Determining the profile of the successful first-year accounting student

Abstract

A concern about the pass rate in first-year accounting courses in higher education has resulted in a number of national and international research projects on the subject. Researchers have looked at the possible effect of factors such as the student's proficiency in English, prior experience in accounting and mathematics, gender, motivation and personality type on the pass rate at first-year accounting. The outcomes of the research have been varied and often contradictory. This may be attributed to the different research strategies in the different contexts. This article maps the journey towards establishing an appropriate analysis strategy to profile the successful Accounting101 student. The context of this journey is the teaching of first-year accounting studies at the University of South Africa (Unisa), which is an open and distance learning (ODL) institution.