Challenging stereotypes: international accounting students in Australia

Students come to Australia for many and varied reasons, including the possibility of immigrating to Australia on completion of studies. Some programs of study are given higher priority for immigration than others and are thus popular among those hoping to immigrate. The master of professional accounting (MPA) is perhaps the most well-known of these programs, as the majority of its students are allegedly more interested in gaining permanent residency than becoming practicing accountants. Concerns over the quality of this program, its graduates, and its impact on the reputation of Australian higher education have been expressed in the media and in scholarly journals resulting in a stereotype of international postgraduate students as being motivated by immigration and without interest in accounting or engagement in learning. However, little has been done to investigate the experiences and perceptions of the students themselves. The objective of this paper is to more closely examine the motivations and learning behaviors of MPA students in order to test the accuracy of the stereotype. A population of postgraduate accounting students from an Australian university was invited to respond to an anonymous questionnaire survey adapted from the Australian Universities Survey of Student Engagement (AUSSE) to gain an insight into student engagement with learning. The results of this paper demonstrate that motivation is not relevant to learning engagement. The authors find a cohort of students spending many hours in study and facing barriers to learning because of poor English skills. Such findings do not accord with the stereotypical portrayal of international MPA students but lead to questions about the institutional motivations, the nature of accounting education, and English language entry standards and language support.