114 With the best result being selected to enter university, this group of students should perform
better and theoretically, they should be able to maintain their result towards the end of the accounting degree program. However, what we see for the past few years contradicted our
expectations. Some of these students did not perform well during their studies in the university. In fact, their results become worse from one semester to another semester. For example, some
top scoring students who enrolled into the university with CGPA 4.00 failed to maintain the result in the accounting degree program and graduate with CGPA below 3.50 and surprisingly,
some even graduated with CGPA below 3.00. Therefore, this is a strong motivation for this research to examine the reasons behind this.
5. Conclusion
The main objective of Accounting Programme of Universiti Malaysia Sabah is to produce qualified professional accountants to meet the 2020 Vision Prospektus Prasiswazah Universiti
Malaysia Sabah, 20112012. Thus, in order to achieve this objective, excellence in academic performance becomes one of the indicators. However, this objective cannot be achieved if the
academic students’ performance is below expectations. Currently, we realize that some of the students who entered the university with a good result from their STPM, matriculation or
diploma failed to perform well at the end of their study. Thus, the research seeks to examine the factors contribute to the students’ academic performance. It is the hope of this study that the
factors identified in this research will help to achieve the objective of accounting program and the university in producing qualified professional accountants.
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