Abstract:

Since 2012, the Health Sciences Centre (CCS) of University of Fortaleza implemented a competence-based curriculum with an integrated design in all its 12 graduation courses. The University is a private, non-profit, Brazilian institution that is stablished since 1973 in the city of Fortaleza and located in the northeast region of the country, Ceará State. In order to evaluate the new curriculum, the CCS assessed the first year implemented in each course through focus groups with students. This activity was unable to offer a good perception of the results. Given that, in 2015 the CCS implemented a systematic curriculum evaluation, adapted from the Kirkpatrick model for assessment of training professionals in business companies. In this adapted model, they retained Kirkpatrick´s four stages of evaluation and respective functions of the original model. Additionally, in each stage of the model, they developed strategies and tools in order to gather information and to evaluate a training curriculum for professionals in the health area. In the first stage, whose function is to obtain information on the level of satisfaction and approval of the social actors (in our case, teachers and students) who participate directly in the curriculum, they used two strategies: teacher and student focus groups and student’s evaluation of each module/discipline through questionnaires. The second stage aims to evaluate the acquisition of knowledge, skills and attitudes that result in health professions competencies. At this stage, an instrument was created to carry out a comparative analysis between the competences assumed in the Pedagogical Project of the Course (PPC) and important elements for the development of these competences, presented in the teaching plans of the modules (learning objectives, and evaluative strategies), which constitute the presentation of curriculum proposals in action. In addition to the comparative analysis between the PPC and teaching plans, comparative analysis were performed between the results of the University of Fortaleza Progress Test (IDEA) and the National Competence Assessment (ENADE) conducted by the Ministry of Education for each graduation course.

The rationale for these analysis are:
a) the creation of an instrument able to show strong, regular and fragile areas of the curriculum in the courses;
b) to use them as referrals to curricular improvements.

Evidence from these analysis identified strong areas and areas that needed improvement in the curriculum. The third stage aims to analyse the level of didactic transposition from academia to the world of work. The proposed instrument was a questionnaire, applied to professionals or preceptors who receive students in curricular apprenticeship. In October 2016, CCS performed a pilot application of the instrument in a public health institution, which received students of the nursing internship. The fourth stage evaluates the impact of curricular actions perceived in the long term by the social group most closely involved in this process. This stage is at construction phase, with the pilot activity going to be held in the medical graduation course. Each CCS coordination course gather and analyses data from each stage as well as proposes changes in the curriculum as a result. The curricular evaluation process and the respective curricular changes from its implementation are the subject of this paper.

Keywords:

Curriculum, Curriculum evaluation, Competence, Higher Education, Health Education.