Self-Regulated Learning in Accounting : Diagnosis , Dimensions and Explanations

This research analyzes self-regulated learning in Accounting students in two public universities, presenting diagnosis, dimensions and possible explanations, contextualized from the gender, age and stage in the course. The objectives of this paper include to: (a) identify the self-regulated learning strategies used by Accounting students in two public universities, (b) determine the dimensions associated with those strategies, and (c) analyze how these strategies could be explained on the basis of gender, age or stage (semester) of the students in the course. A sample consisting of 249 individuals revealed that gender and age are factors that influence the degree of self-regulation of a student. Women and younger students tend to have higher levels of self-regulated learning, however, in the stage analysis, the results did not show normal distribution, thus demonstrating the impossibility of realizing the increase or decrease of the degree of self-regulated learning among respondents. These results contribute to the practice of teaching accounting, as older students and those with a male gender should receive more special attention in relation to their development of self-regulated, independent and proactive learning.


INTRODUCTION
iven the current context in which the accounting profession finds itself, Accounting teaching has taken the challenge to keep up with changes in the profession and to contemplate education aimed at encouraging independent and self-regulated learning practices.The current situation of professional practice challenges the academic community with the expectation that students (future professionals) will be adaptable to change and market demands.In this context, attention focused on the learning of these students became the key issue to achieve these aspirations.In understanding Tuysuzoglu (2011), the purpose of education should not be only to accumulate knowledge, but above all, to raise the level of students' thinking skills.
The objectives of this paper include to: (a) identify the self-regulated learning strategies used by Accounting students in two public universities in Bahia (State in Brazilian Northeast), (b) determine the dimensions associated with such strategies, and (c) analyze how these strategies could be explained on the basis of gender, age or stage (semester) of the students in the course.
Educational research carried out in recent decades has advocated greater independence on the part of students in the teaching-learning process (LOMBAERTS et al., 2008, GARNER, 2009;TUYSUZOGLU, 2011).Particularly, in accounting, the changes required in the process of the harmonization of Brazilian international standards have promoted discussions in the educational context.Accounting professionals must possess a critical stance and assume the role of apprentices throughout careers (SMITH, 2001).Faced with this demand, the accounting profession has demanded of the academic community, especially of educational research, prospects for the preparation of students for professional life, principally engaged in learning skills and continuing education (SCHLEIFER; DULL, 2009;MARTIN;DOWSON, 2009).(AECC, 1990) and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA, 2000) point to the need for training in the classroom, leading students (of Accounting) to adopt attributes and permanent learning skills.

Recommendations of the Accounting Education Change Commission
The contribution and the expected impacts of this study are to provide a review of current literature on the phenomenon of self-regulated learning, its suitability to the teaching of Accounting, and to diagnose learning manifested by accountancy students in two public G BBR, Braz.Bus. Rev. (Engl. ed., Online), Vitória, v. 12, n. 1, Art. 2, p. 36 -54, jan.-feb. 2015 www.bbronline.com.bruniversities in Bahia (State in Brazilian Northeast).These results can be replicated in the future with students from other institutions, attest relations enabling learning in other contexts.
The findings of this study intend additionally to contribute to the teaching of accounting given the importance of analyzing the strategies of appropriation and transfer of knowledge to new learning.The literature on accounting education is relatively small despite the existence of international studies involving self-regulated learning (TUYSUZOGLU, 2011;BEZZINA, 2010;JONES et al., 2010), and the proposed objectives for this study are singular in the context of academic production on the Teaching of Accounting in Brazil.

