Introductory Accounting Students' Motives, Expectations and Preparedness for Higher Education: Some Portuguese Evidence

Abstract

In Portugal, the massive expansion and diversification of higher education has led to a large and diverse student population. This has impacted on the complexity of the higher education learning environment and has implications for the teaching and learning activities. Thus, the current study examines Portuguese introductory accounting students' motives, expectations and preparedness for higher education. In general, Portuguese students of introductory accounting seem to value a mix of motives relating to intellectual growth, career focus and self-development aspects. The results also suggest that accounting students seem to value the study of accounting more than non-accounting students, yet, they appear to be less prepared to work independently than the rest of the students. In addition, the female students seem to feel more prepared to face higher education requirements and responsibilities than the male students.

Key Words:

• Motivation
• expectations
• preparedness
• higher education
• introductory accounting
• Portuguese students

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Professor Marann Byrne for allowing the use of the questionnaire ‘Motives, Expectations and Preparedness for Higher Education’ and to Teresa Pataco (ISCAP/IPP) for translating the questionnaire into Portuguese. We are grateful for the collaboration of the students and the lecturers who participated in this study.

We are also grateful for the comments received at the BAFA AE SIG 2013 Conference and for the comments of two anonymous reviewers and the support from the Editor and Associate Editor of Accounting Education: An International Journal.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

This research was financially supported by the Doctoral Research Support Programme, PROTEC (SFRH/BD/49559/2009), granted by the Portuguese Science Foundation (FCT, Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia) and the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education (MCTES, Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Ensino Superior).

Notes

1 For an overview of the Portuguese higher education system and the Bologna process, see, for example, Correia et al. (2002), Amaral and Magalhães (2004), Afonso and Santos (2005), Tavares, Tavares, Justino, and Amaral (2008) and Veiga and Amaral (2012). For an overview of research on student learning within the Portuguese context, see, for example, Rosário and Oliveira (2006), Duarte (2007), Valadas, Gonçalves, and Faísca (2009, 2010) and Chaleta, Grácio, Machado, Ferreira, and Correia (2010). And, for an overview of Portuguese accounting education, see, for example, Gomes (2007), Rodrigues, Craig, and Gomes (2007), Gomes, Carnegie, and Rodrigues (2014) and Teixeira (2013).

2 Permission for using and translating the inventory was given by Professor Marann Byrne in March 2012. The questionnaire was translated into Portuguese by Teresa Pataco, who is a professional translator, with the assistance of the authors concerning specific adjustments consistent with the purpose of the study. The translation process was based on the functionalist approach, focusing on the function of the translated text, that is, the target text (Munday, 2001).