Cebu Institute of Technology – University

College of Management, Business, and Accountancy

N. Bacalso Ave., Cebu City 6000

"Factors influencing failure of honor students from Top 3

Cebu City Universities in the CPA Licensure Examination"

Researchers:

Abastas, Jeane

Posadas, Cyan Marie

Rellin, Tricia Mae

Soterol, Sharriz R.

Torrijos, Arah Mhae

Instructor:

Mrs. Junaline Sapariya

RATIONALE

Over the years, people always expect an honor student to excel in everything –

not just in their academic status but all aspects throughout their journey as a student.

An honor student is a student who is constantly acknowledged for achieving excellent

remarks and performance during their academe years. People usually expect these

types of students to establish an image of themselves right after they’ve graduated –

like topping the board exam and land a high-paying job afterwards. The elevated

standards obtained by these types of students ought to be an inspiration for them since

no one ascends to low expectations yet setting a high bar would rather to prompt both

of these outcomes: an inspired student or a compelled one.

It is a mystery to everyone as to why students who are top performers during

their college years do not pass their respective board exams even if they have learned

or acquired good study habits. These students are considered as academically

prepared and yet why do they flunk this kind of examination. According to (Cherif et al.,

2013), the many reasons students provided for failing courses and colleges were

grouped into seven main categories, including motivation (35%), study habits (17%),

academic preparedness, (12%), external factors (11%), attitudes (11%), instruction

(10%), and relevancy issues (4%). Motivation and study habits were mentioned most

frequently as the root cause of student failure at the college level. These two factors, as

well as academic readiness and student attitudes (which were mentioned third and the

fourth most frequently) are fundamentally under the control of the students. The

instruction, instructional materials, and instructors, over which faculty, educators, and

college administrators have power, were a distant sixth. This means that students are
aware that the reason why they fail courses most often resides within themselves and

are under their own power and responsibility.

Graduate accountancy students are required to achieve at least 75% or a higher

percentage score to pass the Certified Public Accountant Licensure Examination and to

legally practice in public or private the accounting knowledge with the CPA title next to

their names. Universities are quick to emphasize that the sole purpose of their program

is not to produce graduates capable of passing the licensing exam, but also to produce

graduates who practice accountancy that reflects the objectives of the school. However,

each is faced with the fact that licensing exams can pull up some tensions, anxiety and

other factors that can possibly affect the performance of the students before and after

the board.

In the 2019 and 2018 CPA Licensure Examination, the results are the following:

(1) May 2019 - 1,699 out of 10,319 (16.46%); (2) October 2019 - 2,075 out of 14,492

(14.32%); (3) October 2018 – (3,616 out of 14,358 (25.18%; and (4) May 2018 - 2,843

out of 9,830 (28.92%). With the given data, it is evident that there is a decline in the

number of board passers. The said declines tell us a story that there is something

wrong and there is an explanation as to why the passing rate is decreasing yearly.

         Another thing is that the total projected accounting enrollments are down 4%

from the highs of 2016, but are still among the highest on record. (1) In this course, only

those students with potential for success on the CPALE should be admitted and

retained in the accounting program. Hence, it will prevent the development of programs
with a limited scope and a lack of quality; for that reason, will allow faculty to gear their

teaching to students who are likely to be successful.

         While there are numerous studies about the kind of study that we, the

researchers, are doing, most of these studies only covers the correlation of the

academic performance of students and their board examination results. These studies

only focus if there is a relationship between the two variables and all studies have a

common result. Thus, the researchers came up with the idea to deepen the

understanding and know the reason for the failure of these honor students.

Every course in college is a fight for survival and only the strongest will remain.

Every student is screened and filtered along with the university’s objective to produce

the best students with excellent academic performance. By identifying the factors that

influence why some outstanding students fail their licensure examinations and using

these factors as guidelines for board takers to avoid feeling pressured, stressed, and

tense during the exam. Thus, it will be reasonable to expect fewer failures, higher

average scores on the CPALE and greater student faculty satisfaction using this

approach.
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

A consistent-honor student is a student who is constantly recognized for achieving high

grades during his or her academic years. This creates the stigma that if one is a
(2)
consistent-honor student, he will excel in everything. Academic performance (grade

average) of examinees gives no assurance (not a determinant on passing the PRC

examination.

Research Aims: To determine the factors influencing the failure of honor students from

Top 3 Cebu City Universities in the CPA Licensure Examination.

Research Objectives: This research seeks:

1. To identify the common factors and reasons for their failure.

2. To have a better understanding of how students deal with pressure.

3. To give awareness and to avoid such situations.

4. To help current accountancy students improve their academic

competence and motivate them.

