Analisando possibilidades de construção da autonomia em curso de EAD: um estudo de caso.

Abstract

This study aims to disclose the teaching conditions of a Distance Education Pedagogy Course in order to promote the learner’s construction of autonomy upon analyzing interactions and mediations in the learning process at face to face and distant moments. In the literature review which makes up the basis for this study, an interpretation panel on the theme under analysis with some of the interlocutors was created. At first the identification of the mediate causes of distance education, a description of present-day Distance Education in Brazil and the construction of autonomy (interaction mechanisms and methodological conceptions which further its development) were done. Data collection was performed by means of a questionnaire which was applied to the surveyed subjects to know their personal characteristics, their perceptions as to what the Course had to offer them, the conceptions on which their actions are based, and the interpretations and representations that they make from these actions. The content of the subjects’ discourse was taken into account in this qualitative approach piece of research. The collected data, mainly those related to the students’ discourse, led us to the conclusion that, as a whole, the Course does not favor autonomy construction, nor does it prepare students for independent learning inasmuch as political-administrative centralization does not legitimate autonomous decision-taking and prevents the use of selfgovernment structures. There is consequently a heteronomous education which deprives the ethically responsible critical subject, able to take meaningful decisions, of a democratic and participative education.