Student’s Intention And Perception Towards Pursuing .
GADING BUSINESS AND MANAGEMENT JOURNALVolume 18, Number 2, 1-17, 2014Student’s Intention and Perception towards PursuingAdvanced Accounting Program1Anis Barieyah Mat Bahari, 2Wan Mardyatul Miza Wan Tahir &3Nurhazrina Mat Rahim1,2Universiti Teknologi MARA PahangBandar Pusat Jengka, Pahang.3Universiti Teknologi MARA Kampus Puncak AlamPuncak Alam, Selangor.e-mail: .uitm.edu.my, 3hazrina@salam.uitm.edu.myAbstract Professional accountants also known as CharteredAccountants and/or Malaysia Institute of Accountant (MIA)members must at least hold a bachelor’s degree from a localuniversity or have passed a professional examination and become amember of a professional body. However, Bumiputra graduates inaccounting advanced programs have decreased over the years. Thispaper aims to identify the factors influencing Malay accountingdiploma students to pursue studies in bachelor degree programs or tosit for professional qualification examination in accountancy. Inaddition, the paper also examines the relationship between students’perception and their intention to pursue bachelor and professionalaccounting programs. Questionnaires have been developed anddistributed among students of Diploma of Accountancy fromUniversiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM). The findings show that 81%of the respondents intend to pursue a degree in accountancy, whilethe remaining believes that this program is too difficult. In addition,majority of the respondents have the intention to enroll inprofessional programs. Most of them favour Association ofChartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), due to the jobopportunities available for the certified members. This studyprovides evidence of the significant influence of students’ perceptiontowards their intention in pursuing higher level education inaccounting programs.Keywords Advanced accounting program; Bumiputra; students’intention.
21Anis Barieyah Mat Bahari et al.IntroductionLack of professional and qualified Malay accountants has been thesubject of ongoing debate in Malaysia. Statistics provided byAssociation of Chartered Certified Accountant (ACCA) in 2008stated that, only 12.3% of professional accountants in Malaysia wereBumiputra as cited by Assistant Minister of Industrial Developmentand Community Service, Datuk Peter Nansian Ngusie (“MalaysiaNeeds”, 2013). According to the President of Malaysia AdvisoryCommittee of Association of Chartered Certified Accountants(ACCA) Malaysia, in 2009 from 25,000 accountants in Malaysia,only 600 were qualified as accountants as many of the accountancygraduates were without the required skills and standards to qualify asaccountants. In 2020, Malaysia needs 60,000 qualified accountants toboost its economy and this profession will not be affected eventhough the country is in an economic crisis (Ahsan, 2014). However,more than half of this figure is yet to be achieved (Lanson, 2010).Apparently, negative perceptions on accounting careerdemoralize students to undertake higher level education inaccounting programs (Hardin, O’Bryan & Quirin, 2000). Someanecdotes include the long hours work, various assignments, strictdeadlines, work load stress and dateline pressures. Prior studies suchas by Myburgh (2005), Noorain (2009), Zyl and De Villiers (2011)and Bahari, Tahir and Rahim (2012) indicated that people’sperceptions had an important influence on their career decisions andvice versa. Therefore, positive perception on accounting course aswell as the profession itself will ensure that it continuously attractsmany potential students to enroll in accounting courses. In addition,the lack of qualified accountants in Malaysia according to theManaging Partner for KPMG Malaysia is also due to the highdemand of this profession from other countries. He believed that theeducation provided in Malaysia is globally recognized.Despite the many students who have graduated asaccountants, the country still lacks professionals in the field. As such,Malaysia Institute of Accountant (MIA) President Datuk Mohd NasirAhmad reiterated that a shortage of accounting professionals willcontinue in the short and medium term (In Pursuit, 2011). In order tobecome an accountant, a person should possess at least advancedaccounting or professionals qualifications. Hence, students who
Student’s Intention and Perception3intend to be an accountant need to plan and decide their journey inthe accounting field and career very early in their studies.Hence, this study is conducted to examine the perceptionsthat influence diploma accounting students’ intention to pursue theirstudies in advanced accounting programs. The findings from thisstudy provide valuable information to the universities and Ministry ofHigher Learning in offering suitable training and motivation coursesfor potential candidates.1.1Objectives of the StudyThe study aim to fulfil the following objectives:i.ii.iii.2To identify student’s intention and reasons for pursuingstudies in Bachelor’s Degree and Professional Programs inAccountancy.To evaluate the students’ perception towards advancedaccounting program.To ascertain whether there is a relationship between students’perception and their intention to pursue a degree inaccounting and/or professional accounting program.Literature ReviewStudents’ intention is defined as students’ aspiration(Sugahara, Hiramatsu & Boland, 2009). According to Leung, Lo, Sunand Wong (2012) intention-based model defines intention as state ofmind that may direct a person’s attention and attention towards abehaviour. Meanwhile, students’ perception can be expressed asstudents’ belief (Green & Graybeal, 2011). In addition, a studyconducted by McDowall and Jackling (2010) highlighted students’perception as students’ attitude. Thus in this paper, the students’perception refers to students’ belief and attitudes, whereas students’intention refers to students’ state of mind in pursuing their studies inadvanced accounting program.Understanding students’ intentions in pursuing their studiesto higher level of accounting courses is an important step to attractstudents to accounting courses. Beside intention, students’ perceptionon advanced accounting programs and professional courses mayundermine students’ intention in pursuing their studies.