5. To know how previous takers overcome the situation and how they

motivate themselves to try again.

METHODOLOGY

Research Design

This study is qualitative in nature as it will tackle the experience of the research

participants. To get an in-depth opinion from participants, a survey questionnaire shall

be distributed and a virtual interview shall occur. The survey questionnaire shall be a

mixed questionnaire which is a combination of both closed and open-ended questions.

For the virtual interview, a semi-structured interview shall be used which is a

combination of unstructured interview and structured interview. The said interview shall

be helpful in gathering qualitative information about people's experiences, opinions and

feelings which is one of the objectives of this study.

Research participants

The participants of the study are the accounting graduates from three universities in

Cebu City, Philippines, with the highest number of passing rates namely the: (1)

University of San Carlos (USC); (2) University of Cebu (UC); and (3) University of Cebu

- Lapu-Lapu and Mandaue (UCLM). The participant should be an honor student that

failed in the CPALE that commenced on October 2019 in order to be qualified as a

research participant. As the researchers estimated, there shall be 36 participants

partaking this study.

Sample and Sampling Methods

For the sample size, the researchers opt to use the standard formula to calculate the

sample size and used the 95% confidence level for a population size of 57 failed takers

as a means of obtaining respondents. The researchers will use the simple random

sampling for the statistical measurement method. Since any individual of the population

has an equal probability of being chosen and this sampling technique is meant to be an

unbiased representation of a group, simple random sampling is a rational way to select

a sample from a population of 57.

Selection of the Sample

This study shall conduct a survey to determine the number of students with consistent

honors who took the CPALE board exam in 2019 in the 3 universities that have

excellent performance during the examination. The researchers have therefore decided

that only the number of respondents in the Cebu City region will be considered as

respondents. After obtaining the number of participants, the researchers will then

determine which participants were an honor student during their academe years. After

having this information, the researchers will then perform a random sampling to collect

numerical data and come up with the final list of participants.

Data Gathering

The approval of the University President from the top 3 universities on the conduct of

the study will be secured. Request letters addressed to the Department Heads will be

sent out which shall contain the request for the academic records of the takers such as

college GWA to prove that takers were an honor student. Securing the needed papers

to conduct an official interview to the takers is also important to protect the privacy of
each part. Google forms survey questionnaires or interviews will be used by

researchers conducting the survey, whichever is applicable.

Methods of Data Collection

For the survey questionnaire, the researchers will contact the participants and let them

know the date of the distribution of such questionnaires. In the commencement of the

research, the researchers will give the participants one (1) week to answer and return

the survey questionnaires. While participants that will partake the virtual interview, the

researchers will schedule an agreed time and date between the two parties. During the

day of the scheduled date, the researchers will send a one representative to conduct

the interview. One-by-one interview shall be done to avoid intimidating the participant

because having a panel to interview them can be overwhelming.

Research Instrument

The survey questionnaire shall be distributed to the participants through Google Docs. It

shall consist of a combination of closed and open-ended questions. Such questions

shall also serve as a guide in conducting the virtual interview. The table below shall

summarize the survey questionnaire:

Items Type of Question Information

Nos. 1-4 Multiple Choice Personal Data
Nos. 5-6 Multiple Choice Study habits during college

days
No. 7 Open-ended How to deal with problem
Nos. 9-10 Multiple Choice Study Preference
No. 11 Open-ended Study habits that helped
 during examination
Nos. 12-14 Likert Scale Preparedness to take the

CPALE
No. 15 Open-ended The presence of pressure
Nos. 16-17 Multiple Choice Post examination

sentiments
Nos. 18-20 Open-ended Realizations

Data Analysis

To assess the sample population, the researcher first analyzed as to how the three

universities in Cebu City performed during the October 2019 board exam, as well as the

number of first-time takers who failed. The following data was gathered:

2019 Licensure exam results

School No. of No. of No. of failed

takers passer takers

USC 97 59 38
© October 2019 CPA
UC 13 3 10
UC-LM 12 3 9 board exam result:
Total 122 65 57
performance of schools

- PRC Board News

As to how the data results gathered from the survey questionnaires and virtual interview

shall be analyzed, the researchers will use the Quantitative Data Analysis. Even though

this type is used for a quantitative research, this analysis can also be used in qualitative

research. The collected data will be categorized and converted into a Coding System.

Then such categories will be transferred to a Data Tabulation which will show the show
the frequency of each categories. Lastly, the researchers can draw a conclusion using a

Descriptive Statistical Technique.

