A elaboração de artefatos digitais na disciplina Administração Financeira de um curso de ciências contábeis, sob a óptica da Teoria da Atividade

Abstract

The Communication and Information Technologies (ICT) cause changes in historical, cultural and social dynamics, and can be considered as constituent artifacts of the subjects' lives, their uses must assume a significant, pedagogical and transforming character. Digital artifacts become elements belonging to the culture and activities developed by students, their use in teaching and learning processes entails the need to understand their potential as pedagogical allies, considering the Activity Theory as a theoretical construct. From this perspective, this study aims to analyze a proposal for Project-Based Learning with the use of digital artifacts, such as cultural narratives, and its relationship with the transformations in learning processes under the view of Activity Theory. Therefore, this investigation was carried out at the Federal University of Ceará, with students from the fifth semester of the Accounting course, presenting the Financial Administration discipline as a context. With regard to the collection instruments, participant observation, registration notebook, interviews/testimonies, records of exchanges that occurred in the WhatsApp application group, comments on the wall, posts and classroom activities in Google Classroom, videos and photographs. In the methodological procedures, a qualitative approach was used with an interpretative character and action research as an investigation method, considering the classroom dynamics from the interaction between the teacher, students and their peers in the development of activities by students in the attempt to solve problems in the daily lives of companies. Based on the developed literature and empirical research, four categories were proposed: objective, mediation, motive and synthesis, these being essential elements in the development of the activity according to the Activity Theory. In the first category – Objective – considering that the activities must make sense to the students, it is the purpose of these. The second category – Mediation – taking into account that learning processes happen in a mediated way. The next category – Reason – involves engagement among students and the development of activities, characterized by the intentions, desires and subjectivity of the participants. In the last category – Synthesis – it is characterized by reciprocal actions between various aspects that cause a new element, which did not exist before. The results revealed the strong presence of the elements of the Historical-Cultural Activity Theory in the activities developed by the investigated students and teacher, considering that these experiences and the social context experienced by the participants enabled the emergence and development of activities, resulting in the consequent learning. The diversified methodology, based on a planning between the teacher, the present researcher and the course trainer, comprised Project-Based Learning added to the use of digital artifacts as elements of the students' culture, involving the social context of the development of activities. It is also highlighted that the relationship between digital artifacts and the teaching and learning processes are real aspects, which must be understood through the mediation between teachers, students and the activities developed in a structured and pedagogically organized way.