Abstract:
This study provides a thick description of an Accounting bridging
course and it examines the impact of this pre-university course on the academic
performance of students in a first-year introductory Accounting course at a South
African university. Several control variables (such as taking Accounting at school,
performance in mathematics at school, learning self-efficacy, motivation to learn and
student motivation) were taken into account to determine the impact of the course on
students’ performance in various assessments of the first-year Accounting course.
Propensity score matching and Heckman’s procedure were used to compensate for
selection bias. The findings show that there is a positive association between
students’ attendance of this pre-university course and their academic performance in
Module test 1.
