Práticas de Ensino e de Avaliação numa Instituição do Ensino Superior: Uma Discussão Acerca das Representações de Professores e Alunos

Abstract

Research has revealed extremely significant results as: a) systematic practices of formative assessment improve the students’ learning; b) students with more difficulties have great benefits of these practices (Black & William, 1998). These results are relevant if we attend to high levels of failure and dropout of higher education students in Portugal. The study of representations of teachers and students about teaching and assessment permit to characterize and sustain teaching and assessment practices establishing relationships with learning. Concerning the implications on teaching and assessment, it´s important identifying if conceptions and practices are consistent or not among themselves. Thus, for conceptualize change planes related with teaching and assessment practices, it would be necessary to know deeply what teachers and students think and make on these domains. This study makes part of a broader research in which, we wanted to understand the relationship among knowing, representations and experiences of teachers with their practices and learning promotion. For this study, we analyzed the results of a questionnaire, to understand the representations of teachers and students in the teaching, assessment and learning domains. The survey used a Likert-Type scale and it was organized into four areas: a) teaching-learning-assessment environment; b) teaching; c) learning and d) assessment.