)	3.98 (0.57)
Career exploration and awareness (0–9)	6.73 (1.40)	6.66 (1.43)
Occupational mobility (0–9)	6.32 (1.52)	6.34 (1.56)
Emotional intelligence (1–5)	3.48 (0.36)	3.42 (0.38)
Ethical and responsible behaviour (1–6)	5.08 (0.69)	4.98 (0.75)

^a Brackets in this column should be interpreted as the possible range for each employability dimension, from low belief (e.g., low self-esteem with a value of 0) to strong belief (e.g., high self-esteem with a value of 3).

Table 3. Differences in employability beliefs of accounting students versus business students.

Employability Dimension	Accounting Effect (95% CI)	P-Value
Self-awareness (1–6)	−0.0276 (−0.06, 0.01)	0.1414
Program awareness (1–6)	0.0954 (0.06, 0.13)	<0.0001***
Communication skills (1–6)	−0.1179 (−0.15, −0.09)	<0.0001***
Digital and technological literacy (1–7)	0.0237 (−0.01, 0.06)	0.2216
Problem solving and decision making (1–6)	−0.0229 (−0.06, 0.01)	0.1720
Goal-directed behaviour (1–6)	0.0474 (0.01, 0.08)	0.0076
Identification with commitment (1–5)	0.014 (−0.02, 0.05)	0.4268
Reconsideration of commitment (1–5)	0.0525 (0.01, 0.1)	0.0164
Self-esteem (0–3)	−0.0048 (−0.03, 0.02)	0.6655
Academic self-efficacy (1–7)	−0.002 (−0.04, 0.04)	0.9198
Ability and willingness to learn (1–6)	0.0296 (−0.01, 0.06)	0.1001
Perceived program relevance (1–5)	−0.023 (−0.05, 0)	0.0681
Career exploration and awareness (0–9)	−0.0437 (−0.11, 0.02)	0.1794
Occupational mobility (0–9)	0.0249 (−0.04, 0.09)	0.4812
Emotional intelligence (1–5)	−0.053 (−0.07, −0.04)	<0.0001***
Ethical and responsible behaviour (1–6)	−0.0691 (−0.1, −0.04)	<0.0001***

Note: *, **, and *** indicate significance at the Bonferroni-adjusted 5%, 1%, and 0.1% levels respectively.

Table 4. Employability beliefs of accounting students across study stages.

Employability Dimension	Study Stage	Stage Effect (95% CI)	P-Value
Self-awareness	Year 2	−0.0703 (−0.18, 0.04)	0.2064
Self-awareness	Year 3+	−0.1123 (−0.18, −0.04)	0.0011*
Program awareness	Year 2	−0.1761 (−0.28, −0.07)	0.0009*
Program awareness	Year 3+	−0.2186 (−0.28, −0.15)	<0.0001***
Reconsideration of commitment	Year 2	0.1890 (0.06, 0.31)	0.0028
Reconsideration of commitment	Year 3+	0.2235 (0.15, 0.30)	<0.0001***
Perceived program relevance	Year 2	−0.1318 (−0.20, −0.06)	0.0003*
Perceived program relevance	Year 3+	−0.1657 (−0.21, −0.12)	<0.0001***
Ethical and responsible behaviour	Year 2	−0.1223 (−0.22, −0.03)	0.0130
Ethical and responsible behaviour	Year 3+	−0.1094 (−0.17, −0.05)	0.0003*

Note: *, **, and *** indicate significance at the Bonferroni-adjusted 5%, 1%, and 0.1% levels respectively.

Table A1. Dimensions in the Employ-ability measure.

Dimension	Scale	Items (count)	Description
Basic literacy (28 items and 4 factors)
Dimensions 1 and 2 are often reported together as ‘Awareness of self and study’
1	Self-awareness 2 items informed by Jackson and Wilton (2017)	3	Awareness of personal strengths and challenges relating to graduate employability
2	Program awareness	4	Perceptions of the degree program in relation to graduate employability
3	Communication skills. Modified version of Coetzee (2014): ‘Communication, leadership and teamwork’.	17	Interactive skills, use of English language and technology when communicating with others and personal efficacy in communicating and interacting with people from diverse cultures, backgrounds and authority levels (Coetzee, 2014).
4	Digital and technological literacy	4	Confidence in the ability to learn and use digital technologies relating to study, work and career planning.
Rhetorical literacy (18 items and 12 factors)
5	Problem solving and decision-making. Coetzee (2014): ‘Problem solving and decision-making skills’.	8	Creativity and proactivity in the process of producing a solution to a recognised problem or problematic situation (Coetzee, 2014)
6	Goal-directed behaviour	10	Ability to achieve goals through goal-directed behaviour.
Critical literacy (55 items and 6 factors)
Dimensions 7 and 8 are often reported together as ‘Career commitment’
7	Identification with commitment. Mancini et al. (2015): ‘Identification with commitment’.	4	Being proud and happy about becoming a professional in the discipline (identification and affirmation). Identification with career and study path.
8	Reconsideration of commitment. Mancini et al. (2015): ‘Reconsideration of commitment’	4	Reconsideration of current career and study commitment.
9	Self-esteem	10	Confidence in one’s ability and value.
10	Academic self-efficacy Modified version of Byrne et al. (2014): ‘Academic self-efficacy’	26	Confidence in the ability to succeed academically.
Occupational literacy (12 items and 2 factors)
11	Ability and willingness to learn Coetzee (2014): ‘Ability and willingness to learn’.	7	Cognitive openness to maintaining their knowledge, skills and abilities (Coetzee, 2014).
12	Perceived program relevance 3 items from Smith et al. (2014).	4	Confidence in the ability to apply knowledge and skills in professional contexts.
13	Career exploration and awareness. Lent et al. (2016): ‘Brief decisional self-efficacy.’	8	Ability to understand and match self-qualities with career and study options.
14	Occupational mobility. Lent et al. (2016): ‘Decisional coping efficacy’.	4	Ability to cope with decisional conflict, such as having a career ‘plan B’.
Emotional intelligence (16 items and 1 factor)
15	Emotional intelligence. Modified version of Brackett et al. (2006).	16	Ability to understand and manage the emotions of self and other people.
Ethical literacy (6 items and 1 factor)
16	Ethical and responsible behaviour. Coetzee (2014): ‘Ethical and responsible behaviour’	6	Behaving ethically and responsibility.

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