THEORETICAL
People accumulate a significant amount of different types of knowledge throughout their lives.This diversity of information serves different purposes.To Schraw (2006), there are three main types of knowledge: declarative, procedural and self-regulated.Declarative knowledge corresponds to knowledge of facts and concepts, while procedural knowledge is knowledge of how to do things.This author described declarative and procedural knowledge as the building blocks for the development of cognitive skills, but the development of such skills need to be structured around the autoregulation of knowledge, without which even large amounts of declarative and procedural knowledge are unlikely to help people survive and adapt (ZEIDNER et al., 2000;ZIMMERMAN, 2000;ARTINO JUNIOR;STEPHENS, 2009).
John H. Flavell, in the 1970s, from work on memory and learning has become one of the pioneering scholars of metacognition, defined as the knowledge that the subject has about his own knowledge or mental processes.From this research (FLAVELL, 1976), other studies have been developed defining metacognition as cognition cognition, ie where one commands one's own cognitive processes and products.However, with a more detailed examination of these definitions for the term metacognition, it is possible to find a common essence with regard to cognitive control populated by a set of internal mechanisms that promote, produce, record and consider information, as well as monitoring and self-regulating their own intellectual processing.
Based on the understanding that metacognition can promote intellectual self-regulation, a group of researchers led by Barry Zimmerman presented the perspective of self-regulated learning or Self-Regulated Learning (SRL).Educational researchers argue that there are significant differences between self-regulated learners and those who need external regulation in their learning (ARIAS et al., 1999;XU et al., 2010;RICHTER;SCHMID, 2010).The selfregulated are decided, strategic, persistent and able to assess their progress, whereas the nonself-regulating do not have defined educational goals, thus having a greater dependence on cognitive (ZIMMERMAN, 2001).
Self-regulated learning is influenced by the constructivist paradigm that emphasizes the role of the student in the learning process (DRESEL;HAUGWITZ, 2008).In this perspective, SRL is defined from the socio-cognitive perspective, as how thoughts, feelings and attitudes generated by the individual, are designed and tailored to the needs of performing their own motivation and learning (ZIMMERMAN; KITSANTAS, 1997;MILLER;BYRNES, 2001;SCHUNK, 2005;BOEKAERTS;KAROLY;MAES, 2005;DINSMORE et al., 2008).SLR is a process that establishes the active participation of the individual.It requires awareness of the goals to be achieved, recognizes the demands of the action to be achieved, discriminates and establishes the internal and external resources for the implementation of the action, assesses the level of achievement and amends procedures used if the result reached was not planned (DEMETRIOU, 2000;PAJARES, 2002).
According to Jones et al. (2010), the self-regulation of learning includes two key factors: the motivation to learn and controllability.Among the capabilities expected in selfregulated students are the ability to self-monitor and self-manage their learning process.To do so, they must exploit their knowledge about the strategies, and when to use a particular strategy, and have good organizational skills such as planning, monitoring and the evaluation of learning.
For self-regulated learning, a student must be able to accurately assess their own performance and use this evaluation to select a new learning task.In a recent survey conducted with 80 Dutch high school students, the authors concluded that SRL plays an important role in the learning of the individuals surveyed and that training of this skill can significantly increase their competence and their cognitive domain (KOSTONS et al., 2012).
These discussions converge in some cognitive perspectives of SRL and share some general assumptions: the profile of the self-regulated learner is active and constructive, which therefore establishes goals for their learning, and watching this process, which seeks to regulate and control their cognition, motivation and behavior, guided and constrained by their goals and the contextual features in the environment (TUYSUZOGLU, 2011).Identify and analyze the main processes, by means of which the subjects (students) can regulate their learning, thus autonomous, self-regulated learning, as active, independent and responsible, are key features for adequate adaptation to the demands of the constants changes in society (PATTERSON;LEE, 2010;GARNER, 2009).Tuysuzoglu (2011) reiterates that the student must be responsible for their learning process, which does not mean the possible elimination of the teacher in the management of learning activity.The student has to learn to learn, be "autoteaching", be able to prepare, facilitate and regulate learning, provide feedback and judgment of achievement, foster motivation and concentration.
Zimmerman and Martinez-Ponz (1986) showed fourteen possible self-regulated learning strategies, presented in Figure 1, with added examples by Rosário (1999).Its use gives the student a valuable tool, and is highly correlated with the indices of academic success and the teachers' opinion about their degree of self-regulation in the classroom.citizenship and thus perform conscious choices in life, and d) prepares the student for the labor market, developing skills and competencies for the conscious exercise of the profession.
Transformations in society occur at a speed never seen before.We live in a time with fast developments in all fields of life.Accounting, as an applied social science, must accompany these processes of change, assimilating and adapting to new social settings.
Companies now assume multiple roles and social responsibilities such as health and education in the communities in which they are located, along with their environmental responsibilities.
With technological progress, which has encouraged the opening up of the international market, Brazilian accounting practices must now be harmonized with international standards.
The accounting professional, face these challenges and changes at ever increasing speed, must adapt to meet demands in a timely fashion.He or she needs to master all of these scenarios, with a useful skill set and a willingness to cooperate with the preservation of the planet, for the prosperity and enhancement of corporate man.The accountant must be able to disseminate social responsibility withn their organization and in companies providing services.
The accounting profession thus has challenged the academic community to prepare students for the profession requiring as the foundation, learning throughout life, enabling graduates to "learn to learn" and maintain the skills, knowledge and professional guidance necessary for success in the profession (SCHLEIFER; DULL, 2009).
For Becker (2011), the accountant must have, in addition to deep knowledge, a comprehensive and up-to-date knowledge of culture and the humanistic field of Behavioral Sciences.He or she must be a citizen with an open view of the world, able to adapt easily to changing scenarios and support continuing education as a condition of life.
The literature on SRL identifies and discusses the attributes of independent learners that help them continue to learn.Also, it offers information on the kinds of educational opportunities and support that can improve the self-regulation skills or abilities of the students, as they find themselves at university and helps them to become self-regulated (ZIMMERMAN; SCHUNK, 2001).Universities must strive at implementing a teaching model for students to "learn to learn", since only in this way will future professionals in Accounting possess the conditions for success in a society that is always in dynamic change (AICPA, 2000).
SRL, based in psychology and sociology in the study by Kumar (2005) strategies for the implementation of its activities.The strategies for teaching self-regulation are a major key in promoting self-regulated learning (ZIMMERMAN, 1998).These strategies can be passed to students throughout the course, as being integrated auto-regulatory training (ZIMMERMAN et al., 1996).

