Shaping behaviour: strategies for getting students involved in

engineering programmes

EDSON PACHECO PALADINI{

This paper deals with a model to improve the teaching–learning process, using aparticipatory and interactive strategy. This strategy uses a joint decision-makingmodel that includes teachers and students. So, the purpose of this study is todescribe a model containing basic strategies for shaping suitable behavioursto professional actions (content of the minimum curriculum of various engineeringprogrammes), through different approaches, by applying it to the teaching–learningprocess. Through a practical, interactive and experiential process it is possible toconvey characteristics, positive and negative points, and ways of implementationof each of the approaches considered to students, and at the same time introducebehaviour-shaping strategies into the teaching–learning process.

1. IntroductionThe presentation of elements that shape adequate behaviours to guide professional

actions is part of the courses involving human resources, such as production manage-ment, quality management or personal management. Not long ago, such courses werefound exclusively in programmes of industrial engineering or production engineering.However, due to the new profile the job market requires from engineers, those courseswere gradually included in the curricula of other engineering programmes.

In general, a restrictive feature is imparted to behaviour-shaping analysis, by relat-ing it to simple rewarding or compensation strategies, based on attained rates, i.e. thepercentage rates which measure the extent to which the expected results were obtained.

None the less, the courses dealing with this subject lack a more practical and com-prehensive approach in terms of student engagement in the learning process, becauseteachers simply described the strategies, without discussing them with their students.

On the other hand, it is often the case that low student participation in severalcourses is caused by their lack of enthusiasm in relation to the syllabuses beingpresented or discussed. Based on such findings and in view of the task of teaching sub-jects related to the efforts towards quality, a methodology was developed that consistsof presenting basic behaviour-shaping elements and immediately applying them to theteaching–learning process.

The basic idea of the model is quite simple. A set of tools to enlist a company’sworkers’ participation in the usual activities is to be presented to students.Involvement here is achieved through motivation processes. Instead of discussing onlythe tools in question, the teacher is supposed to present them to the students by meansof practical situations created in the classroom, i.e. company environment becomes

{ Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Departamento de Engenharia de Producaoe Sistemas, Campus Universitario, Trindade,, CP 476, 88040, 970 Florianopolis, SC, Brazil.e-mail: paladini@iaccess.com.br and paladini@eps.ufsc.br

European Journal of Engineering EducationISSN 0304-3797 print/ISSN 1469-5898 online # 2004 Societe Europeenne pour la Formation des Ingenieurs (SEFI)

http://www.tandf.co.uk/journalsDOI: 10.1080 ⁄03043790410001648569

European Journal of Engineering Education,

Vol. 29, No. 1, March 2004, 125–138

classroom environment. Thus, just as a manager is supposed to motivate her/his staffthrough certain strategies, so will the teacher, by using the same strategies. This way,not only will students learn to handle the tools themselves through the practical situa-tion created, but also both teachers and students will get involved in a process thatimproves considerably the teaching–learning movement.

Five strategies were deployed as the work was developing, involving differentbehaviour-shaping approaches. Thus, through a practical, interactive and experientialprocess, it is possible to convey characteristics, positive and negative points, and waysof implementation of each of the approaches considered to students. The teaching–learning process is provided with means of inducing stronger student engagement and,at the same time, the core curriculum courses of the engineering programme startintroducing discussion and a practical analysis of elements related to human relationsat work, making sure engineers know something about human interactions, as humaninteractions as well as technology are fundamental parts of the new engineer profile.So, the main purpose of this paper is to present a model that improves the teaching–learning process. This is a two-way model, in the sense that:

(1) On the one hand, it applies strategies widely used in the world of business tothe factory floor environment. The purpose of doing so is simple: if motivationtools aim to get workers involved in their professional activities, then the sametools can get students involved in their learning activities.

(2) On the other hand, the model seeks to change student and teacher behaviour.The objective of doing so is simple as well: the teacher lecturing attitude (theteacher presents a management technique by describing it to the students) is tobe replaced with a participatory posture (the teacher presents a managementtechnique by applying it in the classroom).

Therefore, the teacher uses the application of the technique itself (in the classroom) asa way of making students understand how it works. Since the technique in questionaims precisely at getting people involved (as is the case of the staff motivation toolscommonly used by managers), the final result is no other than student involvementin the teaching–learning process.

2. Using an active and collaborative learning processAs we can see, the objective of the proposed model is to adopt an active and col-

laborative learning process. Active in the sense that effective student participation isrequired in the situations that simulate the application of motivation strategies; and col-laborative in the sense that the situations will only be clearly understood if studentsrespond to the stimuli provided.

