Addressing the learning outcomes for professional skills using an integrated teaching strategy

Abstract Students at a South African university are exposed to an annual report project which combines elements of four courses as an integrated teaching strategy. The purpose of this paper is to report students’ perspectives as to the extent this integrated teaching strategy addressed the learning outcomes for professional skills as required by the International Education Standard 3 Initial professional development—professional skills (2015). The study used survey research to collect data from 74 students to determine students’ perspectives on whether the integrated teaching strategy addressed the learning outcomes. Students indicated that many of the professional skills listed in International Education Standard 3 are addressed by the integrated teaching strategy. In particular, interpersonal and communication skills were rated as the highest skills acquired, in particular teamwork and communication skills, followed by organisational skills, intellectual skills and personal skills. There were some significant statistical differences for some of the skills between the perspectives of the students when the results were sorted on a gender basis and a language basis. Where some skills were not highly rated by the students, it may be that these skills were not wholly needed by students to complete the integrated project. However, overall, students rated the majority of the skills above the midpoint of the rating scale which suggests that students saw the integrated teaching strategy capable of developing the professional skills investigated in this study.


Introduction
In a third-year accounting course, students are required by working in teams to complete an annual report project as an integrated teaching strategy. This annual report project combines elements of four courses, financial accounting, managerial accounting and finance, auditing and taxation, and was introduced as a response to the South Africa Institute of Chartered Accountants' ABOUT THE AUTHOR Lesley Stainbank, a chartered accountant, obtained her doctorate at the University of South Africa. She has taught financial accounting at all levels. Her main focus is on supervision of masters and doctoral students at the Durban University of Technology and the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Her research interests are in corporate governance, accounting education and financial reporting for listed companies and SMEs.
(SAICA) requirement in its Competency Framework (South African Institute of Chartered Accountants [SAICA], 2010) to contextualise teaching and integrate topics rather than compartmentalise topics. This paper reports on the perceptions of students on the effectiveness of the integrated teaching strategy in addressing the professional skills required by the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) in Initial Professional Development-Professional Skills (2015) (IES 3; International Federation of Accountants [IFAC], 2015).
Prior research has explored the need to embed professional skills in accounting programmes (Dolce et al., 2020;Douglas & Gammie, 2019;Jackling & de Lange, 2009;Kavanagh & Drennan, 2008;Wells et al., 2009) focusing on the apparent gap that exists between accounting education and the expectations of the accounting profession with regards to the knowledge and skills aspirant accountants should possess on entry into the profession. Research on how these skills can be incorporated into the accounting curriculum has provided evidence on the usefulness of annual report projects (Montano & Joyce, 2004), case studies (Keevy, 2016;Stainbank, 2010) and team work (Kern, 2000;Reinig et al., 2014;Shawver, 2020) in developing relevant skills required by aspiring accountants. Studies have also referred to the various skills required of students in a number of ways; for example, analytical and judgment skills (Campbell & Lewis, 1991), critical thinking skills (Kern, 2000;Kimmel, 1995), professional skills (Reinig et al., 2014), pervasive skills (Barac & du Plessis, 2014;Keevy, 2016;Keevy & Mare, 2018;Viviers et al., 2016), soft skills (Keevy, 2016;De Villiers, 2010), and non-technical skills (Douglas & Gammie, 2019). Keevy (2016) reports that academics require guidance on what methods result in the transfer of pervasive skills. However, none of these studies used the professional skills as listed in the latest version of IES 3 (IFAC, 2015).
The objective of this paper is to report students' perspectives of whether or not the integrated teaching strategy addresses the learning outcomes for professional skills required by IES 3 (IFAC, 2015) through its completion. The paper contributes to the current literature in a number of ways. First, it provides information on an integrated teaching strategy (a project or case study using an annual report where students work in teams or groups) as a means of meeting the learning outcomes for professional skills required by the accounting profession. Second, it is useful to accounting educators who may have focused on technical skills in their teaching and are seeking methods to integrate topics and embed professional skills into their teaching programmes. Third, a focus on IES 3 (IFAC, 2015) has not been addressed before in similar studies.
The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. The next section describes the integrated teaching strategy. This is followed by the literature review which is aligned to IES 3 (IFAC, 2015). Following this is the research method, the presentation and discussion of the results and finally, the conclusions of the study.

