Female accounting students and their academic performance: evidence from Kuwait

Purpose - This study aims to compare the academic performance of female accounting students with their male counterparts and to assess the impact and association between gender and the academic performance of accounting students graduating from the College of Business Studies (CBS) in Kuwait. Design/methodology/approach - The sample consisted of 141 accounting students, who graduated during 2015 from CBS. Independent samples test, correlation and linear least squares regression analyses tested the hypotheses. Findings - The results indicate that there was a statistically significant association between gender and accounting students’ performance, which explained the superiority of the performance of the female students’ group over the performance of the male students’ group and explained the significant impact of gender on accounting students’ performance, with and without controls for other factors. Practical implications - The findings have practical implications for how the administration of CBS and similar educational institutions should take action. The findings suggest that the administration of CBS should adopt policies that impose and encourage the acceptance of more female accounting students, as they perform well in accounting and their academic performance is better than their male counterparts. Originality/value - The study makes significant contributions to the existing knowledge in the area of students’ performance by empirically supporting the theoretical expectation of the impact of gender on accounting students’ performance. It provides a foundation for future comparative studies, potentially leading to the harmonization of international accounting education. It also addresses some of the shortfalls in the existing regional accounting education literature resulting from the scarcity of prior studies, where little has been published.