Proposição do uso de investigação avaliativa para melhoria do processo de aprendizagem de alunos do Curso de Graduação em Engenharia Civil

Abstract

With changes in teaching practices in recent years, the traditional classroom has given space to innovative activities in the process of knowledge transmission, e.g. gamification, flipped classroom and problem-based learning. In this context, this work evaluates the effectiveness of the application of tests in the classroom, before the subjects are taught, in a module of the Civil Engineering graduate course of the UFC. It is believed that the tests can stimulate previous studying and, as a consequence, can promote better interaction of students in the lectures and better results in the final tests. In order to do that, tests about some subjects were applied. The percentages of correctness of the questions (10%, 50%, 100%) of each student, in the final tests, were computed. Then, the following indicators (average) were used to evaluate the effectiveness of the method: percentage of correctness of the question in the final test referring to subjects where tests were applied (T); percentage of correctness of the question in the final test of the students who did not perform the test applied on the subject (NT); and percentage of correctness of the question for the subjects without tests performed (ST). The indicators showed that, when tests were applied, the performance on corresponding final test questions was better than for those subjects without tests applied and also better than the performance of students who did not take the test(s). In conclusion, the proposed method brought gains for students’ performance and, therefore, was considered effective.