Background of the Study

In the background of the study, we discussed the Qualifying Examination in

general, the key issues and controversies surrounding the topic, as well as the major
findings and recommended solutions mentioned in several studies that is inclined with
the research topic we conducted.
According to the Commission on Higher Education, accounting is a profession
that serves a vital and crucial function in the society. The goal of the students in the
Bachelor of Science in Accountancy program after graduating is to take the CPA
licensure examination and become a Certified Public Accountant and as a CPA, they
must have a broad global perspective in order to understand the context in which
businesses and other organizations operate. So, with this, one of the tasks of
accounting professors is to teach students the accounting lessons thoroughly to
produce competent professional accountants in the future. As a result, different
institutions have also established their own requirements or policies to determine which
students qualify for the Bachelor of Science in Accountancy program.
According to Salcedo et. al (2021), these qualifications or policies may involve a
stringent grade requirement just like the Dos Policy in BSA Program here in PLV or
successfully passing a series of qualifying examination. We all know that the goal of
BSA students is to become a CPA but before students can claim the title of Certified
Public Accountant, they must first face a number of challenges, one of which is passing
the qualifying examination. Qualifying Examinations (QE) are given to B.S. Accountancy
students to determine their eligibility to continue in the program and to help them
improve their academic performance. It is also given to accountancy students in order to
help them prepare for the CPA licensure examinations that they will take once they
have graduated from college and with this, students will be able to review their previous
subjects. As stated by Garalza (2018), with qualifying examination, students will get a
taste of what the board exam would be like after graduating, this includes the stress
they might face and the difficulty of all the subjects they will need to review.
Authors have noted different factors that affects the students’ performance while
taking the examination. Some of these are psychological health, physical health,
academic performance, social life, lightings, minimized noise levels, ventilation, and
minimal distractions, family and school characteristics, also individual student traits,
school resources, and institutional environment.
On the research article, Factors Affecting the Takers of the Qualifying
Examinations as Part of the Accountancy Program Retention Policy: The Case of a
University in Central Luzon Philippines, there are 187 students (63.6%) who are
qualified, 49 students (16.7%) who are on probation, and 58 students (19.7%) who are
disqualified from the program out of 294 respondents. Contrastingly, based on the study
of Doral et al. (2017), entitled Causes of Failures of Students Taking Qualifying
Examination, only 49 out of 203 examinees (or 24.13 percent) passed the qualifying
examination held at their school in March 2017. Meanwhile, in the study entitled
Qualifying Examination Performance of the Accountancy Students in University of
Luzon in Dagupan City (as cited in Doral, et al., 2017) findings showed that out of 337
examinees, 242 (64%) failed the qualifying exam, while only 135 (36%) passed. Data
from several studies showed that majority of qualifying examinations being conducted in
different institutions often have a low passing rate that is why the researchers focused
on this topic.