The The contributions of social psychology on ‘groups’ to reflections on the teaching work in an evaluative context in the stricto sensu

Abstract

The stricto sensu postgraduate assessment in Brazil is carried out by the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel and is a fundamental instrument of the national postgraduate system. Assessment results have several uses: students can use grades to choose their future courses; national and international funding agencies guide their funding policies according to the scores assigned by the Evaluation; studies and indicators produced by the Evaluation also serve to induce government policies to support and grow graduate studies and establish an agenda to reduce inequalities between regions in Brazil. During the evaluation cycle, professors and coordinators of stricto sensu courses work under the demand for productivity to fulfil the evaluation items and requirements and to provide the information required by the process. In this context, in which the work of one is also the work of all the final results of the group’s work, it is expressed by the result of the four-year evaluation of the graduate program at the end of an evaluation cycle. In this article, questions about ‘Groups’ are presented based on the contributions of Michener et al. (2005) on the characteristics, nature, structure, roles of members and objectives of a group. Points of the confluence of these issues with the work of professors of the stricto sensu are also presented in the context of the evaluation of the graduate programs in which they work, as well as results and discussions of recent research carried out in Brazil on teaching work (during the text) and, therefore, relevant to the issues addressed to corroborate the discussion.