National High School Exam Research Articles

Access policies to higher education: from merit to expansion and democratization

This article provides a contextualized analysis of the different forms of access to higher education in Brazil, considering its historical evolution. It employs a historical-dialectical approach as the analytical framework, understanding that the analysis of a social phenomenon should take into account the context in which it originated, exploring its mediations and contradictions. The article starts from the assumption that access to higher education has generally been elitist and exclusionary, considering the demand for this level of education and the availability of slots, thereby highlighting the issue of merit. This situation undergoes changes with the implementation of access democratization policies in the country since the 1990s, which utilize the Unified Selection System (SiSU) through the National High School Exam (Exame Nacional do Ensino Médio – ENEM). The article concludes that although these measures have expanded access for populations from less privileged classes to higher education, they have also generated other factors that compromise access democratization and increase dropout rates.

Exploring the relationship between language scores and writing performance on the ENEM exam: evidence from a brazilian micropolitan region

The objective of this study is to investigate the potential correlation between students' academic performance on the objective Language Test and their writing proficiency as assessed in the National High School Exam (ENEM). The primary goal is to ascertain whether the grade achieved in the native language serves as a reliable predictor of performance on the writing test. The sample for this analysis encompasses 4,704 high school graduates from the Médio Paraíba Region of the State of Rio de Janeiro who participated in the National High School Exam in 2019. This study employs a hypothesis test based on the correlation between the variables, complemented by the utilization of linear regression to determine the effect size. The findings reveal a Pearson correlation coefficient of merely 0.208, accompanied by an R² value of 0.04. Essentially, while a correlation exists between students' performance on the Languages test and the writing test of the ENEM, the effect size is notably small. This suggests that additional factors beyond language proficiency may offer more comprehensive explanations for students' performance variations on the ENEM writing test.

APLICAÇÃO DE TÉCNICAS DE INTELIGÊNCIA ARTIFICIAL PARA CLASSIFICAÇÃO DE FUGA AO TEMA EM REDAÇÕES

ABSTRACT: The process of manual correction of essays causes some difficulties, among which we point out the time spent for correction and feedback to the student. For institutions such as elementary schools, universities, and the National High School Exam in Brazil (Enem), such activity demands time and cost for the evaluation of the texts produced. Going off-topic is one of the items evaluated in the Enem essay that can nullify the whole essay produced by the candidate. In this context, the automatic analysis of essays with the application of techniques and methods of Natural Language Processing, Text Mining, and other Artificial Intelligence techniques has shown to be promising in the process of automated evaluation of written language. The goal of this research is to compare different AI techniques for the classification of going off-topic in texts and identify the one with the best result to enable a smart correction system for essays. Therefore, computer experiments were carried out to classify these texts to normalize, identify patterns, and classify the essays in 1,320 Brazilian Portuguese essays on 119 different topics. The results indicate that the Convolutional Neural Network classifier obtained greater gain concerning the other classifiers analyzed, both in accuracy and about the results of false positives, the precision of metrics, Recall, and F1-Score. In conclusion, the solution validated in this research contributes to positively impacting the work of teachers and educational institutions, by reducing the time and costs associated with the essay evaluation process.

Economic growth and quality of education: Evidence from the national high school exam in Vietnam

This study considers the impact of economic growth on the quality of K-12 education in a transitional country over the 2016–2019 period, utilizing sub-national-level data. The study employs two-stage least squares for the panel-data model, confirming that (i) a one percentage point rise in per capita income increases national test scores in Vietnam by around 0.4–1.83%, and (ii) this nexus is influenced by the quality of institutions and by poverty levels. Notably, we find a non-linear relationship between economic growth and education: economic growth exhibits a U-shaped relationship with English scores, while its association with mathematics scores follows an inverse U-shaped pattern. The current study thus adds to the body of evidence supporting the link between educational quality and economic growth. As a result, policymakers in transitional nations can use the forces of economic growth to advance social objectives, rather than concentrating primarily on changing the educational system through increased government spending. In order to maximize the benefits of economic growth for the education system, the government policies should focus on assuring institutional quality improvement and multidimensional poverty reduction.

A Comparison of the Academic Achievement at the End of the Medicine Undergraduate Degree Program Between Students Who Only Used the University Admission Test and Those Who Used the University Admission Test Plus Marks from the High School National Exam (ENEM) at a Single Brazilian Center.

