Browsing by Author "Soares, Diana"
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- A avaliação externa das escolas: entre a conformidade e a inovaçãoPublication . Serra, Lídia; Alves, José Matias; Soares, DianaNuma sociedade marcada por valores neoliberais e inscrita na globalização e na ideologia da inovação, promover uma cultura de avaliação proporcionará condições para que as escolas se afirmem como sistemas orgânicos capazes de criar e recriar estratégicas sistémicas de transformação e responsividade à mudança social. Um sistema de accountability afirma-se como uma ferramenta de suporte de culturas de escola focadas na melhoria contínua e na promoção da qualidade da educação. Neste contexto, este artigo apresenta um estudo empírico realizado em Portugal reportado à ação da avaliação externa desenvolvida entre 2018 e 2021. Sustentado numa análise documental de 60 relatórios de avaliação externa, o estudo combinou métodos qualitativos e quantitativos para compreender se existe um efeito entre as forças e áreas de melhoria e a avaliação atribuída pela Inspeção. Os resultados sugerem que uma robusta visão estratégica e a ação de lideranças mobilizadoras são preditores transversais dos vários domínios de avaliação das escolas, ainda que registem articulações débeis. Foram ainda identificados preditores indexados a domínios específicos de avaliação: resultados académicos; autoavaliação focada no ensino-aprendizagem; aprofundamento de práticas de autoavaliação e metodologias ativas de ensino-aprendizagem em relação ao domínio dos resultados; metodologias ativas de ensino-aprendizagem e resultados académicos em relação ao domínio da prestação de serviço público; compromisso com a inclusão em relação ao domínio da liderança e gestão. Não obstante, estas correlações apresentam, por vezes, níveis de consistência problemáticos. Não foram encontradas relações entre a avaliação de escola e os fatores implicando a inovação. Assim, esta surge como uma dimensão marginal da realidade escolar e de impacto irrelevante na avaliação das escolas
- Beyond the grade: defining school success and failure profilesPublication . Soares, Diana; Almeida, Leandro SilvaBased on a set of variables associated with school success / failure, this study analyses how they combine in differentiated school profiles. In a longitudinal design, 140 pupils from 7th to 9th grade were accompanied by repeated measurements of psychological, social and family variables and school grades. In the cluster, analysis three school profiles were identified. The first, called failure profile not involved with school corresponds to the group with low grades, whose personal and socio-family characteristics make learning difficult. The second group also corresponds to a failure profile but has characteristics that cushion these negative effects (engaged school failure profile). The last group, school success profile, includes students with good grades, and whose personal and socio-family characteristics support their good results. These results emphasize the need to go beyond the grade; counteracting the importance it has in defining what is the school success / failure.
- Building bridges between industry and academia: what is the profile of an industrial doctorate student?Publication . Tavares, Orlanda; Sin, Cristina; Soares, Diana
- Bureaucratic or instructional leaders? An overview of Portuguese school leaders’ perceptions on an autonomy and curriculum flexibility programPublication . Cabral, Ilídia; Alves, José Matias; Soares, Diana; Palmeirão, CristinaRecent Portuguese educational policy is focused on granting schools a higher degree of autonomy with a view to the increasement of curriculum flexibility and the consequent improvement of learning among students. After a pilot experiment with around 225 schools involved in the “Project for Autonomy and Curriculum Flexibility” (PACF) in the school year of 2017/18, in the current school year (2018/19) all Portuguese schools were invited to join the Program, which enables them up to 25% curriculum flexibility. This is a big challenge for schools and school leaders, which drives them towards the adoption of increasingly instructional leadership practices, i.e. being essentially focused on curriculum and instruction. An open-ended questionnaire was applied to the universe of Portuguese school leaders who attended specific training sessions for the PACF (n=308), in order to collect their perceptions on the program’s strengths and weaknesses and suggestions for its improvement. A content analysis of a sample (n=35) of the answers given to the questionnaire reveals that the most positive aspect they point out is the possibility to get together with other school leaders and share their concerns, as well as good practices. This result shows that Portuguese schools still work very isolated from each other and that they could benefit from establishing professional learning communities that could bring an important contribution to their organizational development. On the other hand, the respondents are struggling with difficulties in motivating teachers to adopt innovative pedagogic practices and to manage the curriculum in a more integrated way. Another important obstacle to a successful implementation of the program seems to be the fact that Portuguese school leaders feel they are overloaded with paperwork and platform management, by the demand of the Ministry of Education, which forces them to be more focused on bureaucracy than on the curriculum and instruction.
