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CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY OF THE OCTOBER 2014 BOARD EXAM RESULTS: A

PROGRAM PROPOSAL FOR THE ACCOUNTANCY DEPARTMENT OF THE
SCHOOL OF ACCOUNTANCY AND BUSINESS MANAGEMENT (SABM) OF SAINT
LOUIS UNIVERSITY
CASTRO, Allan B; ALMORA, Frank Rick S.; CASTRO, Charleston E.;
MOLINTAS, Rocelle Amber G.; WACNANG, Prince Jan Ronald D.

Abstract Negative speculations over the capacity of students who petition their review subjects during
the summer term have been so strong in the context of Saint Louis University since its failed
experiment of allowing students to cross-enroll their review subjects during the summer term
to other universities. However, petitioning and cross-enrolling are two different things, so
that, given the case of the petitioners for the Summer Term of A.Y. 2013-2014, this research
aims to disprove the notion that petitioning subjects during the summer term may
significantly decrease SLUs performance in the CPA Boards. Lastly, this paper forwards a
program proposal for the KASAMA/SSC to which the University Administration may want to
take into consideration.

1. Introduction
The CPA Licensure Board Exams has been
seen as the pinnacle of professional and
competency assessment for all graduate
students of any Accountancy Program. As
such measures to protect the institutional
passing rate by schools has been acceptable
(in extension, to any program with a national
board exam attached to it).
Just like any progressive academic institution,
Saint Louis University has been a ground for
experimental policies as to allow the best
compromise between the conflicting interests
of the school and of the students.
Sometime in the past, the School of
Accountancy and Business Management
permitted the cross-enrollment of graduating
accountancy students, who failed their review
subjects in the preceding semester, to other
universities for the summer term to retake the
said subjects. Such is to allow the students to
graduate on-time and to be able to take the
CPA Board Exams same as to those who
passed their review subjects during the
preceding semester.
Unfortunately, the result of such leniency by
the Department of Accountancy of SLU
resulted to one of the lowest passing rate by
Saint Louis University in the CPA boards.
Such alarming event resulted to the
implementation of protective measures by
SABM which includes: a) disallowing the cross-
enrollment by Accountancy Students of
review subjects, and b) disallowing review
subjects to be petitioned in the Summer/Short
term for any given Academic Year.
Such system was in place until the
summer/short term of A.Y. 2013-2014 when
graduating accountancy students, who failed
some of their review subjects during the
preceding semester, joined by their parents
and the KASAMA/SSC Executive Committee
Office, erred a petition to open five review
subjects (including Accounting 601, 602, 603,
604 and 605) for the succeeding summer term
on the following grounds: a) the need to
accommodate such request due to the shift in
academic calendar for the next Academic
Year, and b) the recognition of their right as
students and their special status of a

cc: CACMW Group, KASAMA/SSC, SABM Dean, Accountancy Department Head, *VP Academic Affairs

graduating student that would give them the
leverage for their speedy graduation process.
The approval of the petition was confronted
with a strong opposition primarily because of
the casted doubt on the readiness of the
petitioners to take the Boards in case they
pass the subjects and extending further the
possibility of drastically affecting the
institutional passing rate of SLU.
Eventually, with the kind heart of SABM Dean
Reynaldo Bautista and former Accountancy
Department Head Marc Oliver B. Castaeda,
the petitioners request was granted.
1.1. Aims and problems of the research
At present, a similar request was forwarded
by some accountancy students who failed
their review subjects during the preceding
semester.
A degree of adamancy is being afforded to the
request given the primary belief that the
performance of the previous batch who
petitioned the opening of the review subjects
during the Summer Term of A.Y. 2013-2014
was not good or comparatively competitive
than those who took the October 2014 CPA
Boards who belonged to the non-petitioning
group (i.e. non-repeaters for any review
subject).
In line with this years petition, this research
aims to study the claim that the board exam
performance of those who belong to the
petitioning group is comparatively lower that
those who dont in the October 2014 CPA
Board Exams.
In extension, this research also aims to
identify the group that have heavily
contributed to the decline in the 2014 CPA
Board Exams for SLU.
In extension, this research further aims to
investigate the performance of those who
belonged to the petitioning group of the
cc: CACMW Group, KASAMA/SSC, SABM Dean, Accountancy Department Head, *VP Academic Affairs
2
Summer Term of A.Y. 2013-2014 who took
(first time or repeater) the May 2015 CPA
Board Exams.
Lastly, this aims to propose a research
program that will serve as a solution to the
doubts whether opening of petitioned
courses by students who fail their review
subjects will be a fundamental or baseless
fear, thus, resolving whether petitioning of
subjects is a good practice to maintain the
performance of SLU in the CPA Board Exams
afloat.
Ergo, the questions that are sought to be
answered by this research are as follows:
1) What was the performance of the
individuals belonging to the
petitioning group in the October
2014 and/or the May 2015 CPA
Licensure Exams?
2) What is the population distribution
of the October 2014 CPA Board
Exam Takers according to first-
time petitioning, first-time non-
petitioning and Repeaters?
3) Is there a significant difference in
the frequency of passers and non-
passers for the first-time
petitioning and first-time non-
petitioning groups?
4) Is there a significant difference in
the frequency of passers and non-
passers for the first-time non-
petitioning and Repeater groups?
5) What is the performance level of
petitioning group in the May 2015
CPA Boards?
6) What possible program can be
adopted to rule whether opening
of petitioning subject is a viable
course of action for the
Department of Accountancy of
SLU SABM?

