Michael, Kathy (2022) Factors Influencing Student’s Choice of Business Major (Accounting versus Non-Accounting) from a Theory of Planned Behaviour Perspective. PhD thesis, Victoria University.

Abstract

The state of accounting education has been a global challenge for decades and continues to struggle attracting quality students. Even though student enrolment numbers have remained steady over the years the accounting profession and industry continues to report a shortage of suitably qualified accountants. Various reports have articulated that the accounting sector has been challenged by a combination of large international student enrolments, outdated curriculum not meeting industry requirements and a lack of required skills. As the higher education landscape continues to grow and change, research has surfaced examining factors which attract students to the accounting profession. Research results to date have been very mixed on what factors influence students’ choice of major and evidence has shown that factors are different in various settings. Applying a leading social-cognitive model known as the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB),(Armitage and Conner, 2001) this thesis aims to examine factors influencing a student’s choice of business major (accounting or non-accounting). Using the three constructs that make up the TPB model, plus an added construct of Self-efficacy (SE) and additional characteristics, including some not used before (Language Spoken at home, First in family to go to university and Culture) allowed the study to present original research. A questionnaire was used to collect data (a total of 837 collected) from three Australian universities. Questionnaires were implemented in compulsory business degree units for first and third year students to answer. The thesis is significant in various ways and it is the first of its kind in the area of choice of major to use a modelling approach that examines constructs as aggregates and individual items; first to add the TPB and a SE construct in the one study; first to examine correlated factors instead of just causation factors; and the first to measure culture using the Hofstede model. It is also the first to explicitly test whether the impact of variables changed from First Year (FY) to Third Year (TY) via a combined model. Findings suggest that some individual components of the SE construct emerged as good predictors but as an aggregate the SE construct was not found to be significant. The variables culture, full fee-paying students and language spoke at home revealed some significance. Only two of the three TPB constructs were found to have an influence on students’ choice of major. Changes were found in the results from FY to TY. The combined aggregate model noted the following demographic variables changed; culture, full fee-paying students, language spoken at home and self-efficacy. Findings from the individual model presented changes in the following variables; from the Personal Behaviour (PB) construct, the possibility of private business and heavy workload; from the Referents (REF) construct parents and teachers witnessed a change from FY to TY, while Language spoken at home further saw a change from FY to TY. Furthermore by identifying factors which influence students to select an accounting major, this enables the accounting profession and universities to better market their courses and therefore attract quality students to the accounting discipline. However, given the unprecedented impact which the recent COVID-19 pandemic has had on the higher education sector, it is worth considering extensions to the TPB framework.

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