Motivation, Effort, and Distraction Factors Associated with Student Performance in an Undergraduate Financial Management Course: An Empirical Study at a US Public Residential University

Abstract

This is perhaps the first study of the impact of nineteen variables, divided into five factors, on students’ performance in an Undergraduate Financial Management course. We find that grades students would like to make in the course and their plan to take Chartered Financial Analyst or Certified Financial Planner exam among the motivation variables, their homework grades and attendance among the effort variables, their self-perceived math ability, and their cumulative grade point average have strong and consistent relationship with their performance in the course. Among the distraction factors, only job hours show some weak negative relationship with students’ overall performance.