Atribuição de causalidade ao insucesso nas provas do simulado do PAS, por alunos e professores do ensino médio: um estudo de caso

Abstract

This study is a result of an analysis to find out to whom the causes of failure in gaining knowledge by high school students should be ascribed. The analysis is based on written in-formation by students who failed in simulative tests, designed both by a university or by their own teachers. A succinct looking over their statements made it clear that failure is the conse-quence of a set of reasons, that it is a multifaceted phenomenon, that expresses how much is still to be done and learned in the area of education; it discloses a recurring problem within the Brazilian history of education. Though, spite of revealing itself in the student, the subject of learning, the failure in school is the result of the interconnection of many causes and in-fluences, including the ones coming from the school as well as the ones coming from the fam-ily. Thus, in this essay it was tried to clarify some of the aspects of the failure at school, by using the theoretic-methodological norm of assigning causalities. It was tried to identify the causes of failure in simulative tests by de PAS, in order to establish similarities and differ-ences among the several groups, by confronting them with the information dealing with the causes of failure got from the students, as well as correlating the values the groups attributed to circumstances of the school life. The research was made in a private school, with students of the medium level, with an average grade below 5.0 got at the simulated test. The analysis made it clear that the causes mostly must be ascribed to deficiency in effort, omission in ful-filling written tasks, difficulties met in some tasks, lack of assistance, and lack of previous studies. According to the students and their teachers, the main cause of failure is lack of moti-vation and endeavor.