and two other anonymous referees, for their constructive comments on earlier drafts.

The present paper provides empirical evidence regarding the academic performance of university students studying accounting. In particular, the effect of student origin is investigated by comparing the accounting performance of resident and international students. The present study controls for a number of other key variables, including ability, anxiety, work experience in accounting, accounting study prior to university and enrolment status. The question of whether international student performance improves over time through an acculturation effect is also investigated. Bivariate analyses revealed higher anxiety and lower general ability for international "vis-à-vis" resident students yet no significant difference in accounting performance between the two groups. After controlling for key variables, an association was observed between student origin and accounting performance with superior performance reported for the international student cohort. Statistically significant relationships were also observed between accounting performance and ability, anxiety, employment experience in accounting, enrolment status and accounting study prior to university. An acculturation effect was not clearly evidenced. Copyright AFAANZ, 2004..

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This paper considers the association between instruction style and student academic performance, and draws from recent laboratory research where accounting student performance was found to be closely associated with the effect of instructor behaviour upon student task motivation and deep learning. Drawing upon emergent motivation theory, we discuss the proposition that appropriate instructor behaviours, through their positive effect upon student task motivation, anxiety and emergent confidence, can induce an upward performance shift, or interrupt a downward shift. A performance spiral model is modelled whereby students carry with them the learning responses from repeated good (or poor) performance into subsequent task settings, with corresponding accentuated effects upon anxiety and motivation.