Influências da avaliação externa das escolas no desenvolvimento de uma cultura de autoavaliação

Abstract

The growing importance that accountability has in Portuguese public schools is the result of media coverage of the schools ranking phenomena and also to the external evaluation that schools have been subject since 2006. However, studies have shown that this accountability has been associated to an improvement goal that may not be promoted if schools do not evaluate what they do internally (Bolivar, 2003). This text aims to identify influences of schools’ external evaluation in developing a self-assessment culture within schools.Data were collected from the external evaluation reports of schools, performed by IGEC (Inspecao-Geral da Educacao e Ciencia) during the 1st and 2nd cycles of external evaluation, from a set of 52 schools belonging to North and Centre regions of the country. The reports were chosen as to belonging two different groups of schools: Schools with high marks obtained in the external evaluation process and schools with lower marks.The 104 reports were treated through content analysis, using the NVivo10 program. The analysis helped to confirm that the Schools’ external evaluation had influence the development of schools’ self-assessment, and this influence is higher in schools with lower marks. Schools with higher marks were also those to which Schools’ external evaluation process recognizes more consistent practices of self-assessment, inducing a culture of self-assessment.