Docência Universitária: avaliação diagnóstica como instrumento transformador da prática docente

Abstract

This research has the evaluation of teacher evaluation (meta-evaluation) as its theme, backed by diagnostic evaluation, and it is part of the line of research of educational assessment, in the thematic axis of the institutional assessment. The process of planning of an Institution of Higher Education reaches fulfillment with the assessment which has the role of fueling the institutional action continuously. Therefore, assessing faculty performance is indispensable for obtaining results that guide the effect and clarity of actions for the planning and management of Institutions of Higher Education. In this regard, two points of view are important in this process: the teacher’s and the student body’s, both main characters in learning. The teacher assessment aims that teachers recognize themselves in their pedagogical practice and promote changes that guide the conditions of teaching. The National System of Higher Education Assessment (SINAES), has brought challenges for the Institutions of Higher Education, which had to implement and develop their processes of self-evaluation, contributing for a new dynamics inside the institutions. Thus, it is researched what would be necessary to assess in the teacher performance, so that it would help to enhance the teaching work and revert in benefits for the institution as a whole. So, a qualitative research was developed, and as an instrument, surveys were written on the basis of attributes created by the Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation. A sample of 25 teachers and 58 students from two academic units (Technology Center and School of Economy, Business Administration, Actuarial Science and Accounting) participated in the survey. It was made clear that according to students’ opinion, teacher evaluation can bring changes to teaching when the didactic and methodological aspects, the faculty commitment, the learning evaluation and the teacher-student relationships are evaluated. Teacher’s opinions were linked to: the aims of the evaluation as a job promotion and improvement of practice; the discredit of the evaluation by students due to the necessity of their awareness and guidance and the disqualification of their opinion. It is concluded that teacher evaluation helps to understand better a certain reality and can contribute to improve and change it, but one must always know how to properly use the results and recommendations and to recognize the limits.