Barrett

Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University proudly showcases the work of undergraduate honors students by sharing this collection exclusively with the ASU community.

Barrett accepts high performing, academically engaged undergraduate students and works with them in collaboration with all of the other academic units at Arizona State University. All Barrett students complete a thesis or creative project which is an opportunity to explore an intellectual interest and produce an original piece of scholarly research. The thesis or creative project is supervised and defended in front of a faculty committee. Students are able to engage with professors who are nationally recognized in their fields and committed to working with honors students. Completing a Barrett thesis or creative project is an opportunity for undergraduate honors students to contribute to the ASU academic community in a meaningful way.

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Student Perception of Communication in Public Accounting

Description
As an accounting major, I am very interested in society's view of the accountant. The well-known stereotype of accountants is that they are cold, non-sociable, and boring. All types of accountants are often viewed doing bookkeeper work. In reality, different types of accountants all do various types of work. In…

As an accounting major, I am very interested in society's view of the accountant. The well-known stereotype of accountants is that they are cold, non-sociable, and boring. All types of accountants are often viewed doing bookkeeper work. In reality, different types of accountants all do various types of work. In public accounting specifically, not only are technical skills important, but communication skills, especially verbal, are extremely important. I wanted to research if accounting majors at Arizona State University perceived verbal communication skills as important to the public accounting profession. More specifically, I wanted to see if the perceived importance of these skills would increase as students progressed in school. I surveyed accounting majors and double majors from four different accounting course levels, which are taken in progressive order. Overall, the results were not as significant as I had expected. Across all course levels, students rated verbal communication skills highly. There was a slight increase in the average rating across the courses, but it dropped off at the highest course level. The results of this study may have been influenced by students' past experiences or the way the surveys were designed and/or administered. Despite the fact that the findings did not prove my hypothesis to the degree I had expected, the research and results can still be used to prove that verbal communication skills are a critical part of public accounting and should be integrated more into courses and clubs that accounting majors are involved in.
ContributorsKoch, Kelsi L (Author) / Geiger, Karen (Thesis director) / Levendowski, Glenda (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Accountancy (Contributor) / Hugh Downs School of Human Communication (Contributor)
Created2014-12