Achievement in Business Core Courses: The Academic Quality of Accounting Majors

Abstract

This study examined student performance in business core courses to assess the academic quality of accounting majors versus that of business administration majors. Three-year records of business school graduates of a small midwestern university were analyzed. Final course grades in 14 required business core courses and overall university grade point average (GPA) for graduates were submitted to analysis of variance (ANOVA) and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) procedures to investigate the academic performance by major relationship before and after controlling for general academic aptitude. The findings furnish evidence that accounting students outperform their counterparts in business administration across a broad spectrum of business core courses.