2. Methods and Limitations
This research applied simple arithmetic and
data review of the publications by PRC since
individual scores by CPA Board Exam takers is
treated with extreme confidentiality, thus,
making its access impossible.
This paper performed the following
procedures to gather the data:
1) A complete list of petitioners during
the Summer Term of A.Y. 2013-2014
was provided by Danica Joy
Montemayor, the official
representative of those who
petitioned the opening of review
subjects during the said period.
2) From the given list, names were
individually verified with the list of
applications for the October 2014 and
May 2015 CPA Board Exams which can
be verified by the list of testing
centers for each region.
3) From which, Arithmetic was
performed to calculate the number of
students who belong to a) First-time
Petitioners, b) First-time Non-
petitioners and c) Repeaters for the
October 2014 CPA Board Exams.
For the May 2015 CPA Board Exams,
the diversity of examinees made it
hard to classify those who took the
exam into definitive group, ergo, only
the weighted percentage passing rate
for those who took to the May 2015
CPA Board Exams was taken into
account for this paper.
Also, statistical tools such as chi-square (x2)
test for homogeneity was used to calculate
the presence of significant difference in the
passing rate among groups who took the
October 2014 CPA Board Exams.
Also, this paper recognizes a key assumption
which is the automatic division between three
cc: CACMW Group, KASAMA/SSC, SABM Dean, Accountancy Department Head, *VP Academic Affairs
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groups for the October 2014 CPA Board Exams
(i.e. passers and retakers of undergrad review
subjects).
However, this is justified since the primary
focus of this research is the comparison of the
petitioning groups performance to those who
dont belong to the said group (i.e. first time-
non petitioners and repeaters).
Also, Conditional and Failure status were
classified into a single criteria (i.e. non-
passing) since list of people who were given
conditional and failing status pursuant to the
October 2014 CPA Board Exams were not
identified by PRC.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. What was the performance of the
individuals belonging to the petitioning
group in the October 2014 and/or the May
2015 CPA Licensure Exams?
As seen from Table 1, there were 32
petitioners for the Summer term of A.Y. 2014-
2015.
From which, only 21 decided to take the
October 2014 CPA boards and 13 decided to to
take the May 2015 CPA boards.
From those who took the October 2014 CPA
Board exams, 14 students were able to pass
and 7 students otherwise.
While those 13 who took the May 2015 CPA
Board Exams, 7 belonged to the retakers from
the October 2014 CPA boards, 3 belonged to
the passing first-time takers and 3 were first-
time non-passers
It is also worthy to note that among these 32
students, there were 5 students who did not
apply/take for any CPA Boards for October
2014 and May 2015.
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Number of takes
Result of OCTOBER Result of MAY 2015
NAME OF PETITIONER for the CPA
2014 exam exam
Boards
1 ACIO, Glenn PASSED 1
2 AGSAOAY, Donna Mae NON-PASSING 1
3 ALZATE, Anneli Tahra NON-PASSING PASSED 2
4 APADA, Jed NON-PASSING 1
5 AYSON, Jannyn NON-PASSING PASSED 2
6 BANISA, Tessie NON-PASSING PASSED 2
7 BARADAS, Florraine PASSED 1
8 BERNARDO, Abby PASSED 1
9 BERNAS, Allan PASSED 1
10 BRAO, Danmar NON-PASSING PASSED 2
11 CACHIN, Razhel Green PASSED 1
12 CARUMAY, Jul NON-PASSING 1
13 CORPUZ, Angielyn NON-PASSING PASSED 2
14 CRUZ, Ma. Andrea 0
15 DIAZ, Donna Kristel PASSED 1
16 DIAZ, Jhonamae Grace PASSED 1
17 FRANCISCO, Rachel Anne PASSED 1
18 GAJARDO, Kristneil PASSED 1
19 GUERRERO, Jenny Anne PASSED 1
20 HUNNOB, Apryl PASSED 1
21 LABONETE, Kristine Joy PASSED 1
22 MOLINO, Julius Yomer PASSED 1
23 MONTEMAYOR, Danica NON-PASSING PASSED 2
24 NIEVA, Carisse Joy 0
25 NUNEZ, Audrey PASSED 1
26 PALGUE, Arlene NON-PASSING PASSED 2
27 QUITOR, Suren PASSED 1
28 SALES, Gianville 0
29 SY, Mark Jerwin 0
30 TICMAN, Kimberly Rose PASSED 1
31 ULAY, Michael Joe PASSED 1
32 VILLAMIN, Christine 0

