Systematic review of the literature on program evaluation in professional courses at Federal Institutes in Brazil

Abstract

Introduction: The performance of an educational program is considered the result obtained by the combination of input and output factors, where the income is evaluated through the relationship between the inputs (evidence) of the school and students and an exit measure (academic performance). In the context of federal institutes, educational evaluations have been used to perform diagnoses, reflections, planning, and formulation of public policies to improve the quality of the teaching offered and identify the competencies developed during training. However, the evaluation of vocational programs or courses in Brazil is still a reality little applied in institutional contexts. Goals: This Systematic Literature Review (RSL) seeks to identify how research developed and disseminated in national and international academic journals has contemplated the triad "Evaluation, Vocational Courses and Federal Institutes of Brazil". Methods: To achieve this objective, a qualitative approach based on an RSL was used, and a search was carried out in the databases b-on, SciELO, and Scopus, taking into account the production of the last five years, using search descriptors, inclusion and exclusion criteria. For the analysis and codification of the articles, the qualitative data analysis software WebQDA was used. Results: The search process resulted in an initial set of 1039 articles found and after applying the exclusion criteria, 15 were selected to make up the corpus of analysis. Due to this research, it was possible to perceive that the evaluations of the programs or courses are carried out through questionnaires and interviews, usually applied at the end of the training and the influence or use of these results in the curricular adjustments requires further detail in studies. Conclusions: The RSL allowed us to identify three gaps in the analyzed studies: lack of articulation of the results, lack of influence on the improvement of the curriculum, and absence of monitoring and monitoring throughout the course.