Determiners of the students’ academic performance in accounting courses in distance education

Abstract

In Brazil, the education scenario has undergone many changes in recent decades, among the main ones is the expansion of higher education. Within this context, distance teaching has gained a significant importance due to the increase in enrollment presented in recent years, which increased 1.16 % of higher education enrollments in 2002 to 15.8 % in 2012 (INEP, 2013). It is necessary to pay attention to the quality of education offered on this accelerated growth. Thus, the aim of this study was to identify and analyze determiners of student achievement in Accounting courses in ENADE 2012, distance education. The guiding theory was the educational production function. To this end, it was selected a sample of 4.387 students from the Accounting courses, participants of ENADE 2012. For statistical tests, we used the Variance Component Model. According to the results, the variables related to the student, such as gender, marital status, ethnicity, income, scholarship or funding, high school, type of high school, hours of study, support conditions and participation in monitoring, are the ones which most strongly explain the academic performance. On the other hand, the variables: age, paid employment, internship, how the student was approved, parents’ education, number of books read, scientific research and extension participation didn’t show influence on the students’ academic performance in the distance education. These results suggest the need to monitor the development of teaching distance.