The integrated teaching strategy
In order to ensure that students are acquiring professional skills, learning in an integrated manner and meet the requirements of the Competency Framework, a team-based project, unique to this third-year course, designed to meet the requirement by (SAICA, 2010) to teach technical competencies in an integrated manner and to address the pervasive skills, which brings together aspects of four courses (financial accounting, managerial accounting and finance, auditing and taxation), was introduced as an integrated teaching strategy in a South African university. The project requires students, working in teams of six students, to select a Top 100 company listed on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange and answer questions which bring together aspects of the four courses which, to meet the need for independent assessment in the four courses, are taught and assessed separately.
The financial accounting element requires students to, inter alia, analyse the financial statements to consider the relevance of the audited and unaudited sections of the annual report, the company's compliance with IAS 1, the company's financial risks, and the concept of holding and subsidiary companies. The auditing element focused on 12 areas which included audit risk, corporate governance, materiality, integrated sustainability and environmental reporting. The managerial accounting and finance element had six areas of focus, which comprised questions on ratio analysis, share price movements, and earnings disclosures amongst others. The taxation element focused on deferred taxation, tax incentives or allowances, and the effect of the latest tax legislation on the company. A bound report, compiled using MS Word, not exceeding 30 pages, was required to be submitted, together with minutes of any meetings and a project plan which includes timelines and deadlines. The findings are thereafter presented with the participation of all team members to peers and teaching staff followed by a question-and-answer session.
As each team focuses on only one company, the project can be classified as a case study. The integrated teaching strategy addresses the high degree of contextualisation required by SAICA and intellectual skills by requiring students to complete the project by analysing, evaluating, accessing and synthesising information, and gain interpersonal, communication, personal and organisational skills through the requirement to work in teams, a form of cooperative learning, and by presenting their completed project in a formal setting. IES 3 (IFAC, 2015) was first issued in 2003 as Professional Skills and General Education, and was revised in 2015. IES 3 was then renamed Initial Professional Competence-Professional Skills (2015), and technical skills and functional skills were incorporated into IES 2, Technical Competence. IES 3, as re-issued in 2015, requires that individuals seeking to become professional accountants should acquire intellectual skills, interpersonal and communication skills, personal skills and organisational skills. IES 3 indicates that various methods, such as work-based simulations or group exercises, could be used within a professional accounting education programme (IFAC, 2015, para. A19) to measure the achievement of the professional skills. Dolce et al. (2020, 61) question how many of these skills are developed at university focusing on the expectation gap between graduates and employers.