- Concetualizar a inovação enquanto processo fundacional da transformação da escolaPublication . Serra, Lídia; Alves, José; Soares, DianaMúltiplos estudos vêm sendo realizados sobre as dificuldades, as possibilidades e a sustentabilidade da mudança, bem como sobre o conservadorismo e a resiliência dos sistemas educativos. A inovação vem assumindo uma centralidade neste processo de mudança, por ser considerada um fator potenciador da transformação pedagógica, um pequeno elo de uma cadeia de necessárias metamorfoses que abarcam, de forma sistémica, toda a organização escolar. Nesta revisão narrativa de literatura foi concretizada uma abordagem histórico-social relativa ao conceito de inovação, visando sustentar a concetualização do construto, segundo duas dimensões: a ontológica e a epistemológica. Neste alinhamento, propomos um modelo diagramático e uma definição de inovação que sumarizam a essência plural do processo inovativo em educação. A definição de inovação, considerada a sua natureza multidimensional e o seu caráter sistémico e dinâmico, assenta em cinco eixos: o âmbito; o objeto; a responsabilidade, entendida como capacitação organizacional; o foco; e o percurso.
- Coursework in industrial doctorates: a worthwhile contribution to students’ training?Publication . Sin, Cristina; Soares, Diana; Tavares, OrlandaThe integration of coursework in doctoral programmes is becoming increasingly common worldwide. In Portugal, too, coursework is now part of many doctorates and is usually assigned to the first year. This paper aims to understand if coursework is also an element of the relatively recent industrial doctorates in Portugal and, in this case, if it represents an added value for the training and experience of doctoral candidates in a primarily research-based degree, but driven by the shared interests of industry and academia. The perceptions of students enrolled in industrial doctorates were gathered through focus groups. Findings suggest that students tend to believe that compulsory coursework does not add much value to their training, although its relevance seems to increase when students are given the possibility of choosing courses which are related to their research topic or when courses have a practical orientation. These findings invite a reconsideration of curriculum design in doctoral degrees in the direction of increased flexibility and more personalised learning plans.
- (Des)conexões entre a autoavaliação de escola, as lideranças e os professores: um estudo cruzado de perceçõesPublication . Serra, Lídia; Alves, José Matias; Soares, DianaLideranças comprometidas com uma hermenêutica de melhoria e inovação fazem uso do conhecimento produzido pela autoavaliação sobre a escola para assegurar responsividade organizacional e profissional à diversidade de alunos. Este artigo reporta a um estudo quantitativo e comparativo de perceções, implicando lideranças, professores e elementos da equipa de autoavaliação de 23 unidades orgânicas portuguesas. Foram avaliadas as perceções em relação à valorização concedida à autoavaliação de escola, a práticas de autoavaliação e ao uso feito do conhecimento de escola produzido pela autoavaliação. Recorrendo a estatística inferencial não paramétrica constatou-se que: os diretores são a classe que mais valoriza a autoavaliação, embora, não divirjam significativamente da perceção das lideranças intermédias; os professores valorizam em menor grau a ação da autoavaliação; existem diferenças de perceção significativas em relação à frequência de divulgação de resultados escolares; as práticas de avaliação relativas a experiências pedagógicas são débeis; existem divergências de perceção, entre atores educativos, em relação à mobilização da análise dos resultados da autoavaliação e ao uso do conhecimento produzido pela autoavaliação na identificação de fatores afetos ao sucesso escolar e a áreas de melhoria. Este estudo permitiu compreender que as perceções dos professores e das lideranças sobre a autoavaliação são desconexas, pelo que a ação educativa precisa de se tornar mais interdependente, e a ação das lideranças de ser ativada pela autoavaliação, para ser mais inclusiva e justa.
