Analysis of the Scientific Flow of Research Related to Accounting Education in Scopus Database

Objective: The present study examines the historical course and evolution as well as the current trend of research related to the field of accounting education and provides a general view of the main characteristics of accounting education research based on bibliometric analysis in the Scopus database. The purpose of this research is to investigate the progress of research related to accounting education from the beginning to 2022. The information presented in the present research provides a clear picture of the research flow in the field of accounting education, which can help researchers, university professors, and accounting students identify and draw the scientific structure and track the latest changes in accounting education.
Method: The primary research method of this research is bibliometric analysis, which studies and examines the characteristics of published articles such as authors, countries, topics and journals. The sample of this research included 2034 articles in the field of accounting education, which were indexed in the Scopus database from the beginning to 2022. In terms of its purpose, this research is one of the descriptive-analytical research, which has been carried out using the scientometric method and bibliometric analysis. In terms of the time of the research, it is one of the longitudinal researches, and based on the type of data, it is one of the quantitative researches. The statistical population includes scientific articles published in the field of accounting education during the years 1954-2022, which were written by all the researchers of the countries of the world and indexed in the Scopus database. The keywords that are the basis of information gathering were formed by using the titles and keywords of the articles and also based on previous knowledge of the field of accounting education. VosViewer software was used to analyze the research data.
Results: The research findings show that the overall trend of publishing articles in accounting education is upward and the largest number of articles were published in 2020. The most frequent words are accounting education, students, accounting, teaching, training, curricula, e-learning, higher education, learning systems, instructional design, survey, ethics, educational computing, artificial intelligence, financial accounting, study program, career aspects, management accounting, and information technology. The United States has been at the top of the table of the most active publishers in accounting education. The total number of scientific productions related to the "accounting education" field indexed in the Scopus database until 2022 was 2034 articles. The dynamics of this sector between 2020 and 2022 include 455 items. Most of the articles, 164 articles were published in 2020. The first papers were presented in 1954 and 1960, respectively, titled "Ratings of Occupational Factors (Accounting and Education) by Individuals Choosing Different Occupational Groups" and "American Accounting Education, Textbooks, and Public Practice Before 1900".The largest number of articles in this section have been published in the United States, and Australia has the largest number of articles after the United States, then England, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, China, Malaysia, Spain, and Indonesia are among the top countries in the field of accounting education. All these countries have leading universities in the field of accounting, so accounting education has become more important in these countries. America has cooperated more scientifically with Australia, England, Malaysia, Greece, Brazil, Sweden and Germany in accounting education. Based on the findings of the research, "Accounting Education" and "Journal of Accounting Education", which are related to England, have had the most scientific effect in the field of accounting education, followed by "Issues In Accounting Education" and "Critical Perspectives On Accounting" which are American publications, have the most number of scientific works in the field of accounting education.
Conclusion: The analysis results show that the articles related to accounting education have been published in the Scopus database since 1983, and the number of research studies in this field has been increasing. The flow of scientific productions has generally increased. The course of evolution in keywords is divided into four categories, which include emphasis on the basics of the accounting profession in the curriculum, learning systems and performance of higher education, emphasis on active learning, educational technology at the university level, and electronic learning, online and System-based and soft skills development of students. In the first stage, accounting education refers to the basics, principles, cost accounting, applying ethics in accounting, etc. The second phase, the years 2010 to 2015, research related to accounting education, including issues such as motivation, action research, learning systems, performance, higher education, critical, teaching, accounting education, accounting, the accounting profession, international standards, universities, accounting history and financial accounting. The third stage was from 2015 to 2018, when the terms educational technology, research literature, faculty, active learning, financial accounting, faculty and universities were used in the research. The fourth stage is during the years 2018 to 2022, which is related to the terms of the accounting study program, information management, data analysis, soft skills, higher education performance, e-learning, COVID-19, blended learning, online learning, system-based learning, systems Learning has been game-based learning. Reviewing the historical progress of research in accounting education leads to understanding, interpreting and analyzing accounting education and paying attention to the existing changes and society's expectations of the accounting profession. The present study's findings provide valuable insight for researchers working in this field. Future Researchers are suggested to survey accounting education in scientific research journals of Iran in future research and investigate educational fields such as audit education, management accounting education or other fields of interest in Web of Science and Scopus websites.