Improving The Oral Presentation Skills Of Accounting Students: An Experiment

Numerous surveys of accounting professionals have established the importance of communication skills for newly-hired accounting graduates, and challenge business schools to revise curricula accordingly. To determine if the oral skills of accounting students can be improved, two oral presentation assignments were given to students in six accounting classes at a small western university. The oral presentations were evaluated on ten oral communication skills recently judged by accounting professionals to be most important for new hires to possess. Feedback was provided after the first presentation. Results showed that oral presentation skills improved significantly after the first presentation. Accounting students can improve their oral presentation skills if the accounting faculty is committed to providing timely feedback.