Literature review and professional skills
IES 3 defines intellectual skills as those "relating to the ability of a professional accountants to solve problems, to make decisions, and to exercise good judgment" (IFAC, 2015, 20). (IFAC, 2015) indicates that these skills include the ability to evaluate and integrate information, apply professional judgment to reach well-considered conclusions, know when to consult with a relevant specialist, apply well-reasoned innovative thinking to solve problems and be able to recommend solutions. Campbell and Lewis (1991) argue that the intellectual skills of being analytical and using judgment are developed by case studies. Hassall et al. (1998, 326) see the use of case studies as developing and applying "an integrated approach to problem solving and to provide students with an understanding of the problems inherent in the application of discipline-based knowledge to practical situations in a period of change". Kimmel (1995) found cases very useful for developing critical thinking skills in students. Bonner (1999) also identified cases as being suitable for the development of complex cognitive skills and Kern (2000) used both a project and co-operative learning to develop students' critical thinking skills. Hassall et al. (1998) found that 85% of the students agreed that case studies were the most appropriate tool for developing knowledge, 90% agreed in respect of skills and 62% agreed in respect of personal qualities. Weil et al. (2001) investigated students' perceptions of the usefulness of case studies in developing finance and accounting-related skills and knowledge. Students, who worked in study groups, perceived the major use to be exposure to real-world complexity, particularly decision-making. Stainbank (2010) replicated the Weil et al. (2001) study by using similar questions, but in a different scenario and extended her 2005 study in 2010, linking the perceived acquisition of skills to IES 3 as issued in 2003. Both these latter studies found that a case study, based on a listed company's annual report, was considered beneficial in developing skills which are considered important in the literature (Stainbank, 2010).
Interpersonal and communication skills are defined in IES 3 as those skills "relating to the ability of a professional accountant to work and interact effectively with others" (IFAC, 2015, 20). These skills include the ability to cooperate and work in a team, communicate effectively both in writing and orally, awareness of cultural and language differences, and listen, negotiate and consult when necessary. Ballantine and McCourt Larres (2009) found that students in a co-operative learning cohort perceived their acquisition of interpersonal skills significantly better than students in a simple group learning cohort. Reinig et al. (2014, 254) found three aspects in group learning (attitudes towards their group, learning method and development of professional skills) were supported by the students.
Communication skills have been the focus of a number of studies (Shauki & Benzie, 2017;Siriwardane & Durden, 2014). Shauki and Benzie (2017) investigated self-management skills' development using group oral presentation tasks. Students agreed that the task had improved their communication skills. Siriwardane and Durden (2014) provide a summary overview of empirical studies published on communication skills between 1972 and 2012. They conclude that although the topic has been researched for more than 50 years, basic questions remain unresolved. Reasons for this may be that the actual communication skills considered in the studies were not focused enough; literature reviews may have been incomplete; or the research is outdated with limited geographic reach (Siriwardane & Durden, 2014, 131). They consider helping students develop transferable skills to be a key challenge for accounting educators and recommend the engagement of communication specialists to address this challenge. Stone et al. (2013) note that listening is among the most important communication skills for graduates, yet it is often neglected in the accounting curricula. Stone et al. (2013, 170) list a number of listening development practices in education such as presentations and cooperative tasks, small group discussions and business simulations, amongst others. Their article provides roles for educators, students and the profession to enhance the development of listening skills.
Ireland (2020) focused on oral presentation apprehension, noting that oral communication is an important communication skill. Students in the Ireland (2020) study noted that topic knowledge and preparation, knowing the audience members as well as presenting as part of a group helped students gain confidence in presenting orally. These elements are all present in the integrated teaching strategy being reported in this current study. Irafahmi et al. (2021) argued that written communication is often a professional competency that is neglected in auditing courses. Their study found that students who studied in content-orientated auditing courses perceived their written communication skills to be lower when compared to other competencies (Irafahmi et al., 2021, 305). Their study emphasised the requirement of (IFAC 2019) that teaching and learning must involve the integration and application of the interrelated components of professional competence.
Personal skills are defined in IES 3 as those "relating to the personal attitudes and behavior of a professional accountant" (IFAC, 2015, 21). These skills include the ability to commit to lifelong learning, application of professional skepticism, high standards of delivery and monitoring of personal performance, management of time and resources, anticipation and planning to solve challenges, and being open to opportunities (IFAC, 2015, 46). Stainbank's (2010) study found students ranked "taking responsibility for one's own learning" to be highest ranked personal skill out of all the skills addressed by that particular study for the total sample, but when the results were sorted on a gender basis, the male students rated this skill second after "help you relate theory to real life practice". Douglas and Gammie (2019, 310) report that the need for "ability to learn" is acknowledged as an important attribute for accountants due to the ever-changing requirements which affect the accounting profession. Douglas and Gammie (2019, 310) further report that there is not much literature on how education providers address this skill.
IES 3 defines organisational skills as the "ability to work effectively with or within an organization to obtain the optimal results or outcomes from the people and resources available" (IFAC, 2015, 21). Organisational skills include the ability to meet deadlines, review work for quality, use people management skills for motivation and development of others, delegate, lead, and apply tools and technology for improved decision making (International Federation of Accountants (IFAC), 2015, 46). Huff (2014), on using a group assignment to encourage creative thinking, and leadership and communication skills, found leadership skills were strengthened together with creative-thinking and oral skills.
In South Africa, after the issue of the Competency Framework (SAICA, 2010), the issue of how pervasive skills could be taught was the subject of a number of research studies. Stainbank (2010) found support for the use of case studies to develop accounting knowledge and professional skills in students. Barac and du Plessis (2014) addressed the teaching of pervasive skills by asking heads of departments to share how they offered and taught pervasive skills. The majority of the respondents used case studies and/or special or practical projects to address the need to develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Keevy (2016) focused on whether faculty viewed case studies appropriate for transferring pervasive skills to students. Keevy (2016) found that faculty viewed case studies more useful for assessment rather than development and suggested that this may be due to a lack of awareness on the part of South African academics and the more traditional focus on technical teaching. Keevy and Mare (2018) investigated whether pervasive skills are more effectively developed in the academic programme or the training programme. Respondents were of the opinion that a combination of the academic programme and the training programme would be the most effective way of developing pervasive skills. Viviers et al. (2016) report on an educational game used to develop soft skills or pervasive skills. Students agreed that the educational game was an effective teaching method for developing pervasive skills, with teamwork skills development seen as the greatest benefit (Viviers et al., 2016, 381). Viviers et al. (2018) provide further evidence in a tax-based intervention where students worked in teams. The main perceived benefit was also team work skills. Viviers et al. (2018, 259) further report that the intervention was also perceived to be successful in exposing students to the pervasive skills of "leadership, influencing others, strategic and critical thinking, and communication". Papageorgiou and Callaghan (2020) use longitudinal data from first year accountancy students to understand how certain skills and individual attributes contribute to student performance. Their results suggest that generic skills, aligned mostly to the intellectual skill set, rather than specialised skills, such as knowledge of information technology, contribute to performance.
The reviewed literature points to the effectiveness of case studies in developing intellectual skills (Bonner, 1999;Campbell & Lewis, 1991;Hassall et al., 1998;Kern, 2000;Kimmel, 1995;Stainbank, 2010;Weil et al., 2001). However, working in teams or cooperative learning is effective in developing the interpersonal and communication skills (Ballantine & McCourt Larres, 2009;Reinig et al., 2014;Shauki & Benzie, 2017;Stone et al., 2013), personal skills (Stainbank, 2010) and organisational skills (Huff, 2014). However, prior studies have not addressed the specific professional skills listed in the revised IES 3 (IFAC, 2015). An integrated teaching strategy which combines the elements of a case study and working in teams may prove useful in meeting all the professional skills. (IFAC, 2019, 136) encourages relevant stakeholders "to identify the most appropriate approach to learning and development for professional skills, taking into consideration the national and cultural environment". To meet the objective of this study, the following research question was set: to what extent do students perceive that the integrated teaching strategy addresses the learning outcomes for professional skills required by IES 3 (IFAC, 2015) through its completion?

