FACTORS AFFECTING ACCOUNTING STUDENTS’ PERFORMANCE AT UNIVERSITY IN LEBANON

Abstract

Factors affecting students' performance (SP) have been the topic of continuing discussion among academics, instructors, and policy - makers. There have been several research that tried to investigate this subject; however; most of those research have concentrated on SP in America and Europe. Though, since cultural dissimilarities might have a function in determining the factors that influence SP, it is extremely vital to investigate those factors to the Lebanese society. The purpose of this research is to investigate the factors affecting accounting SP at the faculty of business administration at Beirut Arab University (BAU) in Lebanon. To achieve this, a questionnaire was administered and distributed to 232 second and third-year accounting students. The regression results reveal that the factors of gender, language, class attendance, part time work, statistics grade and introductory accounting grade are significantly and positively related to SP in accounting. Results also show that extracurricular activity, high school grades and age have negative significant influence on SP. Results also demonstrated that mathematics grade, high school accounting, high school major, studying hours, nationality, student interest in accounting field, marital status, class size, course load and instructor effectiveness are not significantly associated with SP in accounting. These findings offer a significant contribution to accounting literature and have imperative implications for accounting students, university administrators and accounting instructors.