RESEARCH DESIGN
The positivist approach was used in the research, using the hypothetical-deductive method.It is characterized by seeking to corroborate a theory from observation of the relationship between these phenomena in the real world.2.
Hypothesis of the study Theoretical H1: establishing that there are significant differences between men and women regarding the level of SRL Hefer (2007) H2: establishing that there is a significant correlation that the greater the age of a respondent the lower level of SRL Mayville (2007) H3: establishing that there is a significant relationship that the later the semester in the course of a respondent the greater the level of SRL The results revealed that the male students, who in the analyzed sample are a minority, have low self-confidence and self-regulation, significantly different compared to females.
The second hypothesis is supported by Mayville (2007), who investigated the influence of age in the context of the autocorrelation of students in Master's and Doctorates in Nursing in the age group 24-53 years.The results showed that students with a higher age showed greater difficulty completing the orientation program (online) that was applied as a research tool.
Finally, a study by Lombaerts et al. (2008) argues that education should be directed towards the development of a self-regulated profile in which students in advanced semesters must present higher levels of SRL compared to freshmen.What stresses the use of the third hypothesis of this study.The instrument for data collection was formed by two blocks.The first block consisted of four questions to gather data including the semester underway, gender, age and educational institution of the respondent.The second section sought to capture aspects of self-regulated learning, including ten statements relating to the use of the strategies proposed by Zimmerman & Martinez-Ponz (1986) and summarized in Figure 1.The assertions present in the second block can be seen in Figure 3, associated with the respective self-regulated learning strategies.For each statement, the respondent could give an answer between 1 (never) to 7 (always).

