Estilos e estratégias de aprendizagem: um estudo com discentes do curso de Ciências Contábeis

Abstract

The Accounting undergraduate course is the fourth in the national ranking in number of enrollments in higher education. The academic performance of students in external examinations (Enade and the sufficiency exam of the National Accounting Council) has been lower than expected. This fact has become the focus of researches in accounting education area, for pointing out shortcomings in the teaching and learning process. In this regard, several studies in psychology and education seek to understand the factors that affect the learning process in students, the strategies they use to improve their learning, and to understand the preferred way to process the information. This study has the general objective to analyze the relationship between learning styles and learning strategies used by students of Accounting courses. The model for the identification of learning styles was the ISL by Felder and Soloman (1991). The research analyzes the profile of the students; identify the predominant styles and strategies, and the relationship between styles and learning strategies adopted by students of that course. The theoretical framework comprised three sections in order to (a) show the process of teaching and learning in higher education, (b) discuss the theory of learning, with an emphasis on self-regulated learning and also present learning strategies, and (c) demonstrate the learning styles shown in the literature. To achieve the objectives, a quantitative and descriptive research was carried out, and it used the survey method. It was developed with students enrolled in face-to-face Accounting courses in Uberlândia (MG). The sample corresponds to 1147 students linked to 5 HEI. The questionnaire was applied in person at each HEI, and it was organized in three stages: the first one explored the characteristics of the respondents, the second presented ILS questions by Felder and Soloman (1991) with the objective of measuring the learning styles, and finally, the third addressed the questions to verify the use of learning strategies relying on the instrument proposed by Boruchovitch et al.. (2006). For data analysis, we used descriptive statistics, multiple comparison test of proportions, Kruskal-Wallis test and the Generalized Linear Models. The results show that the predominant students’ learning styles are active, sensory, visual and sequential; regarding the use of learning strategies it was found that students plan their activities through metacognitive strategies, but they do not implement them since the score related to the lack of use of learning strategies were superior to cognitive strategies. It was observed that the behavior of styles and learning strategies show statistically significant differences when related to demographic factors (gender, age and professional experience). Concerning the relationship between the variables under study, it was found that only in the dimensions ‘retention’ and ‘understanding’ the interaction between both proved to be significant. Based on the results, it suggested teachers to diversify the teaching methods used in classes in order to benefit many learning styles as well as develop an educational program directed to students’ self-regulation of learning through teaching and assistance for the use of learning strategies.