Relevant Concepts of Costs: The vision of textbooks, the look of Accounting Theory and the perception of students

Abstract

A proper domain of the basic concepts of Cost Accounting and analyze its characteristics are essential for the development of Accounting Theory and for effective decision making. This study aimed to compare the presentation of educational topics to current concepts of the Theory of Accounting and perceptions of students, assessing the understanding of some terms associated with Cost Accounting and explored in the context of discipline Accounting Theory. We discussed the concepts of assets, revenues, expenses, gains and losses. We examined a sample of 591 students enrolled in courses that Accounting had already attended the course Accounting Theory in institutions of higher education located in the city of Salvador (BA). The quantitative procedures involved three distinct phases, formed by the descriptive analysis, the understanding of associations between responses and the type of IES - presented as a public or private, by studying the association between the responses and titration of the teacher - not separated into titled, masters and doctors, for the use of logistic regression that sought to understand how the accuracy of concepts learned can be changed from the type of IES or the title of professor. The results were significant for the titration: as titration progresses the teacher, the better performance shown by students in the respect of the relevant concepts of Cost Accounting. The findings observed here indicate the importance of titling of teachers of accounting theory and indicate that advance the study of these professionals in the Masters and PhD courses helps to improve the effective use of Cost Accounting.