Personality Biases of Accounting Students: Some Implications for Learning Style Preferences

Abstract

This paper reviews the evidence of a Myers-Briggs personality type bias for accounting students. A survey of a sample of accounting majors in three Australian universities supports the overseas evidence that there appears to be a strong tendency for accounting students to have common preferences on three of the four Myers-Briggs dimensions. The findings of this research suggest that while significant diversity is still evident, there is a bias in the Myers-Briggs personality profiles of accounting students towards preferences for sensation over intuition, thinking over feeling, and judgment over perception. Research in psychology and education has shown that different Myers-Briggs personality preferences are associated with significant differences in how people prefer to learn, and the types of learning experiences under which they perform best, that is personality types are associated with distinct learning styles, These outcomes suggest that accounting educators should cater to the variety of personality types among their students by adopting a diversified teaching approach. Such an approach should provide a balance of learning experiences and teaching strategies by attempting to challenge the weaknesses of the Personality bias of accounting students in the intuition, feeling and perception areas, and building upon their strengths in the sensation, thinking and judgment areas. Ackrzowledgments:This paper has benefited from comments received at the Seminar Series, Department of Accountancy and Legal Studies, University of Wollongong. We are also grateful for the helpful comments of James Guthrie, Robert Czernkowski, Norman Macintosh, Peter Brownell and two anonymous referees, and for Sujatha Perera's assistant with data collection. M A N Z : Refer to the introductory pages of this Journal for copyright conditions.

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