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Nowadays, SPOCs (Small Private Online Courses) have been used as complementary methods to support classroom teaching. SPOCs are courses that apply the usage of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), combining classroom with online education, making them an exciting alternative for contexts such as emergency remote teaching. Although SPOCs have been continuously proposed in the software engineering teaching area, it is crucial to assess their practical applicability via measuring the effectiveness of this resource in the teaching-learning process. In this context, this paper aims to present an experimental evaluation to investigate the applicability of a SPOC in a Verification, Validation, and Software Testing course taught during the period of emergency remote education during the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil. Therefore, we conducted a controlled experiment comparing alternative teaching through the application of a SPOC with teaching carried out via lectures. The comparison between the teaching methods is made by analyzing the students' performance during the solving of practical activities and essay questions on the content covered. In addition, we used questionnaires to analyze students' motivation during the course. Study results indicate an improvement in both motivation and performance of students participating in SPOC, which corroborates its applicability to the software testing teaching area.

This paper investigates the intersection of income and race in structuring access to higher education among students that participate in a national high-stakes exam in Brazil. Our objectives are (1) to estimate the probability of students coming from different income strata, racial groups, and performance levels to access higher education and (2) to decompose income and racial effects into direct (net of educational performance) and indirect effects (through educational performance). Our data comes from a panel of high school graduates tracked between 2012 and 2017 and allow us to describe the following findings. Firstly, the probability of entering higher education is always higher among candidates from higher income strata. Second, there is a convergence in admission probabilities across the performance scale. Third, the admission curve across a performance scale is much steeper among applicants from low-income strata compared to richer students. In all of these results, students self-identified as black, brown, or indigenous (BBI) are less likely to transition to higher education than whites, even though they are in the same income and performance strata. We suggest that students from privileged socioeconomic backgrounds benefit from alternative entry strategies, such as paying tuition at less competitive private colleges. For students from low-income strata, the main alternative for entering higher education is through high academic performance. By decomposing racial effects, we show the cumulative effect of racial stratification; the gap between white and BBI students is both related to higher propensity of transitioning to higher education and higher educational performance.

The literature on serious games (SGs) indicates that they are very useful tools to improve the teaching/learning process. In this paper, we analyze some potential benefits of a SG on academic performance of undergraduate accounting students. The database is comprised of scores obtained by students during an undergraduate discipline related with accounting history. The game was presented to the students during the academic semester of the discipline; they also developed an academic activity using the concepts of this game. The main results of the paper indicate that students who used the game and scored the maximum grade in this activity also registered higher indexes of academic performance in such discipline. These results reinforce the benefits of the SG to interact with undergraduate students and teach academic content. [Note: The header of this article shows the incorrect publication date (January 2018) for this issue. The correct date is April 2018.]

The effects of affirmative action on the incentives to human capital accumulation are ambiguous from a theoretical perspective and the scarce empirical evidence on the matter provides mixed results. In this paper, we address this issue by investigating the impacts of Brazil's Law of Quotas on the students' performance in the college entrance exam, the ENEM. We provide causal evidence that the law fostered incentives to pre-college human capital accumulation, inducing students to attain higher ENEM scores. Moreover, the effects of the quotas were greater in quantitative-intensive subjects and these impacts increased throughout the first years after the law's implementation.

This article is an extension of a work in progress paper originally presented at the conference FiE 2020, Frontiers in Education by (Schirichian et al., 2020), as a result of Schirichian's master's in science dissertation. It studies the relations between academic performance, protection factors, life at university, and personal characteristics to understand how they influence students' academic success in undergraduate engineering programs in Brazil. In this challenging environment, several students overcome these issues and graduate, which indicates that some protection structures allow students to face challenging situations and be successful in their studies. Current research studied the relationships between academic performance, self-efficacy, causal attributions, personal characteristics, and life at university, with a group of 30 students. Models were studied by combining the different variables and aspects evaluated in the research, and the findings show relationship between academic performance and: 1) self-efficacy, causal attributions, and personal characteristics (such as leisure activities, living with their parents, or college accommodations) and those who attended private schools during basic education; 2 protection factors self-efficacy and causal attributions with advancing in the program and the time of enrolment in the university; and 3) the dimensions initiation and persistence, success/internality and failure/internality, indicating that those who perceive themselves as playing a major role in their academic journey tend to have better outcomes. Further results show the influence of social inequalities, particularly for those students who declared themselves brown and who conducted their basic education in public schools (which are generally of lower quality than private ones in Brazil).

