Examinando exames: análise dos vestibulares que nortearam o livro "Fundamentos da Física"

Abstract

Frequently, High School students show unfavorable attitudes towards Physics, being not motivated for learning it. The excessive mathematization of the discipline, which predominates in text books based on training material for University entrance exams may be one of the factors contributing to this reaction. Among them, special importance is assigned to the book "Fundamentos da Física "(Foundations of Physics), first published in 1975, whose first edition, according to one of the book authors, was designed to prepare students for the entrance exams for Engineering programs in São Paulo state. Several published works have suggested that this book has had an important influence on High School teaching in Brazil. Seeking to understand how the book was conceived, this work analyzes entrance exams for engineering programs in the state of São Paulo over the years preceding 1975. Results show that, up until 1968, the exams had a significant percentage of qualitative questions, covered a larger range of subjects, and also included questions presenting errors in formulation. From 1968 on, as the exams became classificatory and unified, the Engineering exams focused on a well defined core of subjects, turned exclusively quantitative and more difficult, and no longer presented formulation errors. The book being studied was conceived as a manual for students who intended to take these exams. The issue raised by using a manual in High Schools that was directed at preparation for a quantitative classificatory exam is discussed. The analysis also suggests that proposing qualitative questions in large scale exams can be tricky, since they seem to have higher tendency to present formulation errors. This is an important issue today, once this seems to be a direction being adopted by the ENEM exam. (English) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]