Research method
Although the study adopted a positivist framework using survey research to address the aim of this study, the questionnaire concluded with one open question in order to allow students to express their opinions of the integrated teaching strategy in their own words.

The research instrument
The questionnaire first asked background questions relating to their gender and home language. This was considered important because research in accounting has focused on gender and language differences (Papageorgiou & Callaghan, 2020) in students' perceptions of and abilities in accounting. The questionnaire then listed the 30 learning outcomes for professional skills as shown in IES 3 (IFAC, 2015) with the learning outcome of communication split into writing and oral communication skills. The overriding question for all the statements was: To what extent did the project . . ., and this was then followed by the listed learning outcomes for the professional skills. Students were then asked to rate the extent to which the project addressed the skills using a Likert scale of 1 (not at all) to 5 (extensively). The questionnaire was distributed in a paper-based format to all third-year accounting students after they had completed all aspects of the integrated project. As the research was considered to bear minimal risk to the participants as it provided teaching and learning feedback, full ethical clearance was not required. However, participants were informed on their right to not participate in the research and that they could withdraw at any time. In addition, all the responses were anonymous and no names or student numbers were collected.

Response rate
At the time the questionnaire was administered, 80 students were enrolled in the course, and 74 students filled in the questionnaire, giving a response rate of 92.5%.

Reliability and validity
Before the questionnaire was administered, it was pretested by asking teaching staff who were familiar with the integrated project to ensure that the statements were understandable. A staff member experienced in questionnaire design also examined the questionnaire. As the 30 learning outcomes from IES 3 were presented to the students without any descriptions of any categories or sub-categories, this enhanced construct and content validity. To test for reliability or internal consistency, Cronbach's alpha was used (Taber, 2018). These results are shown in Table 1.
The results of the reliability analysis shown in Table 1 show that the items in the four scales had satisfactory discriminating power as all the items exceeded the "somewhat arbitrary value of 0.70 as a sufficient measure of reliability or internal consistency of an instrument" (Taber, 2018(Taber, , 1293. Taber (2018Taber ( , 1294 recommends that the entire instrument (see, Table 2) be shown to readers for them to make their own conclusions as to the relevance of items in a particular scale measuring what they are intended to measure.
Factor analysis was also used to test for reliability to ensure that the learning outcomes were measuring what they were intended to measure. Principal component analysis was used as the extraction method, and the rotation method was Varimax with Kaiser Normalization. This is an orthogonal rotation method that minimises the number of variables that have high loadings on each factor and simplifies the interpretation of the factors. The statements that constituted Intellectual Skills, Personal Skills and Organisational Skills loaded perfectly along a single component implying that the statements that constituted these sections perfectly measured what they set out to measure. The statements that constituted Interpersonal and Communication Skills loaded along three components (sub-themes) indicating that the students identified different trends within the section. The first three statements were labelled Team and Communication Skills, the next two statements were labelled Sensitivity to Differences and the next four statements were labelled Meeting Management Skills. These three sub-themes are addressed in the discussion on Interpersonal and Communication Skills.

Data analysis and interpretation
The data from the questionnaire was entered onto an Excel spreadsheet and then imported into SPSS version 25. The data was firstly analysed using descriptive statistics and subsequently using inferential statistics. The means and standard deviations (SD) for all the learning outcomes were calculated. Thereafter, the target sample was divided into two sub-samples using firstly, gender and secondly, language. As students come from diverse backgrounds and may not be studying in their home language, it was considered important to see whether language made any difference in the students' opinions of the value of the integrated teaching strategy (Papageorgiou & Callaghan, 2020). To test whether the samples had normal distributions, the data was first checked using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. This indicated that the data did not meet normality assumptions and thus the Mann-Whitney U-test was used to test for statistically significant differences in the means of the sub-samples (female vs. male and English Language (i.e., at home) (EL) vs English Second Language (ESL). In addition, Cohen's effect size was calculated to show the extent of the statistically significant differences.

