The Impact of Learning Styles on the Teaching of Accounting

Abstract

The key objective of this paper is to evaluate the influence of the learning styles of students and instructors and the style of the classes on the academic performance of one undergraduate program of the Accounting in Brazil. The ILS (1991), on the basis of the Felder Silverman’s Model (1988) was used for identification of the learning styles of 194 students and 29 instructors. The instructors, beyond the ILS, had answered one another questionnaire, elaborated by the researchers, on the basis of the same theory for identification of the styles of 40 courses. The academic performance of undergraduates was measured by the final grades in each class. The results had shown that the predominant learning styles of the students are active, sensorial, visual and sequential and of the instructors are reflective, intuitive, visual and sequential. Of the classes are predominant the styles reflective, sensorial, verbal and sequential. It was noted the impact of styles of these elements in academic performance of students, both individually and as combined.