Abstract:

Purpose:
Since finance relies on mathematical procedures and considerable quantitative skills, this study aims to investigate whether the level of math preparation prior to university has an impact on students’ performance in a financial investment course. Moreover, it aims to determine if this performance is gender dependent, and is shaped by the students’ achievement in the two prerequisite financial management courses.

Design/methodology/approach:
The sample consisted of 715 students who joined the “Banking and Finance” or the “Financial Engineering” majors offered by the Faculty of Business Administration and Economics at one Lebanese university adopting the American system of education. Data is accessed from the university’s SIS and SPSS was used to analyze it. A threshold regression is adopted where the threshold variable is the student’s GPA.

Findings:
Descriptive statistics reveal that 52% of the students in this study are male and the other 48% are female; and 35% of the whole sample were admitted into the business school with a remedial math course required. Results reveal that in the investment course under investigation, the students’ performance is found to be negatively and significantly correlated with their mathematical ability, but positively and significantly correlated with their performance in microeconomics. What is surprising is that this performance is not significantly dependent on their achievement in the prerequisite financial management course. For those students with a GPA of 2.7 and higher, gender seems to matter significantly, where male outperformed their female counterparts, and the performance in the co-requisite financial management course is found to positively and significantly shape students’ performance in investment.

Originality/value:
No previous studies are found on the factors affecting Lebanese students’ performance in a financial investment course, and here lies this research’s value. The findings have important implications for finance curriculum setters, finance instructors and decision makers in the university admissions office.

Keywords:

Students’ performance, financial education, prerequisites, gender, mathematical abilities, GPA.