A avaliação externa de escolas

: um contributo para a mudança na organização escolar?

Abstract

The assessment process is considered, by many authors and decision makers, as a benefit and an indispensable contribution to the growth of school organizations and to the improvement of the Educational System. The investigation that took place aimed at analysing the role that the External Assessment of schools – carried out by the General Inspection of Education (GIE) – performs in the promotion of self-assessment and improvement of schools and, on the other hand, aimed at identifying how the teachers of a same group of schools understood the action and the contribution of this entity to the growth and change of the school organization. Thus, all the empirical research has been developed according to four lines of analysis: personal aspects of assessment; personal/pedagogical aspects of assessment; organizational aspects of assessment; the «building of meanings» aspects of assessment (the articulation between External Assessment and Self-assessment). Having in consideration that these were the lines of analysis we aimed at studying and reflecting on, we decided to carry out a qualitative investigation by applying a semi-structured interview to our sample: teachers who had been part of the interviewee groups with the External Evaluation carried out by carried out by GIE in a group of schools the interior. The collected data showed teachers consider that, after the External Assessment act by GIE, the leadership and the educational community were concerned about using its recommendations internally. Therefore they started actions and processes in order to optimize the process of change and improvement of the school organization. The connection between External Assessment and Self-Assessment: - «building of meanings»-, was an evidence and is taking effects, but in what concerns school/academic practice and pedagogic supervision there is still a long way to cover. All the interviewees consider that the success and the optimization of this assessment process depends mainly on the way the leaderships and the educational communities consider its necessity and its educational validity.

Date of Award	31 Jan 2012
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	José Afonso Batista (Supervisor) & Vitor Alaíz (Co-Supervisor)