Background information
The question on the gender and language background of the students showed that more than half (58%) of the students were female, and most (73%) students were EL students. However, 20 (27%) students indicated that they were ESL students. These background characteristics were used in the analysis of the results. Table 2 shows the results of the question asking students to what extent did the project meet the professional skills as listed in the questionnaire. Table 2 shows that for the entire sample and for the female students, the intellectual skill of applying "reasoning, critical analysis and innovative thinking" was the highest rated skill with means of 4.18 and 4.19 respectively. While the male students also had a mean of 4.19 for this particular item, the male students rated "enable you to recommend a solution" slightly higher with a mean of 4.20. On a language basis, the EL students rated the skill "identify and evaluate alternative answers based on all relevant facts and circumstances" the highest with a mean of 4.20. The ESL students saw the most value in the skill of applying "reasoning, critical analysis, and innovative thinking" with a mean of 4.35.

Professional skills
As noted previously, interpersonal and communication skills loaded along 3 components (subthemes), indicating that the students identified different trends within the section. The first three statements were labelled Team and Communication Skills, the next two statements were labelled Sensitivity to Differences and the last four were labelled Meeting Management Skills. Each of these sub-themes is discussed separately below.
In the sub-theme of Team and Communication Skills, the statement "enable you to display cooperation and teamwork" was the skill rated highest overall (m = 4.41) and was also rated the highest by the female students with a mean of 4.47, while the male students rated "develop your oral communication skills" highest with a mean of 4.42. On a language basis, the EL students scored "enable you to display cooperation and teamwork" with the highest mean for this section (m = 4.41) In contrast, the ESL students scored "develop your oral communication skills" highest (m = 4.45). The two skills, which referred to an awareness of cultural and language differences, which placed in the second sub-theme of Sensitivity to Differences all scored means lower than 4.00 regardless how the sample was sorted. The third sub-theme in this section was Meeting Management Skills. Negotiation skills had the highest means (total and language), but for the female students, their highest mean was for listening skills (m = 4.28).
In the personal skills category, both female and male students rated "cause you to interpret information in an objective manner" highest of these skills with means of 4.21 and 4.10 respectively. When sorted on a language basis, the "awareness of the need to commit to lifelong learning" was scored the highest by the ESL students (m = 4.30) and the lowest by the EL students (m = 3.58). The lowest score for this section by the ESL students was "set high personal standards of delivery and monitor personal performance through reflection" (m = 3.75). This skill was scored highly by the EL students (m = 4.15) although the difference in scoring between the EL and ESL students was not statistically significant. The highest score for EL students was for "set high personal standards of delivery and monitor personal performance through feedback from others" (m = 4.17). This latter skill was also rated highly by the female students (m = 4.21).
A perusal of the means for the statements under organisational skills show a number of means above 4.00 indicating that students found the project useful in promoting these skills. Female students rated "leadership skills" (m = 4.35) the highest of these skills. For the male students, "manage future assignments so as to meet deadlines" was rated the highest of these skills (m = 4.16). All the mean scores for the EL students exceeded 4.00 showing that the EL students' perspectives towards the project meeting the organisational skills was favourable, with the skill of "meeting deadlines" being rated the highest (m = 4.24). The ESL also rated "meeting deadlines" and "leadership skills" highly, both with means of 4.20. These are important skills and the results indicate that students rated these skills highly regardless of their language or gender. Table 3 shows the four statistically significant differences in the responses of the EL and ESL students using the Mann-Whitney U test. Cohen's effect size is also reported. Table 3 shows a statistically significant difference in the responses of the EL and ESL students to two of the intellectual skills. These were "identify and evaluate alternative answers based on all relevant facts and circumstances" (p = .034) with the EL students' mean higher than the ESL students' mean, and "identify when it is appropriate to ask (i.e., consult an expert)" (p = .077) with the EL students' mean higher than the ESL students' mean. Cohen's effect size value (d = 0.460) was medium for the former intellectual skill, indicating that language may have some effect on this skill. The latter intellectual skill had the least support across all sub-samples with an overall mean of 3.83. Cohen's effect size value (d = 0.111) was small indicating that the statistically significant difference for this skill according to language is unimportant.
In two of the personal skills, the Mann-Whitney U test showed statistically significant differences between the EL and the ESL students. These were the "awareness of . . . lifelong learning" (p = .025) and "set high personal standards of delivery and monitor personal performance through feedback from others" (p = .044) with ESL students (m = 4.30) attaching more importance to the statement on lifelong learning. EL students attached more importance to "set high personal standards of delivery and monitor personal through feedback from others" (m = 4.17). Cohen's effect size values were medium for "lifelong learning" (d = 0.662) and small (d = 0.282) for "set high personal standards." Table 4 shows the three statistically significant differences in the responses of the female and male students using the Mann-Whitney U test. Cohen's effect size is also reported.
When the gender differences in scoring were tested for significant statistical differences using the Mann-Whitney U test (see , Table 4), for interpersonal and communication skills, two of the statements showed a statistically significant difference in the scoring. These were for "language differences" (p = .085) and for "listening skills" (p = .038) with Cohen's effect size value (d = 0.630) being (close to) medium for the former (d = 0.421) and for the latter (d = 0.630). The Mann-Whitney U test showed a significant statistical difference only for one statement under organisational skills which was for "leadership" (p = .094), with the female students rating this skill higher than the male students (see, Table 4). The Cohen's effect value was close to medium (d = 0.453) indicating that gender did have some role in the scoring of this skill.
To provide a comparison of the different scorings of the sub-samples, a comparison of the rankings by means is shown in Table 5.
An examination of the means in Table 5 shows that overall, the female students rated 24 of 29 learning outcomes higher than the male students (one score was tied), and that when sorted on a language basis, the EL students rated 15 out of 28 learning outcomes higher than the ESL students (two learning outcomes had tied scores).
Using the overall rankings, Table 5 shows that interpersonal and communication skills are the most highly rated skills derived from this integrated teaching strategy, with three skills in the top 10 being in the sub-theme of team and communication skills. Five organisational skills are also listed in the first 10 skills, with one intellectual skill and one personal skill.

