I presented this paper at the British Accounting and Finance Association 2026 Annual Conference in Manchester and the BAFA Education SIG 2026 in Sheffield.
It has also been accepted for presentation at the AAA Global Connect Conference in August 2026
What's the problem?
Pass rates for exit-level exams for ACCA and CPA for 2024 and 2025 are less than 40%.
Let that sink in. Consider the student who’s writing these exams. They’ve successfully navigated many years of accounting studies, shifting levels, requirements, skills, sat for countless exams over countless years. Each of these levels is ‘supposed’ to be preparing them for the next, setting them up to be better prepared for the next level. And then 6 of every 10 students fail at the highest levels.
Naturally, the profession, globally, is asking WHY?!
Mindset research may help us
I believe that mindset research can help us with some of this challenge. What if the professional qualification journeys are filtering for psychological factors instead of technical and professional?
What if the reason students are failing is that they handle failure and challenges badly, and has nothing to do with whether they’re actually capable of the ‘accounting’ knowledge and work they’re supposed to be examined on?
I’ve embedded a recording of the presentation (not technical or highly academic, so feel free to watch with coffee!). The main takeaway from this is that we need more research relating to mindset in accounting education.
When you look at the findings of accounting research, relating to students challenges as they try to navigate their qualification path, you can see why the mindset meaning system is a compelling topic to look into a little more.
The start of the conversation...
While this paper is conceptual, and refers to existing accounting education research rather than presenting empirical evidence, I’m incredibly happy with this, as a very important first step (for academic research, anyway!) – The start of the conversation around the importance, and pervasiveness of mindset in accounting students’ studying, exam, and career performance.
I’ve discussed mindset-related issues on this website and my YouTube channel for years, but formal research still has many gaps in this area.
Interestingly, while ‘growth mindsets’ has been a buzzword for many years, with most people having at least some awareness of what it is and what it means, there is very little mindset research in accounting education, which is why this paper is the start of the conversation.
Why did I start looking into Mindset research?
About ten years ago, I shifted from focussing on lecturing Auditing and Assurance, to mindset and strategy coaching, specifically for students at higher levels in their qualification journeys.
The reason for this was that I could clearly see that skill requirement shifts (from technical to professional/transferable) were causing increased failure rates for students who had studied most of their qualification levels with a focus on technical, calculation, journal, format-style skills. The ‘discussion’ questions crippled students at higher levels, which was, for me, representative of a deeper issue.
I had seen the ‘discussion’ question challenges for years in Auditing. Given that Auditing has always been the most ‘written’ subject, while Tax, Financial Accounting and Financial Management were largely format, calculation, journal, disclosure-heavy, I had struggled as an Auditing lecturer with lower pass rates amongst my auditing students for years, wondering what I could change about my lecturing style and material that would improve this. I tried to simplify my explanations, make the topics less terminology-heavy, more illustrative, to try increase the pass rates. To no avail. While the students appeared to understand the concepts, they struggled to pass the exams. As the other subjects shifted skill requirements to more discussive, less rule-based, questions, I saw the pass rates decrease, and this, amongst other issues, pushed me to focus more on non-subject causes. These students were clearly smart and capable. So, what was happening?
I stumbled across the ‘fixed vs growth mindset’ concepts in 2014 and immediately saw in the fixeder traits, myself as a postgraduate student. I could tick almost every fixed mindset trait off the list, when I thought of how I approached, felt, and thought about my studying as I had endured my postgraduate studies. I also saw my students and their struggles, and felt this was something I needed to explore more.
I started bringing the concepts into the classroom, with some shockingly emotional results, and since 2014, I’ve been working on how to help students improve the effectiveness of their studying and their exam performance by helping them understand and improve their beliefs about learning and intelligence.
I realised at some point that there were some skills that I was missing, in order to progress with my work, and that’s when I registered for my Masters. The research process was a pleasant surprise for me (given I’d actively dismissed it earlier in my career as something I was sure I’d never be interested in!), and it’s added immense value to my knowledge and ability to work with students.
What's the connection between mindset and the accounting professions' skill shift?
What next?
I continue to work with students, individually and in groups, shifting their practical study approaches, beliefs and habits to help improve their studying, their exams and their careers.
I also continue to talk to and work with educational institutions and professional bodies, who are equally focussed on the improvement of the professional qualification journeys of students who select accounting as their desired career.
Behind that, I’m working on other research projects. Now that we’ve started the conversation of the value that mindset research has for accounting education, we have plenty to scratch at in order to help our committed, dedicated and highly capable students overcome challenges in order to see them successfully complete their qualification goals and enter the profession.
If you’re interested in discussing, or collaborating with me on any projects, reach out. I’m always keen to chat more about this.