This paper reports preliminary findings on students enrolled in a massive open online course, who were also assigned to work in groups. Part of a larger study on the effect of groups on retention and completion in MOOCs, the paper provides students' demographics (i.e., location, gender, education level, and employment status), and motivation for taking the course. Findings show that women outnumbered men and that students mostly enrolled into the course because of a friend. Indeed, research on MOOCs demonstrates that men outnumber women and that educational pursuit and professional development are the main motivators for taking MOOCs. Yet, this paper shows that when group work is included in a MOOC, women participate more. Furthermore, for students assigned to groups in a MOOC, friends are the principal incentive for enrolling into the course. These results are discussed in light of previous research, and implications for teaching and learning in online environments addressed.

Smart learning environments (SLE) provide students with opportunities to interact with learning resources and activities in ways that are customised to their particular learning goals and approaches. A challenge in developing SLEs is providing resources and tasks within a single system that can seamlessly tailor learning experience in terms of time, place, platform, and form. In this paper we introduce the iCollab platform, an adaptive environment where learning activities are moderated through conversation with an intelligent agent who can operate across multiple web-based platforms, integrating formal and informal learning opportunities. Fifty-eight undergraduate computer science students were randomly assigned to either an intervention or control group for the 12 weeks of the pilot study. Learning analytics were used to examine their interactions with iCollab, while their course performance investigated the impact of using iCollab on learning outcomes. Results from the study showed a high level of interaction with iCollab, especially social interaction, indicating an interweaving of formal learning within their informal network spaces. These findings open up new possibilities for ways that SLEs can be designed to incorporate different factors, improving the ability of the system to provide adaptive and personalised learning experiences in relation to context and time.

How much university students learn in their studies is highly debated and important to understanding the value of higher education. Yet, information on learning gains at this level are scarce. Our paper contributes to the debate by using unique data for Brazil to estimate absolute test score gains across various fields of study in higher education and to assess whether students who attend certain categories of programs (public/private, research/non-research, highly selective/less selective) make greater relative gains than in others. Our results suggest that students in STEM fields tend to have higher absolute achievement gains compared to students in humanities and pedagogical programs, and that in a few fields, such as civil engineering and history, the relative gains for students in highly selective programs in that field of study are significantly higher than if they had attended somewhat less selective programs. However, students attending lowest quintile selective programs in a field of study have consistently lower gains across a range of study fields than similar students attending programs just one quintile higher. The results have important implications for the equity effects of higher education.

