Uma aplicação da Teoria da Resposta ao Item na avaliação do ENADE do curso de Administração

Abstract

Traditionally considering gross or standardized scores as the result of an individual's assessment or selection is a common fact. However, the results obtained depend on the items or questions that compose the evaluation instruments. Model applications that provide a better interpretability of the evaluative instrument, the Item Response Theory (IRT) allows to measure the latent trait of individuals, that is, characteristics that cannot be directly observed. The National Assessment of Student Achievement (ENADE) aims to assess the performance of undergraduate students in relation to syllabus, their skills and competences. Its results provide important data in the educational field, building references that allow the definition of actions aimed at improving the quality of undergraduate courses. This article presents an analysis of the 2009 ENADE test that was answered by 231.531 new and graduating students of the Business Administration course of several institutions in the country through the IRT. It was possible to verify the feasibility of using the IRT as an instrument to measure ENADE items, as well as the occurrence of a latent trait gain between incoming and graduating students, showing that the graduates at the end of the academic period had average latent trait superior to newcomers and somehow built up academic skills.