Legend: Did not take the Exam

Table 1: List of Petitioners and their corresponding performance for the October 2014 and May 2015 CPA
Board Exams

cc: CACMW Group, KASAMA/SSC, SABM Dean, Accountancy Department Head, *VP Academic Affairs
 5

So that, to summarize the performance of d) 9.38%, 3 students, failed their first

those who petitioned in the Summer Term of take and are still to take their
A.Y. 2013-2014, the following statements can second try for the boards; and
be held true:
a) 15.63%, 5 students, havent took e) 0%, none, so far, have failed the
either the October 204 or May CPA Boards for more than two
2015 CPA Board Exams; time.

b) 53.13%, 17 students, were first-time

passers of the CPA Board Exams;
c) 21.83%, 7 students, were second-
time passers;
3.2 What is the population distribution of the
October 2014 CPA Board Exam Takers
according to first-time petitioning, first-
time non-petitioning and Repeaters?

CLASSIFICATION n PASSERS WEIGHTED NON- WEIGHTED NON-

PASSING RATE PASSERS PASSING RATE
First-time Petitioning 21 14 pax 4.88% 7 pax 2.43%
First-time Non- 134 97 pax 33.80% 37 pax 12.89%
petitioning
Repeaters 132 60 20.91% 72 25.09%
TOTAL 287 171 59.59% 116 40.41%

Table 2: Population distribution of October 2014 CPA Board Exams for SLU

As seen from Table 2 above, it can be seen
that bulk of the examinees for the October
2014 CPA Boards came from First-time Non-
petitioning and Repeating Groups. Only 21 out
of the 287 examinees belong to the
petitioning group.
Also, looking at the passing and non-passing
rate, the first-time non-petitioning group
ought to have little effect to the weighted
passing/failing rate.
This method of comparison is neglectful of the
effects on the established proportions for the
population distribution and sad to say such
method is applied to determine whether the
performance of a certain group was good or
not.
In this effect, the only fair way to establish
whether the passing/failing rate of the various
groups is different from each other is to
investigate the existence of a significant
difference among groups using chi (X2) square
using the Test for homogeneity.
3.3. Is there a significant difference in the
frequency of passers and non-passers for
the first-time petitioning and first-time
non-petitioning groups?
In this test, the First-time Non-petitioning
group will be compared to the First-time
petitioning group to examine whether the
passing/non-passing rate for each group is
significantly different.
This is to answer whether the decrease in the
over-all passing rate was due to the
petitioning group or not.
From the results presented in Table 3, it shows
that the Passing Rate and Non-passing rate for
the Petitioning group has no difference to the
result presented by the Non-petitioning
group.

cc: CACMW Group, KASAMA/SSC, SABM Dean, Accountancy Department Head, *VP Academic Affairs
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Non- And since the non-passing rate of the repeater