This paper explores the results of the research "A interiorização recente das Instituições públicas e gratuitas de ensino superior no Nordeste: efeitos e mudanças" [The recent implementation of new federal universities in the Northeast of Brazil: effects and changes], performed by the Joaquim Nabuco Foundation. One of its main mottos is the emphasis on the official speech, which defends that the implementation of Federal University campuses in the countryside of Brazil generates opportunities for young people at the lowest levels of the income pyramid to attend higher education. In this research, we have investigated the relations between the life stories and the aspirations of the students and, here, we analyse the reality of the educational system on the countryside, where in some cities, the possibility of a young person to attend university is rated below 5%. We have identified their expectations on professional choices and their future in the labour market, the way they feel about the implementation of the campuses and the changes in their life projects according to the possibility of achieving a better place in society due to the chance of attending free public university. The theoretical-methodological line used in this research will be explained throughout this paper.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the efficacy of foreign immersion programs in terms of increasing cross-cultural awareness among university students in business, accounting, human resources and agriculture. The authors extrapolate from their population to the practice of developing business professionals on international assignments. Design/Methodology/Approach: This paper presents findings of a four-year, government-sponsored university exchange program involving 40 professional management and agriculture science students from four US and Brazilian top research universities who participated in a semester-long study abroad experience. Pre-departure and post-exchange data were collected using the well-established Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI). In addition, the authors collected academic performance data and verbal mid- and end-project personal assessments. Two of the authors of this paper served as project directors, the third as evaluation specialist. Findings: Despite intensive pre-departure preparation, in-country support and cultural immersion, the research subjects failed to attain significant and consistently higher levels of intercultural awareness. Students tended to overestimate their own level of cross-cultural competence both before and after the program. While students tended to perform well academically and voiced high levels of satisfaction with their own overseas stay, objective measures of cross-cultural awareness did not mirror these outcomes. Research Limitations/Implications: Multiple measures of cross-cultural competence exist, and it is possible that the development in areas other than those measured by the IDI did take place. It is also sensible to assume that cognitive development might take longer and was not captured by the post-test right after return. Practical Implications: The paper suggests that cross-cultural development requires carefully designed interventions, feedback and mentoring/coaching. Simply sending individuals on overseas assignments, no matter how well prepared and supported by the institution, does not guarantee the development of multi-cultural attitudes and cognitive frames of mind. Social Implications: The development of cross-cultural competence has been described as a central concern for universities and workplaces alike. The burgeoning research literature on cross-cultural development reflects not only the importance of the topic but also the struggle to find effective pedagogical and andragogical approaches to fostering such development in university students, expatriate managers, working professionals and members of the workforce in general. Originality/Value: The paper presents evaluation findings of a carefully designed and well-supported exchange program over a period of four years and involving three cohorts of students. These students are at the cusp of moving into the workplace, where many will assume professional and leadership positions in international settings. Given the high failure rate of international development and placement and the increasing global interconnectedness of academic and business organizations, the paper suggests the need for carefully designed and well-supported overseas programs to maximize cross-cultural development.

In recent decades, many Latin American governments have implemented policies to expand opportunities in higher education, aiming at reducing discrimination and social inequalities. These policies have taken different forms, according to the peculiarities of the respective higher education systems. The purpose of this paper is to explore the scope and limitations of these policies. We develop our analysis of theoretical literature on the subject, and review empirical information available from secondary sources of recent experience in five countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Venezuela. Argentina has increased opportunities for disadvantaged social sectors by expanding the public sector. Brazil has attempted to improve access for ethnic and social minorities in both public and private institutions. Chile is a unique case because of the continuing commitment to allow market forces to shape higher education. In Mexico, increased opportunities for access have resulted from the creation of intercultural universities and technical institutions in the public sector, as well as through growth in the private sector. Finally, in Venezuela, expansion occurred through the creation of a new system of universities that operates in parallel to traditional public institutions. We note that, in all cases, the policies reflect an underlying belief that there are only benefits to unlimited expansion, without regard to possible consequences, such as an excess of university graduates in economies with limited job opportunities for them. Moreover, these policies do not take into consideration the deficit of cultural and educational capital of young people who come from the most marginalised social sectors, deficits that may hinder their success. Concepts such as 'overeducation' or 'credencialism' call into question that optimistic belief and explain the limitations of the coverage expansion in terms of real democratisation.

This paper investigates the intersection of income and race in structuring access to higher education among students that participate in a national high-stakes exam in Brazil. Our objectives are (i) to estimate the probability of students coming from different income strata, racial groups, and performance levels to access higher education and (ii) to decompose income and racial effects into direct (net of educational performance) and indirect effects (through educational performance). Our data comes from a panel of high school graduates tracked between 2012 and 2017 and allow us to describe the following findings. Firstly, the probability of entering higher education is always higher among candidates from higher income strata. Second, there is a convergence in admission probabilities across the performance scale. Third, the admission curve across a performance scale is much steeper among applicants from low-income strata compared to richer students. In all of these results, students self-identified as black, brown, or indigenous (BBI) are less likely to transition to higher education than whites, even though they are in the same income and performance strata. We suggest that students from privileged socioeconomic backgrounds benefit from alternative entry strategies, such as paying tuition at less competitive private colleges. For students from low-income strata, the main alternative for entering higher education is through high academic performance. By decomposing racial effects, we show the cumulative effect of racial stratification; the gap between white and BBI students is both related to higher propensity of transitioning to higher education and higher educational performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effects of affirmative action on the incentives to human capital accumulation are ambiguous from a theoretical perspective and the scarce empirical evidence on the matter provides mixed results. In this paper, we address this issue by investigating the impacts of Brazil's Law of Quotas on the students' performance in the college entrance exam, the ENEM. We provide causal evidence that the law fostered incentives to pre-college human capital accumulation, inducing students to attain higher ENEM scores. Moreover, the effects of the quotas were greater in quantitative-intensive subjects and these impacts increased throughout the first years after the law's implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Gestão & Planejamento is the property of FACS Servicos Educacionais S.A. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