Discussion of the results
The discussion is presented in the same order the professional skills in IES 3 were listed which corresponded to the questionnaire. The comments which students made in response to the open question are presented, where appropriate, within the various skills to enhance the discussion. Table 2) were mostly above 4.00 indicating that integrated teaching strategy was successful in its objective of addressing the learning outcomes for professional skills in IES 3. The reviewed literature (Campbell & Lewis, 1991;Kimmel, 1995;Bonner, 1999;Kern, 200;Weil et al., 2001;Stainbank, 2010;Barac & du Plessis, 2014) has been consistent in arguing that case studies are an effective means for developing intellectual skills. This current study confirms these prior findings. Although Keevy (2016) found case studies were more used for assessment rather than development, she argued that this may be the result of lack of awareness by teaching staff. These results are thus useful for those educators who support the use of case studies to develop intellectual skills.

The means for various learning outcomes listed under intellectual skills (shown in
On a language basis, the skill of "identify and evaluate alternative answers based on all relevant facts and circumstances" had lower support with the EL students' mean (m = 4.20) higher than the ESL students' mean (m = 3.80) and this difference was statistically significant (Table 3). As Cohen's effect size value (d = 0.460) was medium, language may have some effect on this skill. It is possible that students more proficient in English were able to identify other possible answers to the various questions posed in the project and were able to evaluate these alternative answers; however, further analysis would be required to probe this difference.
A statistically significant difference in the responses of the EL and ESL students to the skill of "identify when it is appropriate to ask (i.e., consult an expert)" (p = .077) was found (Table 3) with the EL students' mean higher than the ESL students' mean. This intellectual skill had the least support across all sub-samples with an overall mean of 3.83. It is possible that the students did not see any relevance of this question to the task at hand as they would have been able to ask their lecturer for any advice regarding the project. As Cohen's effect size value (d = 0.111) was small, the statistically significant difference for this skill according to language is unimportant. This would support the contention that students possibly did not see the relevance of this skill in this particular context. Three sub-themes were identified in interpersonal and communication skills, namely Team and Communication Skills, Sensitivity to Differences and Meeting Management Skills. The means making up the first sub-theme of Team and Communication Skills were all above 4.00 (Table 2)   of how the sample was sorted (i.e., by gender or language) with the ESL student scoring "develop your oral communication skills" higher than the EL students. As the students initially worked and met in small groups, this would have given ESL students the space to orally express their viewpoints with little peer pressure, they perceived the opportunity to contribute orally more favourably than the EL students. Participating in the presentation of their project would have also allowed the ESL students to develop their oral communication skills as the presentations were generally made by allocating separate parts to different team members to present. This strategy of allowing the students to present only parts of their project as members of a team may have allowed these students to reduce their oral presentation apprehension as suggested by Ireland (2020). Written communication skills were also highly ranked with means > 4.00 which may suggest that this integrated teaching strategy could meet the need for the integration of the interrelated components of professional competence in auditing courses (Irafahmi et al., 2021).
The two skills, which were in the second sub-theme of Sensitivity to Differences all scored means between 3.00 to 4.00 regardless how the sample was sorted (Table 2). Only the scoring for "demonstrate an awareness of language differences" (p = .085) showed a statistically significant difference on a gender basis (see , Table 4) which was rated more highly by the female students. As Cohen's effect size value (d = 0.421) for gender differences was (close to) medium, gender may have some impact on this skill. However, more research would be needed to understand the role, if any, that gender may have on students' sensitivity to differences. In response to the open question, only one student mentioned "understand team members" differences' in response to the open question. South Africa has 11 official languages and students are aware of the different languages and cultures in the country, although the medium of instruction is English. This may have contributed to the low importance associated with this skill.
For the third sub-theme of Meeting Management Skills, the means were mostly >4.00 (Table 2). Negotiation skills had the highest means (total and language), but for the female students, their highest mean was for "listening skills" (m = 4.28). The scoring for only "listening skills" was statistically significantly different (p = .038) according to gender (Table 4). As Cohen's effect size value (d = 0.630) was medium, it is possible that female students may more readily listen to other students' points of view, but as personality traits attributable to different genders were not investigated in this study, this is speculative. Negotiation and listening skills are important for the efficient functioning of a team. The high satisfaction with the efficient running of meetings may indicate that, even if there had been conflict, students were still able to complete the project or negotiate as to the best way forward in addressing the project's requirements. It is also possible that the requirement for the teams to produce minutes of their meetings may have ensured that the meetings were conducted in a professional manner, resulting in the students being satisfied with the meetings held by the team.
