TEACHERS' PERSPECTIVE ABOUT FACTORS THAT PREVENT SUCCESS IN TEACHING AND LEARNING PROCESS IN HIGHER EDUCATION OF ENGINEERING IN BRAZIL

Abstract

The last fifteen years, in Brazil, the number of engineering freshmen had a huge increased and, although the number of graduated also had increased over the same period, the percentage of engineering freshmen are by far higher than engineers graduated. In this context, there is a clear evidence of the high dropout rate in higher education courses of engineering in Brazil. Once most of developed researches about engineering courses dropout in Brazil are focused in the students and institutions point of view about factors that affect dropout rate, in this research it was investigated the professors perspective to answer the three questions: (1) What are the main factors which prevent success in teaching and learning process identified by professors of engineering during the classes? (2) How can professors to improve the teaching and learning process in higher education courses of engineering in Brazil? (3) How can Higher Education Institutions (HEI) support the professors? The research data were collected through team activities developed with 134 professors of higher education courses of engineering. This research reveals that the most important factors that affect negatively the teaching and learning process are related to inadequate high school preparation and behaviour of students. Main suggestions of professors for improving the teaching and learning process and also students' motivation are related to pedagogical aspects such as: use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) as support of classes and implementation of professor and student support programs with significant participation of HEI. Key words: qualitative research, problems in engineering education, professor's perspective, higher education of engineering in Brazil.