Student perceptions of the factors influencing their success in first-year accounting

Abstract

ENGLISH SUMMARY : Introduction: The learner brings an accumulation of assumptions, motives, intentions, and previous knowledge that envelopes every teaching/learning situation and determines the course and quality of learning that may take place (Biggs, 1996:348). Biggs’s understanding of the determining influences students may have on the teaching and learning environment is supported by a variety of authors in the field of Accounting education (Byrne & Flood, 2005; Duff, 2004; Duff, Boyle, Dunleavy & Ferguson, 2004; Lucas & Meyer, 2004; Ramburuth & Mladenovic, 2004). The changed and increasingly diversified student populations in higher education across the world (Cross, 2004; Drost, 2002; Lowe & Cook, 2003) amplify the need for Accounting lecturers to take note of their students’ assumptions, motives, intentions, and previous knowledge that may influence student success (Byrne & Flood, 2005). Various studies provide general information on students entering the higher education system (for example, Masitsa, 2004; Mji, 2002; Pillay, 2004; Toni & Oliver, 2004; Wößmann, 2003). A number of studies focus on Accounting students’ approaches to learning (Byrne, Flood & Willis, 2004; Duff, 2004; Lucas & Meyer, 2004; Ramburuth & Mladenovic, 2004), while Hermanson, Deines, Eldridge, Hermanson, Ivancevich and Williams (1996) focus on the recruitment of first-year Accounting students in the USA. Du Plessis, Müller and Prinsloo (2005), Müller, Prinsloo and Du Plessis (2007), Rowlands (1988) and Van Rensburg, Penn and Haiden (1998), focus particularly on the first-year success of Accounting students at three different South African universities. The South African-based studies investigated the causal relationships between various indicators, notably students’ prior school performance, as possible predictors of future academic success.