The role of marks in the University Admission Test (UAT) plus the marks from pre-university academic records in predicting academic achievement at the end of the Medicine undergraduate degree program is not completely known. This study was undertaken to compare the performance of marks in the UAT alone with those of the UAT plus marks from the National High School Exam (ENEM in Brazil) regarding students' outcomes at the end of the Medicine undergraduate degree program. Fifty-one (51) students from the last semester (12th) of our Medicine undergraduate degree program were included in the study. They were divided into a group of those who used the marks obtained in the UAT plus the marks obtained in the ENEM (ENEM group, n=9), and those who only used the marks in the UAT (non-ENEM group, n=42). We compared the academic achievement of the non-ENEM group with that of the ENEM group regarding the mean marks obtained in the clerkship, in the Progress Test (PT), and in the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE). The mean scores obtained in the disciplines of the clerkship were higher in the non-ENEM group compared to the ENEM group (7.32 ± 0.41 vs 6.98 ± 0.31, p= 0.01). Both groups obtained similar mean marks in the OSCE and in the PT. A moderate correlation was observed between the marks in the clerkship with those of the UAT from the non-ENEM group (p=0.00006; r=0.45). Marks of the UAT alone appear to be associated with a higher academic achievement in the clerkship than marks of the UAT plus scores obtained from the ENEM at the end of the Medicine undergraduate degree program.

Factors affecting English scores at national high school exam of sophomores at Thu Dau Mot University: Empirical evidence from GLS method

English, undeniably is now playing an extremely important role in many fields, particularly in cultural promotion and economic development of the country. Although the government has implemented several reforms to enhance the quality of nationwide English teaching and learning, the results, particularly shown through the national high school exams, are far below expectation. Therefore, as an effort to better the students’ score in the exam, this paper aimed at investigating factors, mostly those relating to students, affecting their scores at the national high school exams. To achieve that goal, data will be collected from 250 sophomores of Thu Dau Mot University through questionnaires. These students are chosen to get more reliable results because the latest NHE in 2021 was held amidst the coronavirus outbreak with lots of its unavoidable impacts. The generalized least squares (GLS) method is then used with eight independent variables and the dependent variable is the English score of these students in the National high school exam. Based on the findings, some recommendations are then made.

Performance of Minas Gerais Students in the National High School Exam considering socioeconomic variables

Resumo Este estudo buscou verificar o desempenho geral dos estudantes concluintes do ensino médio no ano de 2019 provenientes de escolas de Minas Gerais no Exame Nacional do Ensino Médio, o ENEM. A partir dos dados fornecidos pelo Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira (INEP), lançou-se mão da estatística descritiva considerando as variáveis dependência administrativa escolar, sexo, raça, renda, escolaridade dos pais e notas, a fim de relacioná-las ao desempenho desses estudantes conforme o perfil socioeconômico. Ao todo, contabilizaram-se as notas de 91.540 alunos de escolas particulares, federais, estaduais, municipais e das unidades do Colégio Tiradentes da Polícia Militar (CTPM). Os dados apontaram que, a maioria dos estudantes que realizaram o ENEM 2019 e que concluíram o ensino médio nesse mesmo ano estava matriculada nas escolas estaduais, que foram as instituições que apresentaram as menores médias em todas as áreas de conhecimento da prova. A média das notas das escolas particulares, por sua vez, foi superior à de todas as outras instituições em todas as áreas e seguiu o padrão nacional. A investigação evidencia como as variações socioeconômicas contribuem para um quadro mais amplo por meio do qual as desigualdades constituem barreiras para a melhoria do desempenho escolar e para a democratização do ensino no Brasil. O tipo de dependência administrativa escolar foi a variável mais influente entre as consideradas neste trabalho.