4Anis Barieyah Mat Bahari et al.Those who had previous knowledge on accounting may haveintention to pursue to advanced accounting programs. Sugahara et al.(2009) stated that those who had majored in accounting subject insecondary school tend to have intention to pursue to higheraccountancy level. Meanwhile, high cost in learning accounting willshift the intention of the students to be professional accountants(Sugahara et al., 2009).Notably, understanding students’ perception in accountingmay help educators and faculties to understand the needs andmotivation of the students majoring in accounting to pursueaccounting programs. Thus, may help shape and create futureaccountants in the accounting profession. Job availability can alsoinfluence students’ perception in majoring in accounting (Myburgh,2005; Noorain, 2009; Zyl & De Villiers, 2011; Bahari, Tahir &Rahim, 2012). In addition, Germanou and Hassall, (2009) concludedthat job security too influences students’ perception to further theiraccounting study from the fundamental level to higher accountinglevel. Alongside job availability, better career prospect, careersatisfaction and being well respected by public are among the reasonsinfluencing students to pursue to advanced accounting programs(Noorain, 2009; Hashim, Embong & Shaari, 2012). According toNoorain (2009) and Bahari et al. (2012), students perceived that thosewho possessed professional qualification will have better careerprospects, highly demanded in job market, being recognizedinternationally and being paid well by employer. Moreover, as part ofbetter career prospects, those who were in chartered accountant majorin South Africa perceived that job satisfaction was one of the factorsfor them to be in professional programs (Zyl & De Villiers, 2011).Nonetheless, negative perceptions on accounting subject itself maydemotivate students from pursuing higher level of education inaccounting. Accounting is boring, precise, number crunching,difficult and rules memorizing knowledge are the common excusesfor the students to shift away their intention in learning accounting(Sugahara et al., 2009; Noorain, 2009; McDowall & Jackling, 2010).In spite of the above influencing factors on students’perception, some studies examined the relationship some of theabove factors towards accounting profession and program. Sugaharaet al. (2009) surveyed 13 accounting schools and analysed 349respondents and found that the students were willing to beprofessional accountants if they have interest in becoming
Student’s Intention and Perception5professional accountants. Students’ positive attitudes play animportant role towards accounting profession (McDowall & Jackling,2010). Moreover, Germanou and Hassall (2009) found that positiveperception on the accounting profession leads to positive intention topursue a career in accounting. However, Noorain (2009) indicatedthat students’ perception does not affect students’ perception inpursuing accounting professional programs because students havelittle knowledge and exposure pertaining the professional programs.Based on the above literature, many of the studies examinedthe relationship of the students’ perception to accounting professionor career. While Noorain’s (2009) study found insignificantrelationship between students’ perception and intention to pursueaccounting professional programs. Hence, this paper will attempt tomeet the first and second objectives on ascertaining students’intention to pursue advanced accounting programs and theirperception on accounting advanced programs. Further, the paperexamines the relationship between students’ perception withstudents’ intention to pursue advanced accounting programs either indegree or professional programs.The study differs from other studies as it was conductedusing all Bumiputra sample. The results may help the government toformulate suitable strategy in order to increase the number ofprofessional Bumiputra accountants.3MethodologyThe data were drawn from part 1 to part 6 students ofDiploma in Accountancy at Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM)Pahang. UiTM students were chosen as the respondents because oftheir status as Bumiputra. A random sample was carried out to 259.The research instrument was a structured questionnaireadopted from Noorain (2009). The questionnaire consists of 3sections. Section A taps on the demographic profile of therespondents. Section B assesses respondents’ intention to furthertheir studies in accounting advanced programs. The last section(Section C) taps on respondents’ perception towards both bachelorprograms and professional programs. Four-point likert scale rangingfrom strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (4) was used to measurethe extent of respondents’ agreement towards statements on
6Anis Barieyah Mat Bahari et al.accounting advanced programs. Descriptive statistics and logisticregression were used to analyze and to ascertain the relationshipbetween respondents’ perception towards accounting advancedprograms and their intention to further studies. Basically, theframework to assess the third objective is as the following:Excellent studentsStudents’Prior knowledge inaccountingDisciplined & highcommitmentDifficulty of programPerceptionBeing recognizedinternationallyStudents’Intention toDegree/ProfessionalPreferable to be hiredHigher salaryBeing respectedBetter career prospectFigure 1: Framework on Relationship between Students’ Perceptionand Students’ Intention
Student’s Intention and Perception47Results and DiscussionBelow are the findings and discussion of the results.4.1DemographicThe results of demographic analysis are presented in Table 1.Table 1 : Demographic ResultsDemographic categoriesFrequencyGenderMale88Female171Age18 – 2016921 – 248925 and above1Semester14927233449513682Basic Accounting KnowledgeNo Basic96SPM152LCCI6Matriculation3No 7.158.72.31.20.8Majority of the respondents are female (66%) and age 20 andbelow (65.3%). It was found that the highest number of respondents(82) is from semester 6 which is the final semester students. Then itwas followed by semester 2 students (72) and semester 1 students(49). The least number of respondents is from semester 4 students.Majority of the respondents, who enrolled in the Diploma inAccountancy at UiTM Pahang, have basic accounting knowledgeeither during their secondary school or matriculation. Only 37.1% ofthe respondents did not have basic knowledge in accounting.
84.2Anis Barieyah Mat Bahari et al.The students’ intentions to pursue study in BachelorDegree and Professional Programs in Accountancy.Part B evaluates the intention of students to pursue study inadvanced programs. Table 2 presents the respondents’ intention topursue degree programs.Table 2 : Intention of Respondents to pursue degreeIntentionFrequency%Yes25196.9No83.1Almost all respondents (96.9 %) have the intention to pursuea degree, while only 3.1% have no intention to do so. Majority of thestudents, who plan to pursue a degree, have intention to do so sincetheir secondary school (66.3%). This result supports Sugahara’s et al.(2009) findings that secondary school students who majored inaccounting subject, will show high tendency to pursue higheraccountancy courses. In fact, some of them have built their interestduring their diploma in accounting program (28.9%). Later on, thosewho have the intention to pursue to degree level were required toindicate on the preferred degree programs which they plan to join inthe future. Table 3 below reveals the students’ preferred degreeprograms.Table 3 : Preferred Degree ProgramsFrequencyBachelor in Accounting210Bachelor in Business Studies15Bachelor in Islamic 84.03.5100.0As shown in Table 3, surprisingly, many of the studentsareinterested to further their studies in Bachelor in Accounting(BIAC). Only 16.4% choose to pursue Bachelor in Business Studies,Bachelor in Islamic Banking, Education and others. Likewise, thereis a small number of students who did not intend to pursue abachelor’s degree. Table 4 shows the results of the students who haveno intention to pursue a degree program.
