A percepção sobre a contribuição da prática contábil simulada para a aprendizagem significativa: estudo em uma instituição pública federal de ensino superior

Abstract

This study aimed to identify and describe the students’ perceptions of the Accounting course from the Federal University of Uberlândia regarding the contribution of the simulated accounting practice in the syllabus of Accounting Lab I and Accounting Lab II for the skills acquisition (knowledge, competences and attitudes) required for professional practice. It is a descriptive study considering the objectives, with quantitative and qualitative approach and technical bibliographical procedures, documentary and field study. The data were collected through a quiz, and the final sample counted 115 (one hundred and fifteen) answers, in order to respond to the three hypotheses of the study: H1 - the institutional resources used in simulations influence the skills acquisition; H2 - the prior knowledge has an effect on practice learning and influences the skills acquisition; H3 - accounting practice, through simulations, contributes to the skills acquisition. The quantitative data, treated through the mean comparison test (Student’s t-distribution and Variance Analysis), have evidenced that the physical structure has a significant difference in students learning. Regarding the H2, it was observed that in the students' perception, whereas the theoretical knowledge has a significant influence, the previous practical knowledge resulting from employment and internship does not have a significant influence on the skills acquisition. Relative to H3 it was verified that the practice in the simulations format contributes to the acquisition of knowledge, skills and attitudes, however, the results showed that the average skills were close to the intermediate value on a scale of 0 to 10, in other words, students realize that they develop their skills, but there isn't an extreme value that denotes the maximum possible level of learning through the simulations strategy. The research also revealed that there is a difference in the mean between the courses of Accounting Lab I and Accounting Lab II, regarding the acquisition of knowledge and skills, however, with the highest averages for Accounting Lab I, wherein this result can be due to the fact an initial positive perception of the discipline, but while attending, this reality is not confirmed. In the Similitude Analysis, the qualitative data treated in the Iramuteq software, confirmed that the students would choose the practice in an organizational context, by the supervised internship, instead of simulations, when comparing the different formats of the practice offer.