ENTRE EIXOS: FILOSOFIA NO ENEM A PARTIR DAS ORIENTAÇÕES COMPLEMENTARES AOS PARÂMETROS CURRICULARES NACIONAIS (PCN+)

ABSTRACT: This article examines how the themes proposed for philosophy at the high school level by the Complementary Guidelines to the Brazilian National Curricular Parameters (Orientações Complementares aos Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais - PCN+) were materialized in philosophy questions in Brazilian National High School Exam (Exame Nacional do Ensino Médio - Enem). In order to do so, 73 Humanities questions in the Enem tests betweeen 1998 and 2018 were identified as containing primarily philosophical topics. Then, each of these questions were classified in terms of the components of the PCN+ Parametres which it mobilized. By means of an analysis of the quantititative and qualitative coverage of the philosophy component of the exam through the years, this article illustrates some challenges and possibilities that the tests present to the implementation of curriculum normatives. This discussion is particularly important at this moment, when a new Enem is under construction, to adjust to the New High School Curriculum and the new National Common Core (BNCC), especially considering the emphasis that these documents place on concepts such as integration, interdisciplinarity, and autonomy as means to overcome fragmentation, be it between forms of knowledge, between people, between theory and practice. To conclude, I present a few indications about how these reflections contribute to flag points of attention relative to the continuing presence of philosophy in the exam considering its imminent reformulation.

An overview of mixed type situations in the Brazilian national high school exam (ENEM) tests

Resumo: Esta pesquisa tem o objetivo de identificar e classificar situações do tipo misto, associadas à função afim, presentes em provas do Enem. Foram analisadas as provas do Enem da edição de 2020 e foram identificadas 10 situações possíveis de serem escritas na forma f ( x ) = a x + b . Cada situação foi analisada quanto à apresentação dos dados, estrutura de resolução e classificadas com base na combinação das classes dos campos conceituais aditivos e multiplicativos, conforme propostos na teoria dos campos conceituais, que embasa esta pesquisa. Dentre as classes identificadas, a mais frequente foi dupla proporção simples e composição de medidas, com três situações. Para parte dos estudantes que presta o Enem, o acesso ao saber matemático é oriundo da sala de aula, logo, conhecer as diferentes classes de situações do tipo misto é do interesse do professor para proporcionar a seus alunos a construção do conceito de função afim.

Teaching and Learning of Mathematics and its Technologies through Video Lessons and Interactions on Social Networks

In this work we present teaching and learning alternatives, through a set of video lessons on Mathematics and its Technologies present in the tests of the National High School Exam (ENEM). The objective was to mobilize, from video lessons, skills and competences in mathematical concepts present in the High School curriculum, pointed out by the students from a diagnosis as difficult to understand. The videos were produced by students of the Degree in Mathematics, scholarship holders of the Tutorial Education Program (PET): Knowledge Connections and posted on the YouTube channel, with a suggestion of individual interaction of the participants through WhatsApp and other social networks. After a period of one year of posting the videos, it was possible to observe a considerable number of shares with requests for clarification on mathematical concepts, especially related to solving problems involving algebra and geometry, enabling a favorable interaction to the learning process.

Gender Inequality and Science Education: Comparison with Brazilian Students in PISA and ENEM

Background: Natural sciences is considered a markedly masculine field of study. Despite the criticisms and changes observed in recent years, the effects on society of male science are still observed in school performance. Objectives: This study proposes to compare the performance inequality based on students’ gender in the contents of natural sciences in Brazil at the end of two learning cycles, lower secondary education (LSE) and upper secondary education or high school (USE). Design: The research was designed to identify the size of the effect on the performance of male and female groups in the International Student Assessment Program (PISA) and in the National High School Exam (ENEM) between 2009 and 2018. Setting and Participants: Public school students who, in the year in which the exam was taken, were in their final year of LSE or USE. Data collection and analysis: PISA performance data were collected from the PISA Data Explorer. From ENEM, they came directly from the database made available by INEP. We applied statistical significance tests to identify differences in performance in the natural sciences test of the two exams. Results: The PISA results indicate that there is no difference in the students’ performance based on gender. In contrast, the ENEM results indicate a difference of 0.3 standard deviations in favour of boys. Conclusions: The results point to an expansion of the gender-based differences in the contents of natural sciences during the EM.

Longitudinal Study on Biodiversity in Ten Years of National High School Exam

Background: Biodiversity is essential for its instrumental, scientific, and political values, and its knowledge is vital to promote its preservation. Objectives: This study identified and analysed the presence of knowledge related to biodiversity in Biology and/or multidisciplinary items in the National High School Examination (ENEM) over ten years between 2009 and 2018. Design: Longitudinal study, based on qualitative methodology. Setting and participants: Education and science experts participated in the analyses. Data collection and analysis: Data were collected on the INEP website. Analyses performed by researchers and an expert panel. Results: We found a clear prevalence of the category “Ecology and Environmental Sciences” in the items, which is in agreement with the literature. However, we also found a disproportionate distribution of questions concerning the categories of the reference matrix of the discipline of Biology. Furthermore, there is significant variability in the theme in different years. We discussed the consequences for curriculum and conservation. Conclusions: There is an imbalance that reveals a dominant trend, acting as a structuring element of the questions, that silences other major areas of Biology and can influence the curriculum and practices of secondary school teachers. The high variability of the occurrence of the biodiversity theme in Biology tests suggests a non-harmonic relationship, which may be associated with the statistical demands of the IRT modelling, between the selection of questions and the reference matrix of the Biology categories, with possible consequences for the curriculum.

