Does Online Learning Impact Accounting Students' Performance? An Empirical Answer from Kuwait

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to empirically assess and document the impact of online learning on the academic performance of accounting students at a business college in Kuwait. The main value of this study would be its effort to fill some of the gaps in the existing local and regional remote (distance) accounting education literature as e-learning is considered to be a new phenomenon in most developing countries including Kuwait. A linear regression model (OLS), correlation, and t-tests analyses using a sample of 143 accounting students, who were enrolled before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, were used to test the study's hypotheses. The results indicate that there was a statistically significant association between learning systems (class delivery models) and accounting students' performance explaining the superiority of the academic performance of accounting students utilizing online learning over the performance of the same group of students using traditional learning and showing the significant impact of learning systems on accounting students' performance. The study concluded by considering the implications of these findings, which can provide decision-makers with a useful benchmark for improving accounting programs by considering online learning as an alternative system to traditional learning and provide insights for future academic research.