RESULTS
The first objective was to identify the self-regulated learning strategies used by accounting students in two public universities in Bahia.The results are shown in Table 2.The sum of the relative frequencies does not reach 100% in the last five statements due to missing values on some issues.The last two columns present a summation of frequencies, responses to less than four and more than four (midpoint between the first and 7).
BBR, Braz.Bus.Rev. (Engl.ed., Online), Vitória, v. 12, n. 1, Art. 2, p. 36 -54, jan.-feb. 2015 www.bbronline.com.brThe midpoint of the scale shown in the instrument for data collection corresponded to the number four, and in this research means that learning strategies are above this point.In the strategies analyzed, it is emphasized that the self-consequences strategy (E7) is less used.
Only 21% of respondents indicated more than 4 points.The remaining sum frequency responses represented greater than 50% for higher responses than four.The three selfregulated learning strategies would be employed in E1 (self-assessment), E6 (environmental structure) and E9 (seeking outside help).
The second goal, which verifies the dimensions with the strategies was achieved with the use of factor analysis.According to Burkhardt et al. (2012), factor analysis is a statistical method whose purpose is to distinguish a set of measurable variables directly, called observed variables, such as the visible manifestation of a smaller set of hypothetical and latent variables, called common factors and a number of unique factors, each acting on only one of the observed variables.The use of this technique provides two main functions: to summarize and reduce data (HAIR JUNIOR et al., 1998).Another property of the analysis is its ability to determine the degree of influence of a particular variable in the elucidation of a factor (later found), and to evaluate the intensity of relations between the observed variables.
Factor analysis of the results indicated the existence of two factors, according to Table 3.According to Cattell (1966)   Based on the criteria established by the method suggested by Cattell (1966) and Shimada et al. (2010), the principal components analysis indicated the existence of two distinct factors.We used the promax oblique rotation method for the analysis of correlation coefficients, as we expected theoretically that the items are correlated.The promax rotation provides, besides the factorial matrix, two matrices: a matrix pattern and structure matrix, which outline oblique standards or clusters of intercorrelations among the variables.The factor loadings thus determine the patterns and the degree of involvement of each variable with the standards.While the pattern matrix shows which variables are highly involved in terms of factor loadings in each cluster, the structure matrix shows the extent of the correlation of the variables with the standards as a whole.According to Cattell (1966), determining the factor only comes to an end when it is examined the affinity of the items with the factors of the model.The construct's factorial design is purged according to the following criteria: (a) when the absolute value of the load factor main item is smaller than 0.32, (b) when factor loadings are similar in two or more factors in the same item (the difference between the absolute values of factor loadings of the items is smaller than 0.10), and (c) is formed by a factor of two or more items.From these criteria, as illustrated in Table 4, item E9 (external aid) was deleted since it showed less than 0.32 load factor.The item E7 (self-consequences) was also excluded due to the third criterion for determining: a factor cannot be formed by one item.The only dimension obtained from the analysis aggregated the items 1 (self-assessment), 2 (transformation and organization), 3 (goal setting and planning), 4 (request for information), 5 (taking notes), 6 (environmental structure), 8 (repetition and memorization) and 10 (performance improvement).The size was entitled "self-regulated learning", and has been validated according to the procedures presented in Netemeyer et al. and summarized in Table 5.After the checks on dimensionality, reliability and convergence, the scale was represented by averaging the responses collected for these items.
BBR, Braz.Bus.Rev. (Engl.ed., Online), Vitória, v. 12, n. 1, Art. 2, p. 36 -54, jan.-feb. 2015 www.bbronline.com.brIn this analysis, we adopted the t test (which is used to base the analysis on a type of data distribution similar to normal distribution, known as "t-distribution") and Levene's test (which is used to test if k has the sample's same variance, a t-test is the absolute value of the distance that each observation is the average).The significant results of these tests indicate that the null hypothesis should be rejected, and once again, that the differences are confirmed.
Table 7 highlights the lack of significant differences in self-regulated learning relationships and ongoing semester students analyzed, indicating that it is not possible to see an increase or decrease of the degree of self-regulated learning among respondents at the start or end of the course (above Sig.5%).This result shows that independent attitudes and selfregulated learning are not promoted in the institutions examined, since the new students, graduates and current students do not have significant differences in their level of selfregulated learning.This result frustrates expectations.Lombaerts et al. (2008) argue that the evolution of teaching practices should encourage self-regulated learning.This analysis highlights the importance of teaching geared to greater independence of students not only in the institutions analyzed, but in all Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) that offer the course in Accounting in the analyzed region, as results in other public or private HEIs can be similar to the two public universities analyzed.
By contrast, the test results showed the existence of significant differences in selfregulated learning in the student's ages.The average of students below 24 years of age (5.3234) is greater than the average students above 24 years of age (4.9059), this relationship has a significance level of 0.2%, which confirms the second hypothesis of this research and studies corroborating Mayville (2007).