Ethical Considerations

The researchers will ensure the privacy of our participants. All gathered data shall be

dealt with confidentiality and participants may remain anonymous depending on their

request. As for the reason why, the researchers only included the first takers of the

CPALE as their participants is that we do not want to disturb the emotional stability of

those repeaters. The researchers understand that this kind of study is sensitive and that

failing the board examination is not an easy thing to deal with. We believe that after

failing more than once is hard for them and it is a topic that cannot easily be shared with

others.
TIMETABLE
DATE ACTION
January 25 – 29, 2021
February 1 - 5, 2021
February 8 - 12, 2021
February 15 - 19, 2021
February 22 - 26, 2021
March 1 - 5, 2021
March 8 - 12, 2021
March 15 – 21, 2021
March 22 - 26, 2021
March 29 – April 9, 2021
April 19 – April 30 , 2021
May 3 – May 28, 2021
 Brainstorming for Research Title
and Research Problem
 Identifying the 5 W’s
 Making of Primary Research
through survey questionnaire or
interview
 Secondary Research (Review of
Related Literature)
 Formation of Survey Questionnaire
and Finding a Review of Related
Literature
 Writing of Initial Project Proposal
 Revision of Project Proposal
 Selection of Interview Sample
 Reaching out to the respondents
 Sending out the survey
questionnaires
 Reviewing and organization of
data
 Oral Defense of Research
Proposal
 Contacting potential respondents
and schedule a meeting
 Conduct virtual interview
 Send out survey questionnaires
 Data Collection
  Record and categorize the

responses form the survey

questionnaire

 Send letter to those respondents

who failed to submit survey

questionnaire
May 31 – June 30, 2021  Data Analysis

 Categorize returned survey

questionnaires

 Make sure all responses are

submitted and analyzed

July 1 – July 31, 2021  Finalize the contents of the

research paper

 Drawing conclusions
August 2 – 13, 2021  Compilation of research output
August 16 – 20, 2021  Oral Defense of Research
BUDGET

BUDGET
1. INTERNET CONNECTION ₱1,500

2. SUPPLIES
2.1 Bond papers 180
2.2 Pens 50
2.3 Printing expenses 1,000
2.4 Hard Binding 500

3. TRAVEL EXPENSES
3.1 Transportation 1,000
3.2 Food 1,000

4. CONTINGENCY BUDGET 500

GRAND TOTAL ₱5,730

DISSEMENATION

This research will serve as a reference to the future takers of CPALE to help and

let them see the possibilities of what are the common factors and reasons of failure of

consistent honor students in the CPALE. The researchers aim to raise awareness for

future participants, to protect themselves from peer pressure and the weight that they

are bearing from being a consistent honor. This research may also serve as a guide in

motivating and strengthening their purpose of achieving the CPA title. Through the

process and hard work of making this research significant to the takers.

The researchers will disseminate the results of our study by coordinating with the

CIT E-library and those Universities that are part of this research to make sure that

copies of the study will be distributed to upcoming takers and soon to be takers of the

said universities. With the help from the school's Computer Science Department, the

researchers will coordinate with the encoding and updating the papers to the websites.

Upon the researcher agreement, there will be an additional dissemination

through presentations of data via conference at the review center, in school activities

related to the degree and published through peer-reviewed journals.

LIMITATIONS AND ASSUMPTIONS

Although the researchers prepared thoroughly in order to create a comprehensive

research proposal, there were some aspects that are not in our hands to deal with. The

sample size for the population is only an estimate for the reason that in order for us to

know the number of the honor students in each university, we will need the academic

records of each participant. This step can only be achieved in the actual

commencement of the research which means that the number of sample sizes of the

population may change when the research commences.

REFERENCES

 Garcia, Gary.(2013).Academic Performance as Determinant to Pass the

Licensure Examination for Teachers. JPAIR Institutional Research. Retrieved

from:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287503773_Academic_Performance_a

s_Determinant_to_Pass_the_Licensure_Examination_for_Teachers#:~:text=The

%20correlation%20coefficient%20between%20examinee's,in%20the

%20Professional%20Education%20subjects.

 PRC.( 2019 October). PRC Board News. CPA board exam result: performance of

schools.

October 2019: https://www.prcboard.com/2019/10/list-of-passers-cpa-board-

exam-result.html

PRC 2018 Board Exam Results

May 2018: https://www.prc.gov.ph/article/may-2018-certified-public-accountant-

licensure-examination-results-released-five-5-working

October 2018: https://www.prc.gov.ph/article/october-2018-certified-public-

accountant-licensure-examination-results-released-six-6

PRC 2019 Board Exam Results

May 2019: https://www.prcboardnews.com/2019/05/cpale-results-may-2019-cpa-

board-exam-list-of-passers.html
October 2019: https://www.prcboard.com/2019/10/list-of-passers-cpa-board-

exam-result.html