Los objetivos y requerimientos para los exámenes igcse, as y a level en algunos manuales de preparación para dichos exámenes

Objectives and Requirements for the IGCSE, AS and A Level in Some Coursebooks Designed for These Exams. The IGCSE, AS and A level Spanish exams are exams of different language levels that belong to the Cambridge curriculum. Romanian students and not only, in some private secondary schools, can choose either this type of exam or the national high school exam, both of which offer the possibility of university entrance. In addition to the syllabus, Cambridge provides teachers and students with materials for preparation, assessment and self-assessment. Likewise, teachers have training courses and interaction with other teachers. The Cambridge coursebooks used in a private school in Romania, Transylvania College, are analyzed, the purpose of this study being to observe how they are reflected and if the objectives and requirements of the curriculum are met in the content of the manuals studied. Regarding the content and activities proposed in the manuals, we intend to check how they meet the needs of the students and finally, how they prepare them for those exams. Keywords: objectives, requirements, content, Cambridge, manuals, syllabus

Impact of Knowledge of Natural Sciences on ENEM Performance: Considerations about Scientific and Technological Inequality to Social Justice

This paper sets out from the perspective sociology of education and sociology of science, aiming: analyze the performance of students in nature sciences compared to other areas of knowledge in the National High School Exam; analyze the performance of candidates from public schools and private schools; present preliminary considerations that indicate how the presence of scientific laboratories in schools show some evidence of improvement in performance. The debate goes through by mobilizing the concept of scientific inequality and cultural goodwill to propose an interpretation of data that allows a comparison between the performance in natural sciences of students from several school systems by comparative analysis among public and private schools. The data selection it reports on the microdata of the National High School Exam (ENEM) — 2017 edition — which was investigated the results of students from the final year (senior year) who scores between 600 and 1000 points in natural sciences in order to compare these results with other areas of knowledge. The data show that students from public schools have proportionally more significant performance (between fields of knowledge) in hard sciences (and writing) than students from private schools. In addition, it is found in this range of score of the analysis a disproportion of representativeness of students from public schools on objection of private ones that can be interpreted as a marked characteristic of social and educational inequality in the country.

OS TRECHOS DESCONEXOS EM REDAÇÕES DO ENEM

This work discusses the possible functions of disconnected excerpts in essays of the Exame Nacional do Ensino Médio (ENEM) [National High School Exam]. To ground our reflections, we resume the concepts of genre (BAKHTIN, 2006, 2011), genre format subversion (MARCUSCHI, 2008), and incoherence (KOCH; TRAVAGLIA, 2008). In the analysis, we compare the effects that the use of disconnected excerpts caused in three ENEM essays to the effects in two other genres, a petition and a blog post. We raise three possible functions for the insertion of these excerpts: that this may be an argumentative strategy; that the author reacts to the probable readers’ attention loss; and that the author tests the dialogical character of the essay. We conclude that the use of these excerpts in ENEM does not necessarily make texts incoherent, but the condition of textual production demands a greater stability of the genre’s format.

Caracterización de las preguntas de Biología del Examen de Ingreso del Estado de Rio de Janeiro y del Examen Nacional de la Escuela Secundaria

This study aimed to characterize Biology questions on the National High School Exam and the Rio de Janeiro State University Entrance Test. The topics analyzed in this study were: Introduction to Life, Biochemistry, Cell Biology, Animal Tissues, Living Beings, Compared Anatomy and Physiology, Genetics, Evolution, Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Morphology and Physiology of Vegetables. As a result, we have found 320 Biology questions in the Rio de Janeiro State Entrance Test, between the years 1997 and 2020, and 396 in the National High School Entrance Exam, between the years 1998 and 2019. The Rio de Janeiro State Entrance Test was characterized by the predominance of questions related to the structure and function of the human body, while the National High School Exam was characterized by the predominance of Ecology and Environment issues. As a result, it is expected that this study be useful as a basis for better understanding of the differences between these two higher education assessment tests.

