Learning outside the textbook: accounting students' reflections in an internship programme

The opportunity to gain professional industry experience for accounting students whilst undertaking their undergraduate degree provides them with both a competitive edge in the marketplace and an opportunity to experience the activities undertaken in their chosen profession. Structured experiential learning programmes enables students the practical opportunity to apply their knowledge in an industry context and to reflect on their personal learning journey. This paper presents an innovative and flexible internship programme which based upon an e-learning framework fosters learning through reflection based assessments. Through a preliminary investigation, it is revealed that accounting students after undertaking this programme, reveal learning pertaining to their workplace preparedness, understanding of accounting principles and taught concepts, generic skill enhancement and consolidation of accounting as their chosen professional career. The paper suggests that such a programme as the one examined will contribute to the professional bodies’ expectations of accounting graduates to possess key cognitive and behavioural skills.