Reflective Essay: Accounting Skills Development in Group Work

This reflective essay evaluates a student's experience during a group presentation assignment in a foundation year accounting module, using the Gibbs Reflective Cycle to analyze their feelings and experiences. The essay focuses on the development of essential skills for a future accounting care...Read More

Reflection is an essential process, especially for students, of evaluating their
experiences and practices, problematic or positive ones, in order to improve their
knowledge and abilities to apply them in their future career. Boud, Keogh and Walker
(1985, p.19) suggested that “reflection is an important human activity in which people
recapture their experience, think about it, mull it over and evaluate it”. The aim of this
reflective essay is to evaluate my experience during the preparation for the group
presentation assignment for one of my foundation year modules. My essay will be
based on The Gibb s Reflective Cycle (1988), because I think that the role of our
feelings in reflective writing help us to analyze our experiences in more depth and more
detail. In this essay I will discuss the academic skills that I think are more related to my
future career in accounting such as: communication, time management and reading
skills.
Communication is an important skill for graduates to be able to work successfully in a
group. Working in a team provides opportunities to develop communication skills. At the
beginning I was a little nervous because I did not know the group members, being the
first year of my studies, and I did not know what to expect. However, my first impression
was positive and I was sure that we could find a common way of working together
combining efforts for a successful teamwork. In order to have a more effective
preparation for group presentation assignment we have divided the tasks among the
group members and decided to meet weekly to discuss our progress. One important
lesson was to find out that we are from different background and may have different
opinions, ideas and different ways to express ourselves. At the first meeting I was not
confident about my ability to engage with colleagues, to explain my opinion and come to
a mutually consensus about the assignment. But I felt pleased with the result of the
meeting because we have talked and listened to each other and agreed upon our future
plans in term to accomplish our assessment and have a great result. In the following
years of my studies and future career in accounting communication skills play an
essential role. Every successful organization is keen to hire professionals with good
communication skills at all levels. Successful communication skills are especially
important in the workplace and have the purpose to co-operate with colleagues for task
accomplishment and to communicate well with particular audiences such as customers,
suppliers (Gallagher, 2013).
Another essential ability that I developed throughout this module, which helped me to
manage my time efficiently is time management skill. Bassot ( 2016, p.10) supports the

idea that “ being well organized is vital for success in many areas of our lives, and good
time management is an important skill that everyone need for study and professional
effectiveness”. Starting my preparation for group presentation I have faced problems in
managing my time well. Because of lack of time, I found hard to balance my time among
many other commitments such as classes, study time and family. In order to learn how
to use my time efficiently and reach desired outcome I have started to research more
about time management strategies and methods. After reading some books related to
time management skill, I felt more confident and I have prepared a list of activities to be
accomplished, I have prioritized my tasks and set time to complete them. Moreover, to
avoid the last-minute hurry and to be less stressed I have set a weekly plan of my future
actions and tried to stick with it as much as possible. Every accounting professional is
supposed to have a high level of time management skills on which relies its productivity.
This skill is vital for my future career as an accountant, to be able to prioritize, plan and
manage the time in more effective manner in order to cope with deadlines and to
exclude the risk of important work to be misfiled is the ability to be mastered.
Reading skills are as significant as the skills stated above, in particular SQ3R reading
technique. Before starting university I did not use any method of reading because it was
not necessary in my everyday life. But, once started my studies I have realized that to
enhance my topics understanding and to improve my reading for assignments I need to
find an effective method of reading. After exploring various reading strategies, I found
out the SQ3R method. It took me a while to learn and adopt the full method, the reason
was probably that it is complex and requires more time and effort to use it. Having
applied this reading technique I now realize that it is a great skill to incorporate into the
ongoing years of my studies and eventual position in accounting sector. Being a
successful accountant implies the ability to use an effective way of reading journals,
reports and retain more information in order to be aware and informed about the news
and changes in the finance sector.
Overall, my experience on the group presentation assessment was positive and had a
considerable impact on my actual thinking and skills developed. We had a good
communication during the preparations for the assessment which made us pleased with
the final result. But I do not feel the same for the time management and the reading
approach. What I have learned is that I need to set a timetable, a plan of future tasks
and to choose an appropriate reading strategy before starting to work on the
assignment. Furthermore, in order to enhance the abilities and qualities achieved during

this module I will set a future action plan. I will set a written weekly plan in this way I will
be able to monitor my activities. I will add in my weekly plan as a rule to read at least
one chapter and try to practice more the SQ3R reading strategy.