Deteminants of Accounting Students Performance

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this study is to explore determinants of accounting students' performance at the College of Business Studies at the Public Authority for Applied Education and Training in Kuwait. To accomplish this, a questionnaire was developed and distributed to second-year accounting students. The regression results show that the factors of gender, high school major, age, frequency of doing homework, participation in class discussion, engaging in peer interaction, and number of days studying before exam are significantly and positively related to students' performance in accounting. Results further reveal that high school major (scientific versus humanities) has the strongest impact on students' performance, followed by participation in class discussion. Findings of this study offer an important contribution to accounting education literature. In addition, the findings have important implications for university administrators, accounting instructors, and accounting students.JEL: M41,123KEYWORDS: Accounting, College, Students' Performance, Grade Point Average, KuwaitINTRODUCTIONDeterminants of students' academic performance have long received considerable attention from members of the higher education community. Alfan and Othman (2005) argue that students' academic performance should concern not only academics and educators but also potential employers, often said to be the end users of university products. Hijazi and Naqvi (2006) argue that measuring students' academic performance is a challenging task as it results from many factors. Win and Miller (2005) argue, however, that students' academic performance can be attributed to two sets of influential factors: the first set originating with the individual, that is, the student's unique combination of abilities and socioeconomic background, and the second set relating to the educational system and its patterns of imparting knowledge to university students. The focus of this study is to explore the influence of first set of influential factors, that is, the association between students' demographic background, abilities, and learning behaviors and their academic performance. Consequently, the purpose of this study is to assess student performance and the factors potentially influencing that performance among accounting majors enrolled in the College of Business Studies at the Public Authority for Applied Education and Training.To meet the study objective, a questionnaire exploring potential factors influencing student performance was developed and distributed to accounting students; the factors explored were identified in the literature and mentioned by local accounting faculty. Ordinary least squares regression analysis was used, with the dependent variable being students' major grade point averages, which served as a proxy for academic performance in accounting. Thirteen independent variables were included in the regression model to capture the potential influence of demographics and learning behaviors on accounting students' performance.Study findings show significant differences in academic performance among accounting students based on the factors of gender, marital status, and type of high school education. Regression results show that the factors of gender, high school major, age, frequency of doing homework, participation in class discussion, engaging in peer interaction, and number of days studying before exam are significantly and positively related to students' performance in accounting. Results further reveal that high school major (scientific versus humanities) has the strongest impact on students' performance, followed by participation in class discussion. The findings of this study make an important contribution to the accounting education literature. In addition, the study findings have important implications offer important information to university administrators, accounting instructors, and accounting students. …