Students' Approaches to Learning and Their Academic Performance: The Case of Accounting Students

This study examines the relationship between the accounting students' approaches to learning and their academic performance. The research contributes to the existing literature that investigate the area of students' approaches to learning which addresses the issue of the future accounting recruits into the profession, and how well prepared these students wilI be to understanding accounting dilemmas. The data have been collected from responses to questionnaires that have been distributed to 100 accounting students from College of Business in Universiti Utara Malaysia. Data were analyzed through t-test, ANOVA, Pearson Correlation and Multiple Regression analysis. The results indicated that there is no significant difference of academic performance based on
gender, age, years of learning accounting, and time spent per week in learning accounting. However, the factors of races and method of study were significant with academic performance. Among six approaches that have been tested, achieving motive approach was the dominant factor that contributes towards student academic performance.