The first three factors contain components of attitudes towards accounting as
identified in the adaptation of the TRA shown in Figure 1. The first factor measures
perceptions of accounting as a discipline and is labelled “intrinsic interest”. The items
that loaded heavily on this factor include: “accounting is interesting” with a factor
loading of 0.840, “I like accounting” with a factor loading of 0.807, and “I would enjoy
being an accountant” with a factor loading of 0.799. The “intrinsic interest” factor
explains 19.8 per cent of the variance between items surveyed. This grouping is
consistent with the components of intrinsic interest present in the literature reviewed
earlier.