Developing digital acumen, ethical awareness and professional competencies through a tax simulation project: Perceptions of postgraduate accounting students

This study investigates postgraduate accounting students' perceptions of a newly developed tax simulation as a vehicle for developing digital acumen, ethical awareness and professional competencies. Responding to employer calls for workplace-ready graduates, it examines whether the simulation's practice-oriented, authentic design helps bridge the gap between technical tax knowledge and professional competence. A convergent mixed-methods approach, combining quantitative and qualitative survey data, was used to assess perceived development across multiple acumen dimensions. Findings indicate modest but positive contributions, with comparatively higher perceptions for decision-making acumen, relational acumen, ethical awareness and lifelong learning. Students highlighted the value of authentic features that required applying technical tax knowledge, critical thinking, problem-solving and communication, while technology-enabled tasks enhanced digital acumen through data analytics and computational work. Correlation analyses showed small to small-moderate positive associations between perceived competence development and assignment performance, suggesting alignment between the simulation's design and assessed tasks. The study offers a novel, replicable tax-based simulation for higher accounting education and provides insights into how simulation-based pedagogy can support the integration of technical tax content with the broader professional competencies expected of future accountants. • Postgraduate, tax-focused simulation integrating multiple acumen dimensions. • Professional artefacts and staged releases elicited application and judgement. • Moderate, positive gains in digital acumen, ethical awareness, decision-making, communication. • Positive associations between perceptions on skills development and assignment academic performance.