Webuniversitários: um estudo sobre as relações constitutivas de identidades no ciberespaço da educação superior a distância

Abstract

The research started from the hypothesis that the identity of the web-university student would have the individual dimension as the key of their interpretation, thoroughly uncompromised: despite being in a community, they hardly want to be connected to it. It was an analytical, inductive and qualitative research, whose procedures and techniques included bibliographic and documentary surveys, and observations were participant and nonparticipant in campus or online, both for lucker and insider modes. The first moment of the research was the extensive direct observation between September 2014 and June 2015, with a questionnaire of 32 questions, virtually available as a tool on google forms, sent to students via e-mail. Extensive observation sampling was probabilistic, not arbitrary and by convenience: approximately 4100 students were encouraged to participate, 256 having answered. The data was tabulated by google forms and also imported into Excel. The second moment of the field research was the intensive direct observation with 13 people. In the survey, the initial hypothesis was confirmed: the web-university student approached does not take as relevant or essential interactions with their mentors or colleagues: there is no "us" in their speech; also, they do not consider as relevant or essential practices in the classroom of ciber-education, available in their campus; the web-university student highlights the AVA (Student Virtual Environment), the strictly virtual interactions. The main monument of cyber-education is out of it: the diploma; AVA is the place and the most important non-place is in the queue to take the tests. The audience was composed predominantly by "virtual-native people”, that is to say, by young people who are familiar with the virtual world; they have chosen Distant Learning once it adjusts to their routine, their family or work obligations. They don’t see themselves as a "buyer of diplomas" and defend themselves as a student, with discipline, determination and dedication as essential virtues for those who want to learn online, although they do not feel integrated in the academic community, not feeling devalued before the student who attends classes, but of equal value, because their relationship is that of "consumption". They recommend, have already recommended and intend to take other E-learning courses and do not intend to change the classroom education profile. They are constantly interacting with simulacra of teachers and coordinators, simulacra of their colleagues, for they are not real to them, but projections of idealized images of real characters, whose distance results in self-absorbed reaction: the I-identity is strengthened at the expense of a collective perception of the we-identity. Another relevant aspect noticed was the fear of having people discovering that they had a diploma from a distant learning course, hovering over them the stigma of possessing a "simulacrum" of a diploma. The challenges of employability of the diploma from adistant learning course were understood from the professional training environment, marked by a complex game of fights or interest among organizations of class, work buyers, formal teaching systems and public authorities, i.e. among those who defend, those who buy, those who produce and those who regulate the diplomas.