title: Achievement, attributions, self-efficacy, and goal setting by accounting undergraduates.
abstract: Correlations were examined between two measures of accounting self-efficacy achievement goal setting, attributions, and scores on the Accounting Practice Achievement Test, obtained 1 yr. apart for 124 freshmen in junior college. Analysis indicated favorable attribution contributed to a higher mean score on accounting self-efficacy. Students with higher perceived self-efficacy performed better on the proficiency tests. Those with higher self-efficacy also set higher goals for subsequent achievement tests. Moreover, students who set higher achievement goals performed better. Goal setting mediated the relation of initial self-efficacy with subsequent test performance. However, the amount of variance accounted for by self-efficacy was small. An effective method for enhancing performance on an accounting achievement test might be to increase beneficial attributions, self-efficacy in accounting, and to encourage setting reasonable achievement goals.
authors.affiliation: Department of Finance, Tainan University of Technology, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Pi-Yueh
authors.initials: PY
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.forename: Wen-Bin
authors.initials: WB
authors.lastname: Chiou
mesh_terms: D000066:Accounting; D000124:Achievement; D000293:Adolescent; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006040:Goals; D006801:Humans; D007389:Internal-External Control; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D020377:Self Efficacy; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology*; D013624:Taiwan; D055815:Young Adult