Impacto de diferentes estratégias de ensino no aprendizado das boas práticas de fabricação para manipuladores de alimentos em cursos na modalidade EaD

Abstract

Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) are a set of guidelines that must be followed by food manufacturers and food services in order to ensure the safety and sanitary quality of the food and the conformity of the goods with the regulations, aiming at providing safe food to the consumers. The handlers are important agents in this process, so their training and development are both essential and mandatory. The regular offer of continuing education courses for this group is indispensable, as well as the suitability of the selected teaching methodology. The transmission of knowledge is still the most used tool in the teaching-learning process. The use of Active Methodologies has been highlighted as an innovative resource for critical and reflective development in the training of professionals, enabling a more meaningful learning. The aim of this study was to assess the impact of two continuing education courses in a distance learning format using different teaching methodologies on the training of food handlers in GMP. The handlers have taken the course voluntarily. They have also filled out an identification and socioeconomic survey, in which it was found that most of them were female, between 21 and 40 years old, had an income between 1 and 2 minimum wages, had completed high school education, and had been in their positions for more than a year. In addition, most of them had already participated in other training courses on the subject, and they worked in the food industry. The courses occurred independently, on 5 consecutive days, and they assessed the knowledge of the handlers before and after the activities. Course 1, which had 26 participants, was taught asynchronously, using traditional teaching methodologies. And Course 2, involving 29 participants, was taught synchronously, using Active Methodologies. Regardless of the teaching methodology used during the courses, the percentage of correct answers on the test taken after the participation in the GMP courses has greatly improved. The course developed with Active Methodologies resulted in a substantial improvement in the participants' grades, when compared to the grades of the class in which the course was taught through traditional teaching methodologies, thus indicating the importance of assessing the outcomes and the effectiveness of this kind of course, in order to continuously boost the training. During the test carried out before the course, by comparing the average grades of the handlers who had already participated in previous professional qualification trainings in the field to those who had not yet attended any type of training, was possible to see that there was no significant difference in the results, which points to the importance of offering continuous and regular training to this group.