The Impact of Evaluation Use on Accounting Programs' Performance: An Exploratory Study

Abstract

The Brazilian program of higher education evaluation, broadly known as the National Exam of Students' Performance (ENADE), represents a governmental effort to gather information on undergraduate educational quality. As a product of that evaluation, reports are made available to each program evaluated. Our present research addresses the impact of ENADE evaluation report utilization on multiple higher education accounting programs' performance in their subsequent evaluation. Based upon theoretical support from literature about evaluation use, a web-based survey was developed and provided across the country to the coordinators of accounting programs. From a response rate of 62% of the study target population and using multiple regressions, we found that there was a positive correlation between usage of the ENADE evaluation report and the performance of undergraduate accounting programs in their subsequent evaluation. Based upon the reviewed literature and, in accordance with these research results, it is possible to infer that the use of evaluation reports derived from the higher education evaluation system promoted by the Brazilian government can influence the decisions of educational institutions and promote improvement.

Factors affecting success in the professional entry exam for accountants in Brazil

“…Most private HEIs are of low quality (Iudícibus & Marion, 1986;Freitas, 2016) and have low ratings. This is a concern for the Brazilian accounting profession.…”

“…This is a concern for the Brazilian accounting profession. The quality of educational programs in HEIs has been strongly debated in Brazil, consistent with a global trend to engage in national assessments of HEIs (Freitas, 2016). Governmental agencies and external evaluation provided by organizations such as the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA) or the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) are regarded as important mechanisms for assuring the quality of HEIs and their degree offerings.…”

“…Governmental agencies and external evaluation provided by organizations such as the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA) or the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) are regarded as important mechanisms for assuring the quality of HEIs and their degree offerings. These organizations are helping educational institutions to improve their accounting programs (Freitas, 2016), and thus, help develop a stronger accounting profession. Nossa (1999aNossa ( , 1999b advanced three reasons for the low quality of accounting education in Brazil: the extraordinary expansion of the number of degrees; the lack of investment by HEIs; and the reduced number of master's and doctoral programs.…”

“…Measurement of the quality of HEIs has developed from an unstable beginning at the end of the 1970s and beginning of the 1980s (Freitas, 2016). The Brazilian educational evaluation system has developed and improved since then, but has faced two primary difficulties: the lack of people with program evaluation expertise; and the instability of the political system and public policy (Freitas, 2016).…”

“…The knowledge we provide here offers the prospect of helping to promote a stronger flow of accounting graduates to the profession, and of improving the quality of higher education in accounting in Brazil. Accounting programs in Brazil need to be scrutinised to understand whether the restructuring of curriculum necessitated by the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards [IFRS] has improved accounting education (Freitas, 2016). Such understanding can be beneficial also to other (especially developing) countries which have adopted IFRS, or are seriously contemplating doing so.…”