Abstract:

This paper is the result of a study conducted in Accounting and Administration undergraduate of Porto Polytechnic Institute, focusing on three summer semester courses regarding the experience of distance accounting learning (DAL) during the COVID-19 context. During this period, the teachers had a huge challenge. In a week, all teaching methodologies were adapted to the e-learning context without training.

In this study, we applied an online questionnaire to the Porto Accounting and Business School, which belongs to one of Portugal's largest and most prestigious public Polytechnic Institutes ISCAP accounting students. We collected a set of 260 responses. In terms of methodology, we use a quantitative approach to analyse the frequencies of the answers. The questionnaire was divided into three main topics (characterisation of our sample, the teaching methodology and the quality of DAL). To reinforce the study, we also interviewed teachers involved in the DAL. We did a content analysis of the data collected in interviews. With these two approaches, it was possible to cross the results between the student's and teachers' opinions.

The main objective of this research has presented the point of view of the students and the teacher regarding this unique period and describe the lessons learned for the future.

Consistently, students prefer assessing in face-to-face assignments to using virtual distance assignments. In this case, they mention feeling anxious due to the technology dependence on internet quality. Also, they noted that questions are more comprehensive rather than memory nature in the virtual tests. The students believe their success would be more significant in the face-to-face assessment.

In a context where distance learning has become compulsory, the students needed incentives for the DAL experience. Other results were about teaching to improve interaction with students in a distance learning context. The students want more interaction with teachers. On the other hand, the teachers liked more the presential context because the interaction was more accessible and more effective. So, it's possible to validate the opinion of both sides. The assessment was another aspect mentioned by the teachers. It was challenging to evaluate in an e-learning context because of the fraud problem.

We had some limitations in the present study. The main limitation was concerning the sample because we collected only 260 responses from a total population accounting degree of 650 students. Another limitation concerns the number of interviews done. All these limitations do not allow generalising the results to the remaining accounting students.

Keywords:

Distance Accounting Learning, COVID-19, Innovation, Technology.