Much has been written about teaching and learning deficiencies in accounting education. Universities have grappled with the challenge and developed a number of strategies to address the concerns raised. Many of the recommended strategies for addressing these deficiencies have included a focus on the development of professional capabilities and skills. This paper reports on a study which has identified the capabilities which are considered to be the most important for successful practice in accountancy during the first years after graduation and identified the extent to which New Zealand universities have focused on these in the delivery of their study programmes. Most attempts to measure the nature and extent of change to accountancy degree programmes have collected data from current or graduating students or from the university itself. This study instead collected feedback from accountancy graduates employed in public practice with three to five years post graduation professional experience and from their workplace supervisors. This paper reports on the results of the graduate feedback, provides a useful insight into where progress has been made and identifies where further improvement is necessary.Professional capabilities, teaching and learning quality, accounting education reforms,

The concept of blended learning has begun to change the nature of all teaching and learning in higher education. Information and communication technologies have impacted by providing a means of access to digital resources and interactive communication for all courses and the blending of pedagogy and technology has produced a range of approaches to teaching and learning. This paper discusses the research literature and the writers' research, defining what they have concluded are teaching practices that use the concept of blended learning effectively. In investigating how ICT can add variation for student learning, they analyze this from two dominant modes of pedagogy, learning environment and pedagogy through both on-campus and distance education. In both modes, students acknowledged the power and effectiveness of blended learning.

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Blended learning is now part of the learning landscape in higher education, not just for campus-based courses but for courses designed for students studying at a distance as well as for communities of professional learning and practice. The impact of this concept in university teaching and learning can be seen in the appearance of practice focused texts for example, Littlejohn and Pegler (2007) and, more recently, Garrison and Vaughan (2008). Blended learning is now constantly positioned as one of the emerging trends in higher education (e. g. Allen, Seaman and Garrett, 2007; Graham, 2006; Garrison and Kanuka, 2004) and therefore is of particular strategic importance in the future of universities, their students and teachers as well as in the widening community of professional education and training. As an introduction to this book, this chapter will review the growing literature about blended learning and will discuss some of its key issues. The authors begin by introducing the concept of blended learning and its many meanings and attempt to clarify the definitional discussion. Issues in teaching and learning in both campus based and distance settings are then described followed by a discussion of the way blended learning provides a process for establishing communities of learning and practice, particularly for professional learning. Much of the literature about professional learning and learning communities has only just begun to identify aspects of blended learning practices as significant in their field, a gap this book is helping to fill.