Understanding vocational accounting students' attitudes towards sustainable development

The goal of this study was twofold: firstly, to investigate vocational accounting students' attitudes towards sustainable development; secondly, to explore the influence of students' professional scepticism on their attitudes towards sustainable development. We surveyed 363 accounting students enrolled in a vocational college in China. We found that students had the most favourable attitudes towards the educational dimension of sustainable development and the least favourable attitudes towards the social dimension. Female students had significantly more favourable attitudes towards the environmental and educational dimensions of sustainable development, as compared to male students. Students at higher academic levels had significantly more favourable attitudes towards the educational dimension of sustainable development, as compared to students at lower academic levels. We also found that the questioning mind dimension of professional scepticism played the largest role in fostering the students' favourable attitudes towards sustainable development, followed by the search for knowledge and interpersonal understanding dimensions, then by the suspension of judgement, self-confidence, and self-determining dimensions. The results of this study provide insights for educators to improve the accounting curriculum in vocational higher education in China.