Avaliação da internacionalização no ensino superior: um estudo multicaso

Abstract

For many Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), inserted on a highly competitive market, internationalization became indispensable to survive. The current globalized and interconnected worldwide scenario demands qualified egresses to play on that. However, it becomes necessary to know if internationalization is indeed contributing to the reach of the institutions goals and it is this point that makes internationalization process management and evaluation appear to be fundamental. In order to bring light to this issue, this exploratory study, developed with qualitative approach, aims to analyze how two private high education institutions evaluate their internationalization processes. In order to achieve that, it was held a multiple case study with two private community universities. The data analysis was based on document research, direct observation and semi-structured interviews, held with managers directly involved with the internationalization process at this institutions. Therefore, firstly there was an effort to understand the current internationalization status of the studied HEIs, its relation with the HEIs strategies and how this process management is held in there. It was identified that internationalization exists in the HEIs strategies and the methods and tools used by them to manage the internationalization process were described and analyzed. Considering the internationalization evaluation process, it was possible to describe how it is held in the studied HEIs and it was also verified that the evaluation practices used by them bring input to the decision making process, concerning the process evolution or course correction. Furthermore, it was possible to identify, by literature review, some internationalization evaluation practices held by international HEIs that can, in a certain way, contribute to the advance of the internationalization processes of the studied HEIs. The results obtained suggest that the performance of self-assessment practice, a performance indicators creation and review, these new indicators monitoring and the evaluation of the internationalization process, frequently carried on, will possibly make the HEIs promote an evolution cycle in their internationalization processes.