The Effect of Accounting Education on the Ethical Perceptions of Nigerian Universities’ Final Year Accounting Students

This thesis provides an evaluation of the ethical perception of Nigerian accounting final year students. The purpose is to determine whether accounting education in Nigerian’ Universities impacts positively on the ethical perception of accounting Finalists to ethical dilemmas. Survey research design was adopted and stratified random sampling was used to obtain data from 260 final year accounting students of six selected Nigerian’s universities from six different geo – political regions. The Data obtained were analyzed using the Z-test statistical tool. Findings of the study revealed that final year accounting students showed higher sensitivity to ethical issues than the first year students. These results suggest that accounting education in Nigerian universities may be providing positive impact on the ethical perception of the students. The results also revealed no differences between the female and male final year accounting students in their ethical perception. The study recommended the need for more Ethics coverage in every university and school of high learning in Nigeria and more ethical exposure in business/accounting practices to help students distinguish ethical from unethical decisions, the ethical responsibilities of organizations to the market they are serving cum the society at large and their individual ethical leadership responsibilities as future managers of organisations