Social and environmental accounting and student choice: an exploratory research note

This paper reports on an exploratory study across three universities which was intended to help inform us about why students make the options choices that they do. More particularly, why do students choose–or choose not–to take social and environmental accounting courses? Based upon a series of interviews, a survey was drawn up and applied across the three universities. The data analysis reveals that whilst many initial expectations were not incorrect, the reasons for student choice are more complex than social and environmental accounting teachers and researchers have tended to assume. This exploratory study points to a wider range of possible explanations for student choice that might be employed as foci in further work on why students do what they do.