Análise dos níveis de letramento de ingressantes e concluintes do ensino superior: estudo de caso

Abstract

Having in mind that in the last years, in Brazil, studies have shown some concern about freshmen students‟ reading and writing, this case stud, the cross-sectional nature research aimed to characterize and analyze literacy practice present in everyday life of freshmen and senior students in Higher Education, as well as their ability to read and write texts produced by Brazilian citizens every day. The sample consisted of 392 participants; 218 freshman and 174 senior students from Bachelor and College Degree from a private university in the state of São Paulo. The data collection was conducted through an open and objective questionnaire which contained questions regarding personal and school life information as well as data about the use of reading and writing in their everyday life. Practical reading and writing tests were applied, all of them developed and adapted from the “National Indicator of Functional Literacy”, comprised of questions involving reading and interpretation of everyday life texts, such as: notes, news, poster, synopsis of films on TV, and fables. The test required to perform simple tasks such as locating a single visibly identifiable information item in the text, or even more difficult tasks that required location, comparison and making inferences from the information in the text. For data analysis, it was adopted a quantitative approach, since these ones apply a statistical tool for empirical research. The results showed that most of the participants are female, aged 18 to 24 years old, they study in the evening, they are from the public education institutions, and the main way of accessing Higher Education was through the entrance exam. Moreover, it was noticed that most participants have different kinds of job, and only 33,87% of the freshmen and 11,39% of the seniors have a job related to teaching or educational area. Most of them learned how to read and write in a traditional school, and some participants reported to have difficulties to read and write even in the university context. Regarding the reading tests, this study does not show any significant differences between freshmen and senior students. It might be noted that although the texts presented refer to primary genres, considered everyday texts, which is not required complex inferences or deeper critical thinking from the reader, still sorts difficulties were observed for which one perfect domain at that level of teaching expected. Thus, this study reveals that, in the case of these individuals, the majority freshmen and senior students shows the level literacy and that university is not able to overcome the discrepancies derived from the basic education regarding especially the literacy practices. Thus, it is important for a change in the educational landscape, the quality of teacher training and work with multiple ideological and vernacular literacies in all levels of education.