- Designing learning outcomes in design higher education curriculaPublication . Soares, Diana; Carvalho, Paula; Dias, DianaNew and flexible educational paradigms, based on creative, innovative and open-minded competences, are required in the development of curricula in design, working as an essential skill toolkit for future designers, particularly in higher education. This study aims to explore how learning outcomes, usually expressed by the knowledge, skills, abilities, attitudes and competences expected to be achieved by students as a result of an educational experience, are defined and formulated in design study programmes in Portugal. The investigation relies on the linguistic analysis of a corpus composed of a collection of learning outcomes extracted from the Portuguese undergraduate and post-graduate study programmes in design. The analysis was performed through the application of natural language tools and resources to that corpus. Specifically, we used computational lexicons and grammars to gather information on word frequency, lexical density, syntactic distribution and the morphology used in texts. Additional discourse dimensions, such as the length of sentences, the frequency of specific linguistic patterns, and the presence of subjective items, like evaluative adjectives, were also considered. Results suggest that Portuguese design and art higher education institutions are committed to follow the learning outcomes recommendations, trying to identify measurable ‘design’ skills. Moreover, the results show that, despite of being confined to 1,000 characters, learning outcomes are expressed differently, both in terms of lexicon and grammar, depending on the study cycles, fostering the idea that skills and competences required become more complex as the level of qualification increases.
- For a healthy (and) higher education: evidences from learning outcomes in health sciencesPublication . Leite, Ângela; Soares, Diana; Sousa, Hélder Fernando Pedrosa e; Vidal, Diogo Guedes; Dinis, Maria Alzira Pimenta; Dias, DianaIncreased recognition of outcomes, or competency-based education, has evolved across higher education on health sciences. However, there is significant diversity in the current study of Portuguese programmes. Considering learning outcomes (LO) as indicators of knowledge, skills, abilities, attitudes and the understanding that the student will gain as a result of an educational experience, this study aims to explore which LO are emphasised on the study programmes of health sciences in Portugal. Through a qualitative methodology, carried out through MAXQDA software, all LO of all Portuguese health sciences study programmes submitted to quality accreditation to the Portuguese Agency for Assessment and Accreditation of Higher Education (A3ES) since 2009 until 2016 were analysed. Although specific knowledge was the most referenced LO, transversal skills were also emphasized, such as critical and reflexive analysis/critical thinking, research, ability to organize and plan and professional ethics. Significant diferences were found between LO selection when the analysis was made by comparing the diverse study programmes. This required assortment of knowledge and skills seems to reflect not only the specificities of each health science programme but also the challenging demands on professionals in the 21st century, along with the necessary changes imposed by society, fostering intercultural understanding, tolerance, mutual respect and an ethic of global citizenship and shared responsibility, crucial enablers of educational development for all in the scope of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
- Industry–university collaboration in industrial doctorates: a trouble-free marriage?Publication . Tavares, Orlanda; Soares, Diana; Sin, CristinaThis article explores the perceptions of Portuguese students enrolled in industrial doctorates, regarding potential conflicts that may arise from their supervision, their research topic and their research outputs. The study uses data collected from focus groups and subjected to content analysis. The findings suggest that industrial doctoral students recognise a divergence between university and industry, mainly regarding research outputs, and particularly industry’s need to keep data confidential and the university’s need to disseminate knowledge via the publication of articles. Convergence was noted at the level of joint supervision, sometimes facilitated by the fact that academics were also entrepreneurs. The success of this kind of collaborative doctorate depends on compromise between the two parties and on how students can manage this relationship. Therefore, their perspectives are an important source of information worth consideration.