Noção de cidadania é secundária nas questões de Ciências da Natureza do Enem

O Exame Nacional do Ensino Médio - Enem -, usado no processo seletivo de diversas universidades, tem grande influência na etapa do ensino avaliada nessa prova. A noção de cidadania é central nas pesquisas sobre ensino CTS e sobre letramento científico. O objetivo deste artigo é analisar as questões de Ciências da Natureza do Enem 2019, sob a ótica de três categorias de letramento em Ciências propostas por Shen (1975) e duas visões conflitantes de letramento científico apontadas por Roberts (2007), para ver se a noção de cidadania está ou não no foco do que é cobrado. A análise mostrou que a noção de cidadania é secundária nesta prova e são poucas as questões que demandam conhecimento prático ou cívico em Ciências.

Fatores críticos de sucesso e sua influência na prática docente

This study analyzed and identified the Critical Success Factors that most influence teaching practice. These factors involved aspects such as: teaching tools, perceived quality, training and psychological well-being. The objective was to contribute data that corroborate the development of teaching practices in the school environment, reflecting on the students' better performance. It was found that the use of Critical Success Factors (FCS) can positively influence teacher performance, and that by improving classroom management, their professional performance is increased. The theoretical references used were Rockart's Critical Success Factors (1979) and the perceived quality of Parasuraman et al. (1990). The instruments used for the analysis were the Kolmogorov-Smirnov (1979), to identify and describe the Critical Success Factors that assisted teaching practice, and the Servqual de Parasuraman et al. (1990), to analyze the quality of teachers' service, perceived by school managers. As the Kolmogorov-Smirnov method has simplified application, PARACONSISTENT LOGIC was also employed, as it allows, according to Bispo and Cazarini (2006) the natural treatment of divergences, inconsistencies and contradictions, as well as to obtain more accurate and close results. This work was restricted to the ten best schools in the city of Niterói, according to the concept in the National High School Exam (ENEM). This delimitation makes the results obtained subject to standards such as behavior and market demands. It was also expected, besides adding value to the current literature, to stimulate studies around the proposed theme, aiming to increasingly help teachers in the effectiveness of their actions in the school environment.

High School Chemistry and Enem: A curricular comparison

The National High School Exam (ENEM) is an assessment consisting of an essay and multiple choice questions. This assessment aims to measure the knowledge acquired during high school. The purpose of this article is to compare the content of the questions of the Chemistry component of the National High School Examination (ENEM) between the years 2014 to 2018 with the curriculum content of the technical chemistry course at the Federal Institute of Amapá (IFAP). The research was carried out using chemistry questions from the National High School Exam (ENEM) taken from the Super Professor (software) program. The content taught in the three years of the technical course in chemistry at the Federal Institute of Amapá (IFAP) meets the requirements of the National High School Exam (ENEM). The workload is also sufficient for the development of basic and technical disciplines. The content analysis demonstrates that, as it is a technical course, it provides in-depth knowledge, which increases the subsidy for carrying out the ENEM. This content is formed by theory and also by a great practical experience (laboratory). Practical knowledge helps enormously the fixation of learning and provides knowledge to discuss the contents.

Relevance aggregation for neural networks interpretability and knowledge discovery on tabular data

The lack of interpretability of neural networks is partially why they are not adopted in a wider variety of applications. Many works focus on explaining their predictions, but few take tabular data into consideration, which led to a small adoption even though this data is of high academic and business interest. We present relevance aggregation, an algorithm that combines the relevance computed from several samples as learned by a neural network and generates scores for each input feature. We also present two methods for visualizing the learned patterns, leading to a better model comprehension. The method was tested in synthetic and real-world datasets (breast cancer gene expression, online shopping behavior, and national high school exam) for classification and regression tasks. It correctly identified which features are the most important for the network’s predictions. The selected features can be distinct for each class. The rank of features scores also matches their contribution to the model’s performance. The results selected relevant features from the data, paving the way for knowledge discovery. The top-ranked features were consistently able to improve the performance of another independent classifier. For poorly trained neural networks, relevance aggregation helped identify incorrect rules or machine bias.