Contributions of ENADE to the Assessment of Control and Automation Engineering in Brazil

ENADE that stands, in Portuguese, for "National Exam of Student Performance" is an exam for all senior students about to graduate; it is one of the official tools for measuring the state of undergraduate courses in Brazil. Contribution: This article presents an integrative synthesis of the 2014 edition of ENADE examination of control and automation engineering (CAE) courses in Brazil. Background: ENADE is a national exam triennially administered for the senior undergraduate students in each area, as part of the federal government policies for performance assessment of higher education in Brazil. The results of ENADE are the basis of quality indexes used for program accreditation and funds distribution. Research Questions: What are the main assessments that the ENADE 2014 can provide about the CAE courses in Brazil? How can the results of such a nationwide evaluation be exploited by specific programs to improve their academic performance? Methodology: Starting from a historical perspective of CAE in Brazil, the authors present their experience with the methods and tools for the preparation of the CAE exam and synthesize the most relevant results of ENADE 2014. Finally, a case study is used to illustrate how could a teaching institution exploit the ENADE report to assess its courses performance. Findings: The exams of 3.579 senior students from 118 CAE courses show significant differences in the academic performance of CAE courses in Brazil according to the geographical region, funding type, and academic organization. The objective and discursive questions had very good discrimination covering the main profiles, resources, and objects of knowledge in the CAE curriculum. The analysis of students' performance can support educators' local decisions to improve the quality of CAE courses.