Accounting students’ demographics and competencies: the mediating role of student engagement

ABSTRACT Educational institutions play a pivotal role in providing the market with well-educated and skilled employees with core professional competencies, particularly in accounting. Although previous studies have extensively discussed accounting students' demographic factors in developed countries. However, these demographics have received only minor attention in emerging regions. Therefore, this study explores the effect of accounting students' demographics on professional competencies by examining the mediating role of student engagement activities in Jordanian universities. This research adopts Astin's ([1984]. Student involvement: A developmental theory for higher education. Journal of College Student Personnel, 25(4), 297–308) Input-Environment/Process-Output (I-E-O) model. The study applies mixed methods by collecting quantitative data from questionnaires and qualitative data from personal interviews. The results indicate that the levels of accounting student engagement activities in Jordanian universities are still modest. Moreover, they show that student demographics significantly impact both student engagement and professional competencies and that the student engagement activities significantly affect the professional competencies of accounting students and partially mediate the effect of accounting students' demographics and professional competencies. The study has implications for the planning of undergraduate accounting education programmes, as it recommends focusing on the factors that influence student engagement and professional competencies.