Figure 2 -
Figure 2 -Hypotheses associated third goal and theoretical The hypotheses of this study are supported by current research that demonstrates the same goals.The first hypothesis, designated H1, is supported by Hefer (2007) who examined the hypothesis that the gender and ethnicity of a student can positively influence the attitude of self-regulated students of the Psychology course at a public university in the United States.
and Shimada et al. (2010), the number of factors must be determined by following three criteria retaining an analysis.The first criterion applied to determine the number of factors retained in the analysis was the Kaiser Test.The proposal is to consider only eigenvalues greater than 1.0.The eigenvalue analysis indicated the presence of only one eigenvalue greater than the first two components, suggesting the existence of two different dimensions.The second criterion used was the proportion of the variance.The eigenvalue above 1 is only one criterion for setting a factor, it is necessary to note the contribution of these factors in the variance of the initial eigenvalue.It can be seen that the factor 2 (1.163) despite having eigenvalue greater than 1, does not contribute as significantly as factor 1 (3.574).The third criterion used for determining the number of factors was screenanalysis plot, shown in Figure4, which shows an inflection point between the eigenvalues above the break point falling curve of the function after the factor 2.

Help from teachers; 10. Help from peers; 11. Expert Help: statements
1. Self-assessment: statements indicating student evaluations of the quality or progress of their work (... checked my work to make sure it was okay); 2. Organization and transformation: statements indicating initiatives to reorganize themselves, improving, learning materials (... always do a schema before performing the reports of chemistry experiments); 3. Goal setting and planning: statements indicating the establishment of educational objectives: planning and completing activities related to those goals (start studying two weeks before the test and now I'm rested); 4 Looking for information: Statements indicating the students' efforts to acquire extra information from nonsocial task when facing a school (before starting work, going to the school library to gather as much information on the subject; 5. Taking notes: statements indicating efforts to record the results (in Physics classes take as many notes as possible on what the teacher says); 6.Environmental structure: statements indicating efforts to select or change the physical or psychological environment to promote learning (to avoid distraction, I isolate myself in my room, to allow myself to focus on what I do, I turn off the music); 7. Self consequences: statements indicating imagined rewards or punishments for school successes or failures (if the test goes well, I'll give myself a present); 8. Repetition and memorization: statements indicating the initiatives and efforts of the students to memorize the material (in preparation for a Biology test, write the formula often, until I know it, color); 9. indicating the initiatives and efforts of students to seek help from teachers (9), peers (10) and specialists(11)."Ifyouhavedifficulties in the study please ask my father who is a doctor ...".12.Reviewing notes; 13.Revision tests and 14.Review of literature: statements indicating efforts of the students to review notes (12), test themselves (13), and consult sources (14) in order to prepare for a lecture or a written exercise (I review before tests, always summarise what I have done to prepare for a test, solve the utterances of those who already did).consideredessential, not allowing conditions to meet students' choices, b) contributes to the enrichment of students' knowledge c) breaks the student/teacher dependence, allowing the discovery of alternatives to the construction of knowledge; prepares students to exercise BBR, Braz.Bus.Rev.(Engl.ed., Online),Vitória, v. 12, n. 1, Art. 2, p. 36 -54, jan.-feb.2015  www.bbronline.com.br The research corresponded to 612 students enrolled in Accounting in the first half of 2012 at the Bahia State University (UNEB -Campus Senhor do Bonfim) and at the Feira de Santana State University (UEFS), two public universities, located in Bahia, Brazil.Data were collected from 249 students present in class at the beginning of the first semester of 2012.

Table 1 -Stats with Descriptive Characteristics of the Study Sample
Three different procedures were used for quantitative analysis of the results, corresponding to each of the goals.The first goal, to identify the self-regulated learning strategies used by students in accounting in two public universities in Bahia, was achieved with the use of descriptive statistics.The second objective, evaluating the dimensions associated with learning strategies, was achieved with the use of factor analysis.The third objective, to analyze how the strategies could be explained on the basis of gender, age or stage (semester) of the student in the course, was achieved with the use of parametric tests for comparison of means (t tests).The assumptions that guided the scope of the third objective are presented in Figure In relation to the institutions, 57% of the sample is from the Bahia State University, while the rest are from the Feira de Santana State University.Data were collected from students from the first to the ninth (and last) semester.BBR, Braz.Bus.Rev.(Engl.ed., Online),Vitória, v. 12, n. 1, Art. 2, p. 36 -54, jan.-feb.2015  www.bbronline.com.br