Comments made by the students in response to the open question highlighted that they perceived the project to be useful in developing interpersonal and communication skills. Eighteen students referred to teamwork as follows: "To be able to work in a team and understand team members" differences', "I learnt to work in a team and also to listen to different views", "learnt to deal with different people in the group"; "taught me that when working in a group not everyone gets along and co-operates", and "it taught me to work in a group and develop good communication skills." Some of the above comments allude to negotiation skills. Communication skills were also emphasised with comments referring to oral skills and public speaking.
In the personal skills category, most of the means tended towards 4.00 regardless of how the sample was sorted ( Table 2). The two personal skills of "awareness of . . . lifelong learning" and "set high personal standards of delivery and monitor personal performance through feedback from others" had statistically significant differences in their means on a language basis (Table 3) with ESL attaching more importance to the former, and EL students attaching more importance to the latter. Cohen's effect size values were medium (d = 0.662) for "lifelong learning" and small (d = 0.282) for "set high personal standards." This indicates that language has some effect (medium) for the learning outcome of "lifelong learning" but has a negligible effect on "set high personal standards." It is likely that ESL students, having found themselves in a tertiary education environment which only has classes in English, were more conscious of the need to embrace lifelong learning in order to succeed in an English-only environment.
The means for organisational skills were all above 4.00 regardless of how the sample was sorted with the exception of only two skills on an ESL basis ( Table 2). The skill of "leadership" showed a statistically significant difference on a gender basis (Table 4) with a medium value for Cohen's effect indicating that gender did have some role in the scoring of the skill of leadership. It is possible that female students were able to demonstrate leadership in their teams, although there was not a specific question on this. In the responses to the open question, three students referred to "group leader skills" or to "leadership skills" as benefits they had derived from the integrated teaching strategy. Placing students in a team and expecting them to provide a solution to the assignment does require meetings to take place. Students would have had to arrange meetings and in addition, they were required to submit any minutes relating to the meeting. Although the dynamics of the meeting were not probed, a leadership role would need to be assumed by one of the team members, and in this way, at least one team member would acquire leadership skills. This aspect of the team could also be improved in future, where the team could be required to ensure that the leadership of the team is rotated at meetings.
Using the overall rankings, Table 5 shows that interpersonal and communication skills are the most highly rated skills derived from this integrated teaching strategy, with three skills in the top 10 being in the sub-theme of Team and Communication skills. Five organisational skills are also listed in the first 10 skills, with one intellectual skill and one personal skill. Using the first 10 as an indicator of usefulness of the project, this may indicate that the project is most useful in helping the students acquire interpersonal and communication skills, together with organisational skills. Thus, although the integrated teaching strategy could also be described as a case study which is effective in addressing the intellectual skills (Bonner, 1999;Campbell & Lewis, 1991;Hassall et al., 1998;Kern, 2000;Kimmel, 1995;Stainbank, 2010;Weil et al., 2001), students saw the teamwork involved in the integrated project as being more useful in acquiring interpersonal and communication, personal and organisational skills. This supports the findings of Ballantine andMcCourt Larres (2009), Reinig et al. (2014), Stone et al. (2013), Stainbank (2010), and Huff (2014).
Using the ranking for the total students as a benchmark, the following can be noted from Table 5 with regards to the sub-groupings. The rankings for the male students are similar to that for the total students. For gender, some differences emerge. The female students attached importance to "listening skills", "reflection", and "presenting ideas and influencing others" (ranked 4 = , 6 = and 9 = respectively). The male students saw more value in "applying an open mind to new opportunities" (ranked 9 =); the EL students rated "setting high personal standards of delivery and monitor personal performance through reflection" (7 =) and "teach you how to delegate" (9 =); and the ESL students saw much more value in "aware of the need to commit to lifelong learning" (3 =) and "applying negotiation skills to reach agreement" (4). Overall, Table 4 does show that most of the skills listed were rated highly by the students, regardless of how they were sorted (i.e., female vs. male or EL vs. ESL). All skills (with the exception of language differences) are above the midpoint of the response scale, with many exceeding 4.00 indicating that the learning outcomes in IES 3 were met by both elements of integrated teaching strategy, that is, a case study and working in teams.
In the responses to the open question on how valuable the students found the project in their learning, a number of students commented on how the project provided them with an opportunity to integrate their knowledge of the four disciplines it covered. Some of these comments in support of the project were: "The project helped us identify the link between studying the modules and practical application of it through analysis", "integration of the modules we are doing in third year", "integration of the four modules in a real-world scenario", "I learnt about the different aspects of accounting", "the project aided by enhancing certain concepts in each module", "learning in integration and not isolation", "learnt how the modules we do can be integrated", and "learning how to integrate modules". These comments support the requirement of (SAICA, 2010) and (IFAC, 2019) that teaching should be contextualised and integrated.

