What is it about?
This study investigates postgraduate accounting students' perceptions of a newly developed tax simulation as a vehicle for developing digital acumen, ethical awareness and professional competencies.
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Why is it important?
Responding to employer calls for workplace-ready graduates, it examines whether the simulation's practice-oriented, authentic design helps bridge the gap between technical tax knowledge and professional competence. This research offers a novel, replicable tax-based simulation for higher accounting education and provides insights into how simulation-based pedagogy can support the integration of technical tax content with the broader professional competencies expected of future accountants.
Perspectives
Students highlighted the value of authentic features that required applying technical tax knowledge, critical thinking, problem-solving and communication, while technology-enabled tasks enhanced digital acumen through data analytics and computational work. Correlation analyses showed small to small-moderate positive associations between perceived competence development and assignment performance, suggesting alignment between the simulation's design and assessed tasks
Prof Herman Albertus Viviers
North-West University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Developing digital acumen, ethical awareness and professional competencies through a tax simulation project: Perceptions of postgraduate accounting students, The International Journal of Management Education, July 2026, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.1016/j.ijme.2026.101378.
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