Study Behaviour of First Year Business Students and Exam Performance

Proceedings of The 5th International Conference on Business, Management and Finance

Year: 2022

DOI:

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Study Behaviour of First Year Business Students and Exam Performance

Prof. Dr. Audra Ong

ABSTRACT: 

The factors influencing students’ success or otherwise in university or college business courses have attracted the attention of many researchers.  This study of 40 university students in the first six weeks of a Year 1 introductory financial accounting course contributes to the debate by ascertaining whether there is a potential relationship between study behaviour of students and feedback on their examination performance.

There are several courses offered each week to students on this subject and we chose an evening course which had 45 students enrolled. A self-completion questionnaire was used to identify students studying habits. The results show that the range of hours spent each week in personal study is from less than I hour to more than 7 hours per week.  Attendance at classes also varied from one class per semester to every class.  The students were also asked to forecast the grade that they would achieve in the mid-term examinations that were to be held a few days after the distribution of the questionnaire.

A second, shorter questionnaire was distributed following the announcement of the mid-term examination results.  The release of the midterm examination results led to a statistically significant increase in the number of students claiming to spend more time studying.  Although the mid-term examination results influenced the studying behaviour of some students, it did little to influence their predictions of the grades that they would achieve in the final examinations. It would seem that frequent feedback to students of their progress may increase the study time spent by some students.  The feedback, however, may not influence their prediction of the grade they expect in the final examinations.

keywords: education, students, examinations, study time.