Conclusions
The objective of this study was to determine students' perceptions as to the extent an integrated project successfully addressed the learning outcomes for professional skills as required by IES 3 (IFAC, 2015). Overall, the integrated teaching strategy was seen as a positive learning experience by the students. The findings support previous studies which found that using both a case study approach and working in teams enhances the acquisition of skills required by the profession. What is evident in the current study is that both elements of the integrated teaching strategy are important in the acquisition of professional skills. Students perceived the main advantage of the project was in addressing interpersonal and communication, organisational and personal skills. Of the intellectual skills, only one intellectual skill (enable you to apply reasoning, critical analysis and innovative thinking) was scored highly across all the groupings.
On a gender basis, there were statistically significant differences between the male and female students with the scoring for "awareness of language differences", "listening skills" and "leadership skills"; all scored more highly by the female students than the male students. These statistically significant differences were considered medium using Cohen's d value. However, the "awareness of language differences" was not scored highly by any of the sub-samples indicating that for this group of students, it was not a skill promoted by the integrated teaching strategy. On a language basis, there were statistically significant difference between the EL and ESL students on four skills. The EL students rated "identify and evaluate", "appropriate to ask" and "feedback" higher than the ESL students, while the ESL students rated "lifelong learning" higher than the EL students. The statistically significant difference for language was considered medium for "identify and evaluate" and "lifelong learning" according to Cohen's d value. The need to commit to lifelong learning has been seen as imperative in the literature (Douglas & Gammie, 2019) and while ESL saw the value of the project in promoting lifelong learning, this perception was not shared by the EL students. All scoring for all the statements (with the exception of "awareness of language differences" by the male students) exceeded the midpoint of the scale used in the questionnaire, indicating that the integrated teaching strategy has the ability to address the learning outcomes in IES 3 (IFAC, 2015).
The main contribution this study makes is that it addresses the need for guidance or literature on how to embed these skills in the accounting curriculum (Keevy, 2016;Siriwardane & Durden, 2014) and provides an integrative teaching strategy which could be adopted where disciplines are taught independently of one another and where skills other than technical skills need to be acquired. Teachers of accounting who may have focused more on the technical aspects of their discipline and who may now want to incorporate professional skills into their curriculum could adapt this project for their own use as this study provides an example of how an integrated learning strategy can address the professional skills in an accounting course. While it supports prior findings (Stainbank, 2010;Stone et al., 2013;Weil et al., 2001), it must be noted that, unlike previous research, this study uses only the professional skills in IES 3 (IFAC, 2015). This study provides a teaching strategy which shows positive results and a recommendation is that this approach could be considered for adoption by teaching staff who need to meet the requirements of the SAICA Competency Framework ((SAICA), 2010) and/or the professional skills in IES 3 (IFAC, 2015). It also addresses (IFAC's 2019) recommendation as it has identified an approach which enhances the development of professional skills albeit in a particular national and cultural environment.
This research has a number of limitations. Firstly, the sample was small and represents a teaching and learning intervention in a specific context. Therefore, the results cannot be generalised to other teaching institutions. Secondly, it reports students' perceptions of the integrated teaching strategy and the study assumes that students were truthful in their responses. A final limitation is that the study reports the students' opinions at a point in time for one integrated project. Students with experience in different integrated projects may have different opinions to those reported in this study.
Future research could probe reasons for differences in perspectives based on language and gender to provide further insight on the addressing of professional skills by the integrated teaching strategy. This study also used only one year's learning experience with the project. Further research could be a follow up study, or could investigate the integrated teaching strategy's usefulness with a bigger cohort of students. Future research should also consider how to promote lifelong learning in students focusing on ways and means to address this skill as the ESL students saw lifelong learning the most important benefit of the integrated teaching strategy.

Funding
The author received no direct funding for this research.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Citation information
Cite this article as: Addressing the learning outcomes for professional skills using an integrated teaching strategy, Lesley June Stainbank, Cogent Education (2022), 9: 2109798.