Student’s Intention and Perception9Table 4 : Reasons for not choosing BIACDifficultDiploma Result UnsatisfactoryNot InterestedOthersNo 7.3100.0Table 4 shows that 51% of the students who did not have theintention to pursue degree programs stated that accounting course isdifficult. This is similar to the findings of Sugahara et al.(2009),Noorain (2009), McDowall and Jackling, 2010 which also found thatnegative perception in accounting, such as accounting subject isdifficult, will affect students’ intention to proceed to advanced level.However, 19% of the students believed that their current diplomaresults may not qualify them to pursue a degree program. Based onthe findings, although, the students have the intention to further theirstudies to higher level, some of them have the intention to major indifferent courses other than accounting. Furthermore, some studentsfelt that learning accounting in the degree level is difficultconsidering their low academic achievement. Thus, these may be thereasons for the lack of Malay accountants in the industry, because inorder to qualify as an accountant the students must at least possess adegree in accounting.In addition, students were also asked on their intention topursue professional programs. The results are summarized in Table 5.Table 5 : Intention of Respondents to Pursue 7127.4No Answer41.5Interestingly, 71% of the diploma students have the intentionto pursue a professional program as compared to a degree (96.9%)program. This may suggest that announcement regarding professionalprograms is within the reach of the students, which also means thatthe faculty and educators’ efforts in spreading information onprofessional programs to the students were fruitful. On top of that,
10Anis Barieyah Mat Bahari et al.the students were assessed on their reasons for the intention to pursuetheir studies in professional programs. Table 6 shows the otherreasons for pursuing professional programs.Table 6 : Reason of Pursuing Professional ProgramFrequency PercentCareer 51.9Others2.8Total18772.2As shown in Table 6, approximately 50% of the studentsnoted that the main reason for their intention to pursue professionalprogram is because they believed that graduates with professionalqualification will have better career opportunities compared to thosewithout professional qualification. This result is consistent with thereport made by Noorain (2009) that better career prospects mayattract students to enroll into professional programs.4.3The Students’ Perception towards Advanced AccountingProgramThis section discusses the findings for the second objective of thestudy which is the students’ perceptions towards advancedaccounting program. Table 7 shows the respondents’ perceptiontowards accounting advanced programs. The definitions for items C1to C9 are presented in Table 8.Table 7 : Perception of Respondents towards Accounting AdvancedProgramC1C2C3C4C5C6C7C8C9%%%%%%%%%Strongly 5.1 3.5 1.2 1.2 0.0 1.6 0.0 2.0 0.0DisagreeDisagree 39.1 35.7 17.2 7.8 0.8 11.5 4.7 21.1 4.7Agree42.7 45.9 59.8 49.2 43.8 38.3 40.3 41.0 44.5Strongly 13.0 14.9 21.9 41.8 55.5 48.6 54.9 35.9 50.8AgreeMean2.64 2.72 3.02 3.32 3.55 3.34 3.50 3.11 3.46
Student’s Intention and PerceptionItemC1C2C3C4C5C6C7C8C911Table 8: Definition for Items C1 to C9DefinitionOnly excellent students are able to pursue their studies todegree/professional level.Degree programs/professional is only suitable for studentswith a strong foundation in accountingDegree programs/professional is only suitable for disciplinedand highly committed studentsDegree programs/professional is more difficult than diplomaprogramProfessional qualifications are recognized at internationallevelDegree/ professional graduates are preferable to be hired thandiploma graduateDegree/ professional graduates are able to be employed withhigher salary than diploma graduatesProfessional qualified accountant is more respected than adegree qualifiedProfessional qualified will have a better prospect in careerTable 7 shows that half of the respondents (55.7%)perceived that only excellent students are able to pursue their studiesto degree/professional level with the mean of 2.64. Similar result isalso obtained for the second statement. About 60.8% of therespondents perceived that advanced accounting programs are onlysuitable for students with a strong foundation in accounting. Almostall respondents (99.3 %) agreed that professional qualifications arerecognized internationally. Furthermore, the same result is alsoobtained for item C7. Furthermore, 95.2% of the respondents agreedthat degree/professional graduates are able to obtain higher salarythan diploma graduates. They also perceive that professionalqualified accountant will have a better career prospect (95.3 %). Notonly that, 91% of the respondents perceive that degree / professionalprograms are more difficult than diploma program. The respondentsalso perceive that degree or professional graduates have higheremployment opportunities than diploma graduates (86.9%). Thesefindings are in line with the studies done by Myburgh (2005),Noorain (2009), Zyl and de Villiers (2011) and Bahari et al. (2012)that advanced programs are only suitable for disciplined and highlycommitted students (81.7%). In addition, 76.9% of the respondentsperceive professional qualified
advanced accounting program. Understanding students’ intentions in pursuing their studies to higher level of accounting courses is an important step to attract students to accounting courses. Beside intention, students’ perception on advanced accounting programs and professional courses may
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Quantum Field Theories: An introduction The string theory is a special case of a quantum field theory (QFT). Any QFT deals with smooth maps of Riemannian manifolds, the dimension of is the dimension of the theory. We also have an action function defined on the set Map of smooth maps. A QFT studies integrals Map ! #" % '&)( * &-, (1.1) Here ( * &-, stands for some measure on the space of .
