A evasão numa Licenciatura em Ciências Naturais sob efeito da forma de ingresso e de uma mudança curricular

Abstract

Drop-out rate in high school courses in Natural Sciences aggravates the problem of the low availability of teachers in contrast with an increasing demand in basic education in the area mentioned earlier. Graduates in Brazil face difficulties such as devaluation of the profession. Leading to low status and poor working conditions making concurrence low and increasing the chance of students assign without real interest also tends to increase students drop-out. With the adhesion of federal universities to the Sistema de Seleção Unificado-SISU (Unified Selection System) many students adopt the strategy of choosing the lowest graded course, not the one of real interest, which can also contribute to increase avoidance. The course of Natural Sciences in the Universidade Federal do Amazonas-UFAM (Federal University of Amazonas) is a unique for its general curriculum and integrates the teaching of Natural Sciences for elementary education and it is not out the depreciation courses scenario. In addition to the low concurrence for admission, the general curriculum is appealing to those who believe it is easy to migrate to other courses. In 2010 in addition to UFAM´s adherence to SISU there was a restructure in the curriculum of the course that implemented the course at night. The goal was to strengthen the teaching identity by increasing the teaching time and reinforcing the generalist character with a better balance in the disciplinary loads of Biology, Chemistry and Physics. The objective of this study was to evaluate the factors that influenced the graduation of undergraduate courses in Natural Sciences from UFAM, with emphasis on the effect of the form of admission and the change of curriculum occurred in the year 2010. The theoretical basis used was the Robbins model et al. (2004) for the integrative aspect, which does not exclude other models since in the study of drop-out the theoretical models were added to understand the phenomenon. As a method quantitative analysis of the temporal variation in admission and factors related to students drop-out was performed, based on data collected from the Pro Rectory of Undergraduate Teaching. Subsequently among students were drawn who entered the course between 2007 to 2012 possible participants until reaching the number of 32 volunteers and conducted semi-structured interviews on the academic experience and reasons to stay or evade. The statements obtained were analyzed in light of the Bardin Content Analysis (2016). It was verified that the change in the form of entrance contributed significantly to the increase of the drop-out, different from the change in the curriculum that does not seem to have influence in this sense. About 78% of the students entered the course due to insufficient grade for the intended course. Other factors related to avoidance were sex, age, and disappointment with the course, maladaptation, and excess of activities, incompatibility with work, demotivation, pregnancy, family loss, strike and lack of teachers. The main reasons for the permanence of the students were involvement with the course and participation in institutional programs. The work ends with suggestions to combat drop-out in the course, such as greater attention to institutional psychological support and strengthening of institutional programs.