Influence of socioeconomic status on students' performance in Enem's Physics items

• Grant number: 17/06238-0
• Support type: Regular Research Grants
• Duration: August 01, 2017 - November 30, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Education - Educational Planning and Evaluation
• Principal researcher: Mauricio Urban Kleinke
• Grantee: Mauricio Urban Kleinke
• Home Institution: Instituto de Física Gleb Wataghin (IFGW). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

At each year, millions of applicants attend the National High School Examination (Enem), composed by four multiple-choice tests and one dissertation. Natural Science test consists in 45 multiple-choice items, with five alternatives, one correct and four false (distractors) and around 15 items can need Physics concepts to be solved. Physics students' grade can be correlated with educational trajectory and familiar socioeconomic status, near to the theoretical line of Bourdieu' works, where cultural capital and school' performance can be relates. One of the purposes of this project is to understand how Physics items' response can be affected or be correlated to applicants' socioeconomic status (SES). In order to characterize the SSE we will propose to use Enem' socioeconomic questionnaire to draw a parallel with the so-called Brazilian Economic Classification Criterion (Brazil Criteria). This criterion is based in a number of indicators related to the head of household´s education, and others, such as number of refrigerators, computers, housekeepers, cars, bathrooms, etc. A protocol attributed points (with weights) these socioeconomic items, creating a new SSE scale. We also intend to perform a detailed analysis of the reasoning and the mathematical or physical algorithms that lead students to the choice of the wrong alternative (distractors). Combining SES and academic reasoning propositions we hope define a structure of Physics' items recognition. With these analysis's tools, we expected understand where the greatest difficulties are found for candidates from different social classes. This items' report can will be transformed into support materials' schoolling, and can will be used by the teachers to validate the greatest difficulties faced - mainly by the public school students - in solving problems of the Enem, and improve their teaching process. (AU)