Investigating perceptions concerning the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) among college students

As capital markets become increasingly global, many investors have a great interest in international investment opportunities. Also, many countries use dissimilar standards when they create financial statements for their stakeholders. In the United States, the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) has long expressed its support for a single set of high-quality global accounting standards as an important means of enhancing comparability and unification. IFRS as a single set of global accounting standards has the potential to best provide the common platform on which companies can report, and stakeholders can compare, corporate financial information. The goal with IFRS is to make international comparisons as easy as possible. Although the standards have a critical impact on capital markets, students and investors know very little about this standard. Therefore, by investigating the perception of the IFRS among college students, this study could determine the status of preparation for the standards and help colleges and universities with decisions regarding offering classes about these standards. The primary objective of this study is to investigate perceptions and knowledge concerning the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) among college students. The findings are as follows; first, I found there was a difference in knowledge about IFRS between male and female respondents. While it is difficult to generalize these results to all college or university student populations, universities or colleges should consider evaluating students to determine their level of knowledge about IFRS and then have provisions in place for extra classes or assignments in order to raise the extent of knowledge of IFRS for any group of students (male and female) who show deficiencies in basic knowledge of these standards. Second, there were no differences in knowledge about IFRS for each age group and each school year among respondents. Third, I found a difference in knowledge about IFRS between students majoring in business and students who were non-business majors. This implies that in this population of respondents business major students are taking more classes about financial events such as the adoption of IFRS in U.S. than are non-business major students. Therefore, business major students have more knowledge of IFRS than do non-business major students. Fourth, I found a correlation between the perception about evaluating the positive effect of IFRS on capital markets and the intention to take classes about IFRS. This means that students who believe there will be a positive effect on capital markets by the adoption of IFRS will take classes concerning IFRS. Also, these students will take more class in order to analyze their perceptions about the IFRS. Finally, the results predicted that students who showed a great interest in IFRS are more likely to take these courses if colleges or universities offer classes. These results mean that interest is a very critical determinant for taking classes concerning IFRS among college students. The more students have an interest about IFRS, the more they will take classes. There are also similar results shown in the additional analyses section pertaining to business major respondents.