Bologna Paradigm in a Portuguese Polytechnic Institute - The case of the first cycle

Abstract

In this paper, we describe a study carried out in a Portuguese Polytechnic Institute, aimed to identify and characterize the implementation level of the Bologna Paradigm. The used questionnaire was completed in the academic year of 2008/2009 providing data at curricular unit, course and school levels. Regarding the changes in teaching learning activities, the answers related to “stopped using” showed that no activity was significantly abandoned. For the answers to “started to use”, the higher percentages were concentrated on: Electronic communications (24%); Tutorial orientation (14%); Presentation with themes for discussion (14%); Participation in on line discussion forum (12%); Information research on line (10%). Regarding the changes in the evaluation elements, the answers to “stopped using” showed that no element was significantly abandoned. The answers to “started to use” had the higher percentages mainly on: Individual activities on distance learning (12%); Group work related to classroom (8%); Group presentations (8%). As a more general conclusion, we can say that the most expected changes with the Paradigm of Bologna have had low levels of adoption. No significant differences were found between the two schools of technology, but visible differences were shown between the school of education and other schools. This study did not questioned important aspects such as: desired competencies and their achievement, relationships between contents and competencies, coherency between ECTS and total workload, pedagogical approaches adequacy to scientific matters, relationships between school success rates and pedagogical approaches, learning methods adopted by students.