Fostering social skills in the Flemish secondary accounting education: perceived challenges, opportunities, and future directions

ABSTRACT

The accounting profession no longer merely accentuates hard accounting skills, but also increasingly soft social skills. Previous studies have shown that teamwork, communication, leadership, and critical thinking skills became indispensable. Because accounting education is no longer aligned with these needs of the profession, a skills gap has arisen between the competences graduates possess, and the competences employers demand. We will answer the call of scholars and policymakers to investigate social skills from early on, in secondary education. The research objective is twofold. First, it examines which types of social skills are being addressed in secondary accounting education. Second, it focuses on the challenges and opportunities experienced by accounting educators when addressing social skills. We answer this research objective via semi-structured interviews with 14 Flemish educational stakeholders who represented three educational levels (i.e. microlevel accounting teachers, mesolevel pedagogical counsellors, and macrolevel policymakers), hereby accommodating a multivocal perspective. Results revealed that teamwork and communication are emphasized more frequently than leadership and critical thinking. Second, teachers identified various challenges and opportunities, such as overcrowded curricula, student diversity, and complex social skills assessment. Important implications for accounting educators wanting to enhance students’ future employability by stimulating their social skills are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Challenges
• opportunities
• secondary education
• social skills
• soft skills

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the interview participants for their collaboration in this study. In addition, they would like to thank Stefanie De Jonge for her help with the data collection and the analyses. The colleagues from the research team, who provided constructive feedback, insights and expertise are thanked as well.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Funding details

This study was funded by grant E/02577/02 awarded to Ghent University to support the quality of the Educational Master Programs.

Institutional Review Board statement

Not applicable. According to the Research Code of Ethics of the authors’ institution, no additional IRB approval is needed because informed consent has been given and all ethical procedures have been followed.

Informed consent statement

Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

CRediT author statement

Conceptualization: A.V., E.O., and L.H.; methodology: A.V., E.O., and L.H.; software: A.V.; validation: E.O., and L.H.; formal analysis: A.V.; investigation: A.V.; resources: E.O., and L.H.; data curation: A.V., E.O., and L.H.; writing – original draft preparation: A.V.; writing – review and editing: A.V., E.O., and L.H.; visualization: A.V.; supervision: E.O., and L.H.; project administration: A.V.; funding acquisition: E.O., and L.H. All authors have read and agreed to the submitted version of the manuscript.

Data availability statement

The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to privacy restrictions.

Notes

1 Emotional intelligence (EI) is defined as a person’s ability to manage their own and others’ feelings so that those feelings are expressed appropriately and effectively (Goleman, 1995). According to Goleman’s theory, EI comprises five domain components: emotional self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. The current study focuses only on social skills. EI is broader and therefore EI skills in their entirety are beyond the scope of this study.

2 Each programme has different majors (e.g., within GE there is Latin, Greek, Modern Languages, Economics, Sciences etc.; within TE there is ICT, Business Economics, Tourism, Electromechanics etc.; within VE there is Bakery, Construction, Woodworking, Carpentry etc.). Students choose themselves which programme and major fit best with their interests and abilities.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Ghent University [Grant Number: E/02577/02].