Passers Passers TOTAL group is lower than the norm group, it could
be said that the repeater group who took the
Petitioning Group 14 7 21 October 2014 CPA Board Exams have
Non-petitioning significantly pulled down the Board Exam
Group 97 37 134 results for the October 2014 boards for Saint
TOTAL 111 44 155 Louis University.
2
X comp 0.29
This means that the belief that the petitioning
= .5 X2 tab= .45 group have caused the decrease in the boards
passing rate of SLU is baseless. In fact, their
Table 3. Chi-square test comparing First-Time performance was equal to the performance of
Petitioning and First-time Non-petitioning Groups the first-time non-petitioners.
This means that the performance by the Therefore, these results prove that the level of
petitioning group during the October 2014 performance of students during the Board
CPA Board Exams was almost the same as to Exam cant be determined by the number of
the standard group which is the First-time times that a student has taken the prescribed
non-petitioning group. review subjects during his/her undergraduate
years.
3.4. Is there a significant difference in the
frequency of passers and non-passers for 3.5 What is the performance level of
the first-time non-petitioning and Repeater petitioning group in the May 2015 CPA
groups? Boards?

Non- CLASS n PASSERS NON-

Passers Passers TOTAL PASSERS
Repeaters 132 72 204 First-time 6 3 pax 3 pax
Non-petitioning Petitioning
Group 97 37 134 Repeater 7 7 pax 0
Petitioning
TOTAL 229 109 338
First-time Non- 70 32 pax 38 pax
X2 comp = 3.15*
petitioning
= .5 X2 tab= .45 Repeater Non- 84 50 34
Petitioning
Table 4. Chi-square test comparing Repeaters TOTAL 167 92 75
and First-time Non-petitioning Groups
Table 5. Summary of the May 2015 CPA Boards
Given the Table above, it can be seen that for SLU Examinees
there is a significant difference in the passing
and/or non-passing rate of the repeater group Given Table 5, it can be seen that the
from the standard group. performance of the petitioning group has
been utterly good with 76.92%, 10 out of 13
This means that theres a great difference in students, passing rate as opposed to the
the adjusted proportional value of the passing cumulative passing rate of 55.09% by Saint
and/or non-passing rate of the two groups. Louis University.

cc: CACMW Group, KASAMA/SSC, SABM Dean, Accountancy Department Head, *VP Academic Affairs

If
we go into details, the 76.92% passing rate of
the Petitioning group is higher than the 45.71%
and 59.52% passing rate for the First-time non-
petitioning and repeater non-petitioning
groups respectively.
4. Conclusion and research
recommendation
The research above has presented one of the
strongest proof that shows that students who
petition their subjects during the summer
term and are given chance to enroll it, with
proper guidance and instruction, are equally
competitive to take the CPA Board Exams.
This also disproves the claim that students
who petition their subject during the summer
term are not the cause for the decrease in the
passing rate of SLU.
Since this research is myopic to the case of
October 2014 and May 2015 CPA Board exams,
the researchers simply suggest for the
KASAMA/SSC to make a continuing research
program for this to examine further the
veracity of the established conclusion.
5. Program Recommendation
Since the initial petition to open Accountancy
review subjects was initially started during the
reign of the Executive Committee for A.Y. 2013-
2014, under the presidency of the lead author
of this research, it is highly suggested that the
KASAMA/SSC should continually monitor the
progress of the experimental act of opening
review subjects during the summer term.
If the initial results are strongly supported by
the succeeding performance of student
petitioners, it is highly suggested that the
KASAMA/SSC of the future should pursue the
implementation of an actual policy that would
not bar students from petitioning
review/similar subjects during the summer
term.
cc: CACMW Group, KASAMA/SSC, SABM Dean, Accountancy Department Head, *VP Academic Affairs
7
However, if future data proved otherwise, then
the KASAMA/SSC should also reconsider its
stand of supporting future petitioners.
In conclusion, a) pursuance of the
experimental policy of permitting students to
petition review subjects during summer or
short term, and b) close monitoring of the
performance of these petitioning students
after graduation in the board exams should be
the priority course of action by the incumbent
and the proximate future batches of
KASAMA/SSC officials.
As the supreme student organization within
the university that promotes and supports
student welfare and development, the SLU
KASAMA-SSC should continuously strive to
determine ways of improving present policies
and practices to address various student
concerns and to maximize their right to quality
educational services without compromising
the reputation of the school.
Acknowledgement
As promised, I would want to thank my CPA
friend, Danica Joy C. Montemayor (Block 3, 1st
year BSAc A.Y. 2009-2010), for her invaluable
contribution of fixing the list of petitioners for
the Summer Term of A.Y. 2013-2014 and
helping me review one-by-one the list of
passers and room allocations for various
testing areas for the October 2014 CPA Board
Exams.
Also, thank you to my co-authors who decided
to extend their assistance on the night of June
9, 2015.
May our work be not in vain!