Linking Work Practice and Higher Education in Accounting: Two Papers and a Commentary

The purpose of this submission is to link and position two published refereed journal articles for the award of MA by Research. The aim of the commentary is to outline and reflect on some of the links between work practice and higher education, drawing on the candidate‟s experience as a professional auditor, university lecturer and designer of higher education courses. The two papers demonstrate how reflection on work practice has been used to create a single instructional case and later to devise a contemporary case study – a type now known as a „living case‟ – in order to improve students‟ educational experience in the accountancy sub-field of auditing. The publications take professional practice experienced in the auditing professional workplace and, through the process of reflection and action learning, create new teaching strategies to make students‟ academic experience professionally meaningful and relevant. The two papers and commentary demonstrate the value of bringing together work practice and pedagogy, i.e. higher education practice. The value, hence contribution, of the submission is the provision of an original example and an understanding of bringing practice from the work place into education to make it professionally meaningful for students thus linking higher education and work practice.