An Examination of Accounting Perceptions in the Digital AgeThrough Metaphor Analysis: A Study on Vocational High School Students

The aim of this study is to examine how students who receive accounting education in Vocational and Technical Anatolian High Schools in Mardin province perceive the concept of accounting through metaphors. A phenomenology design, one of the qualitative research methods, was used, and the study group consisted of 97 students enrolled in the 2025–2026 academic year who were selected through purposive sampling. Students completed the statement “Accounting is like … because …” and the metaphors they produced were examined under nine categories (animal, color, food, game, flower, object, profession, city and season) with content analysis. The most frequent metaphors in these categories were fox, green, walnut, chess, rose, calculator, accountant, Istanbul and autumn, respectively. The metaphors point to accounting as a field that requires intelligence and attention (fox, owl, chess), hard work and discipline (ant, bee), money and finance (green, Istanbul) and tools for calculation and recording (calculator, pen), while black, gray and the frequent emphasis on error intolerance show that students also see it as a serious and demanding field. The findings suggest that students do not perceive accounting merely as numerical operations but as a process that requires attention, patience and analytical thinking, and they offer a starting point for instructors who wish to take students’ perceptions into account in accounting education.