Permanência e abandono em cursos técnicos EAD no IFRS: enfrentamento do baixo índice de estudantes concluintes

Abstract

This work studied the permanence and the dropout of students from five subsequent technical courses, offered as distance education by Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia do Rio Grande do Sul between the years 2014 and 2016. The main objective is to analyze permanence and dropout, searching for future improvements. The work identifies the reasons why students chose the course, the permanence and the dropout rates in each group and also the reasons for permanence and dropout according to students, tutors, teachers, course coordinators and center coordinators. As intervention, many suggestions have been proposed according to the observations made on this study, in order to improve the results of the courses offered by the institution. This is a case study with both quantitative and qualitative approach. The data collection was made by online questionnaires, answered by students, tutors and center coordinators. Teachers and course coordinators answered semi-structured interviews on their workplace. The methodology was content analysis, in which data were prepared, unitarised and categorized before the search. 22 subcategories were defined inside three main groups: a) administrative / pedagogical, considering institutional responsibility; b) personal / professional, gathering students responsibility and c) general, considering those factors that do not include responsibility. Results show most students chose a technical course for new knowledge, qualification and for better working conditions. Students chose the studying area by personal identification and course affinity. The distance course was chosen for the schedule flexibility. 24,1% students concluded the courses. In the highest average course, 46% students concluded the course. In the lowest average, only 4% of the students concluded the course. Those numbers were influenced by factors concerning institution and the students responsibilities.