Dr Phyllis Alexander

Importance and awareness of National Student Survey improvement initiatives: A case study of final year undergraduate students (internally funded). The purpose of this project was to investigate the importance and awareness by final year undergraduate Accounting and Finance students of the National Students Survey (NSS) improvement initiatives that were put in place by the Department of Accounting, Finance and Economics within the Faculty of Management at Bournemouth University.

Tax Literacy: Improving Tax Compliance (Funded by the CIOT). The underlying objectives of the study are - (1) to investigate the inter-relationship between financial literacy, tax literacy, tax morale and tax compliance attitude of individuals in the UK; (2) to establish socio-economic information that will facilitate the profiling of tax literate and illiterate individuals; (3) to establish whether working individuals should be educated in tax prior to entering the labour market.

International Learning Platform in Accountnacy (Funded by ERASMUS+). The purpose of this project are to - (1) Generate an internationally oriented learning platform in accountancy; (2) Support the development of students’ specific competencies in accountancy with regard for subject knowledge, employability skills and professional ethics; and (3) design and develop teaching concepts including integrated case studies in accountancy within a European context.

Fair Access - understanding the attitudes and opinions of fair access students about accessing Higher Education. The purpose of this project was to explore the perceptions of fair access students of the factors which led them to consider accessing Higher Education in the first instance and secondly, the reasons why Bournemouth University was an attractive choice for them.

Designing Innovative Pedagogy for Complex Accountancy Topics (DIPCAT), funded by ERASMUS+, has recently come to a successful completion. Four distinct but integrated sets of case studies have been developed comprising original content, learning materials, activities and two databases. The topics of the cases address areas of global and immediate concerns in international taxation, corporate governance and tax avoidance, financial reporting for financial instruments (IFRS 9) and auditing in the digital era.Thirty-nine academics from twelve European HE Institutions collaborated on this project. The project-partners have a long history of working together and with other professionals in the development of teaching materials, intensive study programmes, student and staff exchanges, research and other knowledge exchanges. The combined subject expertise, professional experiences, global networks and academic resources of the partnership far exceeds the sum of individual contributions. The partners consulted with accounting and tax experts during the design and development phases of the case studies. The experts were from the Big Four, MNEs and the Professional and Statutory and Regulatory Bodies (e.g. ICAEW, ACCA, CIMA and CIOT) in the respective countries. Such consultation has ensured the professional relevance and practical application of the learning materials. More about the project may be found at: www.bournemouth.ac.uk/dipcat

In a recent survey conducted by one of the Big-4 accounting firms, 41% of millennials and 46% of Gen Z respondents said they were stressed all or most of the time. About two-thirds of each group identified day-to-day finances and job/career prospects as significant worries. While financial stress is nothing new, the economic impact of the Pandemic and the growing generational wealth gap is complicating the picture in most countries.We are undertaking cross-country research into university students’ financial management behavior and anxiety. The purpose of our research project is to collect information about university students’ financial anxiety, financial socialization, financial literacy, financial behaviour, loss aversion and personality traits. We will be surveying undergraduate and postgraduate students at Bournemouth University, the University of Innsbruck, Diethnes Panepstimio Ellados (Greece) in the first round; other Universities across Europe and North America will follow in the second round of surveys.