effect of self-efficacy on the decisions to enroll and succeed in Internet accounting courses

This study examines whether there are any significant differences between accounting students enrolled in Internet-based courses and accounting students attending campus-based courses in terms of self-efficacy, academic goal, anxiety, gender, and self-assessment of performance. The study is motivated by the many calls for research to apply social cognitive theory to determine factors of motivation and consequently success of accounting students in an online education environment. Social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1986) is used to develop the hypotheses tested in the current study. Three groups of hypotheses were developed. The first group of hypotheses tests the relationships among academic self-efficacy, computer self-efficacy, Internet self-efficacy, and academic goal. The second group of hypotheses tests the relationships among academic self-efficacy, computer self-efficacy, Internet self-efficacy, computer anxiety, Internet anxiety, gender and instruction mode. The third group of hypotheses tests the relationships among academic self-efficacy, academic goal, computer self-efficacy, Internet self-efficacy, computer anxiety, Internet anxiety, gender, instruction mode and self-assessment of performance. The study's results support the hypothesis that Internet self-efficacy is a significant predictor of whether accounting students will enroll in campus-based courses or Internet-based courses when they have the choice of instruction mode. The results also indicate that gender is a significant predictor of instruction mode. Moreover, the results indicate that academic self-efficacy is a significant predictor of accounting students' academic goals. Finally, the results indicate that computer self-efficacy, Internet self-efficacy, academic goal, academic self-efficacy, computer anxiety, and Internet anxiety are significant predictors of accounting students' self-assessment of performance.