Satchakova, Lioubov (2018) The role of self-efficacy factors, individual characteristics and WIL participation on accounting near-graduate students’ employment outcomes. PhD thesis, Victoria University.

Abstract

The issue of graduate employment has long been a focus in research, particularly in accounting education. Increasingly, higher education institutions promote this aspect to help them attract and retain high-quality students and maintain their competitive advantage in the market place. Given its importance, the present research analyses the association between the three self-efficacy factors of the general self-efficacy scale (GSES): initiative, effort and persistence on accounting near-graduate employment outcomes. Currently, no studies in accounting education have analysed this association in this context, so this research constitutes a contribution to the literature. Furthermore, there is limited research on the association of overall general self-efficacy (GSE) with accounting student employment outcomes. In addition to the three-factor GSES structure, the present study also includes students’ individual characteristics (i.e., gender, age, residency, study mode and language), and WIL participation as potential factors impacting near-graduate accounting students’ employment outcomes. Furthermore, the study also examines the potential association between the three factors of the GSES with students’ participation in WIL programs during their degree course. The three-factor self-efficacy construct, based on a trait-like method, was adopted instead of the overall GSES structure, as the former approach enables a deeper analysis of the GSE concept via the employment of separate independent variables. Consequently, the importance of the individual factors and their impact on employment and WIL participation is clearly and distinctively revealed. The study sample consisted of 337 near-graduate accounting students from Victoria University and Swinburne University of Technology, both based in Melbourne, Australia. The research employed logistic regression, as well as Lasso and R-glmulti statistical techniques, to examine the main research questions. In addition, Mann-Whitney U tests and Pearson chi-square tests were conducted to examine the association between accounting students’ individual characteristics (gender, age, residency, study mode and language) and the three factors of GSES (initiative, effort and persistence). The study results indicate that two out of the three GSES factors (specifically, initiative and persistence) showed a significant relationship with the employment outcomes of near-graduate accounting students. The study results also confirmed prior research findings, which found that individual characteristics (i.e., language, study mode, residency and age) were significantly associated with employment outcomes. Furthermore, the results showed no significant association between the three self-efficacy factors and students’ WIL participation. The results of this study provide some important implications for accounting higher education with regard to improving the employment outcomes of accounting near-graduates. These include: (i) developing closer links with industry to improve student familiarity with workplace requirements; (ii) incorporating WIL programs into the accounting curriculum, such as in a professional degree program; (iii) tailoring parts of the curriculum, where possible, in order to improve student self-efficacy; (iv) promoting WIL and providingwider opportunities to access the program; and (v) examining the need for higher education reform to improve international student access to WIL participation during degree courses.

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