Path Analysis Of Students’ Cognitive Ability, Gender And School Location On Their Academic Achievement In Financial Accounting: Implications For Educational Administrators And Curriculum Specialists

Abstract

The study examined the relationships between students’ cognitive ability, gender and location on their achievement using path analysis. Causal comparative design was employed to investigate how these variables affect achievement. Financial accounting achievement test and cognitive ability test was the instrument for data collection. Reliability coefficient of 0.81 and 0.76 was obtained for achievement test and cognitive ability test respectively. Correlation test, regression analysis and path analysis were used for data analysis. The findings revealed that cognitive ability predicts students’ achievement better than gender and school location. There was positive relationship between location, gender and cognitive ability to achievement in Financial Accounting. The direct path coefficient of cognitive ability to achievement is 0.64, school location to achievement was 0.157, and gender to achievement is 0.101 while indirect path is 0.04 for gender, 0.07 for school location and 0.09 for cognitive ability. All the paths in the output diagram are retained.