With increasing access to Brazilian higher education comes increasing dropout rates in both licentiate and non-licentiate undergraduate programs. This paper reports on a comparative study of licentiate and non-licentiate undergraduate programs that enrolled students who either had or did not have a University Program for All (ProUni) scholarship. The study, conducted in 2014, analysed data on freshmen enrolled in 2005 at a non-profit higher education institution (HEI) in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The study used quantitative comparative methods including descriptive and inferential statistics to analyse the data. Results indicated that graduates with a ProUni scholarship had a higher graduation rate and decreased dropout rate in both licentiate and non-licentiate degrees, p <0.0001. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies often associate endogamy with lower academic performance. Alternatively, external exposure seems to be correlated with higher research quality. Consequently, when measuring the effects of endogamy, authors should account for academic inertia as well as the different types of mobility. In this study, a large longitudinal database on the Brazilian higher education system is used to measure the effects of endogamy and mobility on scientific production. This paper examines whether types of scholars–such as those who never leave their doctoral institution or those that have some experience elsewhere, especially abroad, show differential results. Furthermore, it measures the changes in scholars' productivity when controlling for the distinct types of academic mobility throughout their careers. Results suggest that information about how mobile an academic is before and during its career is relevant when estimating the effects of endogamy on academic productivity and international academic experiences are correlated with higher likelihood of publishing. • A large longitudinal database on the Brazilian higher education system is used to measure the effects of endogamy and mobility on scientific production. The paper measures the changes in scholars' productivity when controlling for the distinct types of academic mobility throughout their careers. • Results suggest that information about how mobile an academic is before and during its career is relevant when estimating the effects of endogamy on academic productivity and international academic experiences are correlated with higher likelihood of publishing at more prestigious journals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Texto & Contexto Enfermagem is the property of Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Programa de Pos-Graduacao de Enfermagem and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

• Changes in the PISA eligibility is correlated with an artificial improvement in the Brazil national average performance. • With a correction to the distribution of students per grade in PISA, there is a more modest increase in Math. • The observed change in the PISA eligibility does not seems to be driven by distinct results across school type. • Controlling the sample to show the same distribution in each state, results in a reordering of states and worse math scores. PISA is one of the most widely used instruments to assess student performance in the world. This paper investigates how changes in testing dates and students' dates of birth (eligibility) between 2000 and 2018 have affected results in Brazil. Controlling for changes in students' grade distribution over time, we show that changes in grade composition are correlated with increases in average score. We estimate that about 60 % of improvements in math are unrelated to student improvement. Since changes in testing date and eligibility are unrelated to the school system, performance increases over time might not be a result of a country's educational policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the implications of a blended agroecology and gender education withinBrazil’s Landless Rural Workers’ Movement(MST). The discussion is first situated within MST’s struggle for land and for peasant families’ livelihoods, generally, and under neoliberalism, specifically. Central to the struggle against neoliberalism have been critical educational models that evolved towards agroecology and a gender-equality-oriented pedagogy. Women have played important roles in the movement’s growth, particularly the development of the education sector. Using data from a literature review, observations, and interviews, the article argues that MST’s education, focused on agroecology and accompanied by gender-oriented pedagogy, empowers women and men to disrupt the traditional sexual division of labour in rural communities, and within land struggles, more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]