Transformative sustainability education in accounting: effects on male and female students' attitudes toward sustainable development

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to examine curricular innovation in accounting using multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and t-test to measure the effects of transformative sustainability education in accounting on the attitudes of male and female undergraduate accounting students at a public university in the southwestern USA toward the four sustainable development dimensions of environment, economy, society and education.Design/methodology/approachA quasi-experimental research methodology using data from a convenience sample of 157 accounting students' responses to an online Qualtrics survey compared the attitudes of male and female undergraduate accounting students who had sustainability education in accounting to those who did not toward the four aspects of environment, economy, society and education for sustainable development using correlation, MANOVA, independent- and paired-samples t-tests.FindingsWhile there were no significant differences between the male and female accounting students' attitudes who had sustainability education and those who did not, there were significant differences between some dimensions of sustainable development with medium effect sizes, and correlations between the students' attitudes were moderate, positive and significant.Research limitations/implicationsThis study was relatively small and conducted at one university, but the results indicated that the students consider sustainability education valuable to their future careers, which is important for future curriculum development.Originality/valueThis study showed that transformative sustainability education does not produce gender differences in students' attitudes toward sustainable development.