NEEDS ASSESSMENT OF THE ADEQUACY OF ACCOUNTING EDUCATION CURRICULUM CONTENTS IN FEDERAL COLLEGES OF EDUCATION IN SOUTH-SOUTH, NIGERIA
Keywords:
Colleges of Education, Curriculum, Accounting Education, Needs Assessment.Abstract
The study conducted a needs assessment of the aadequacy of accounting education curriculum
contents in federal colleges of education in South-South, Nigeria. One research question was
raised and one null hypothesis was tested at 0.05 level of significance. The study adopted
sequential explanatory mixed methods research design. The entire population of 148 (68
accounting educators and 148 final year accounting education students) was studied without
sampling. A five-point rating scale questionnaire which was validated by experts and semistructured interview schedule were used for data collection. The questionnaire has a reliability
coefficient value of 0.73 using the internal consistency method with Cronbach alpha. Mean,
standard deviation and t-test were used to analyze quantitative data while thematic analysis was
used for qualitative data. The study revealed that aaccounting educators rated the curriculum
contents of the programme as very highly adequate while the graduating students rated them as
highly adequate. This means that small gap which is not significant exists between ratings of the
accounting educators and graduating students on the adequacy of curriculum contents of the
programme for skills acquisition. Furthermore, need for curriculum enrichment was the theme
identified. Based on the findings, it was concluded that the lack of skills to secure employment
among graduates of the programme is related to other factors and not contents of the curriculum
although there are few areas the contents do not align with today’s sophisticated accounting
workplace. It was recommended among others that curriculum developers should obtain updated
information from employers of labour on skills they need from accounting education graduates
in order to emphasize them in the curriculum and prescribe requirements for developing them in
students for smooth transition from school to work.