The active and collaborative learning process has been used in Brazil for a longtime. In fact, there is a common sense in Brazil that this is a highly useful and effectiveway towards learning. None the less, despite the consensus that the process is relevant,it is, in general, hardly seen in practice; and three common postures can be said toexist, as follows:

(1) Students are led to participate through a question—response model. They par-ticipate actively through their responses. New questions are asked based ontheir previous responses.

126 E. P. Paladini

(2) Students conduct practical experiments under the teacher’s supervision.Discussion of such experiments is the most important element in the process.

(3) Students seek practical situations outside the classroom environment and dis-cuss them in class. Again, this is when the process reaches a peak.

Hence, two characteristics make the present model stand out from other similarexperiences:

(1) The strategy to be taught is learned through simulation of the strategy itself inthe classroom.

(2) Students are the target of the strategy. They learn because they are part of theprocess.

In Brazil, this process does not require written rules or norms. Rather, it reflects, to alarge extent, common classroom practices shared in congresses, seminars and meet-ings. The present model went through this process: it was discussed in three regionalcongresses and gained widespread acceptance. It is clear, however, that the best eva-luation came from students. At this point, table 1 can be presented, where the results ofthe application of the model to six groups of students (different engineering classes ofthe second semester of 2002) are displayed. The data show that the model has bothwidespread acceptance and good development potential.

3. The process of getting people involved in quality actions‘Quality actions’ are defined here as those actions devised in order to produce

quality in products, processes and services, i.e. the effort to offer products and servicesfit to do what they are meant to do.

Seeking ever-growing quality indicators at work, the efforts towards developingmechanisms and strategies for ready adaptation to organizations have been remark-able. Owing to its relevance, significant endeavours have been made to involve peopleeffectively in this process. The general purpose is to change quality concepts so as toget new behaviour standards and, thus, have real assurance that the company’s humanresources are really determined to seek increasing quality levels in their activities.Within this context, people involvement is considered paramount—a prerequisite forany effort to be successful (Fleury and Fleury 2000). However, what happens is thatpersonal involvement is a non-transferable organizational and managerial characteristic(Milkovich 2000). Since it is an intrinsic personal trait, such involvement—which

Question: Simulating thestrategy in the classroom

Certainly(%)

Yes(%)

Not always(%)

Certainly not(%)

Studentsinvolved

1. Improves learning? 85 6 6 3 8462. Is better that the

usual process?84 8 5 3 844

3. Gets studentseffectively involved?

88 6 4 2 849

4. Should becomemore widespread?

92 4 2 2 831

Table 1. Evaluation of the model by the students involved.Note—Only valid responses were computed.

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some authors deem better referred to as commitment—cannot migrate from one per-son to another, as happens, for instance, when information regarding a concept or pro-cedure is exchanged.

In broad terms, people involvement is considered to be the basic agent of changesthat can cause significant changes to processes or products (Maslow 1954, McGregor1957). In order to promote an appropriate or favourable environment for such involve-ment to take place (it is a non-transferable element), well-defined, basic approaches areused. Such approaches aim ultimately at finding techniques to encourage the peopleinvolved in the productive process to ‘produce’ quality, i.e. that regular productionactivities have quality effectively prioritized.

4. How to foster behaviours suitable to the learning processThe problem of getting people involved in the efforts towards quality actions as

exposed above tends to be in general the model presented in the various courses ofengineering programmes (especially production engineering) which approach thisquestion. This part of the syllabus is apparently easy to teach. More difficult, undoubt-edly, is to determine how to offer students means to help them understand the strate-gies to promote favourable conditions for them to engage in the teaching–learningprocess. As a result of that emerged the idea of bringing in techniques to get peopleinvolved in the educational process itself. Thus, for essentially didactical purposes,an attempt was made to put together the strategies designed to promote environmentsfavourable to involvement. They were sorted out into five different sets or basicapproaches, each of them with their characteristics defined. These approaches are:

(1) Involvement based on posing challenges.(2) Involvement based on participation processes.(3) Involvement based on promotional resources.(4) Involvement based on discipline-fostering processes.(5) Involvement based on local reality analysis.

These approaches can be presented by lecturing, following traditional teaching models.Practical experience, however, has proved to be more effective in the use of thecharacteristics of every approach in order to demonstrate how they work in practice.

In the course of 5 years, various groups of students endeavoured to exemplify typi-cal actions of each approach, stressing their positive and negative points as well astheir own characterization in real situations, in the classroom. While making it possibleto pass on a certain content, the experience places emphasis on another question: Howinterested would students themselves be in the teaching–learning process?

The target public taking part in the experience comprised students of the last foursemesters of various engineering programmes (but mainly production engineering) ofa Brazilian university. The course that served as a basis for the process was qualityassurance. Altogether, approximately 860 students participated in the experiment, fromMarch 1997 to December 2002. A specific approach was deployed with each groupduring a given period of time. At no time was there any overlapping of differentapproaches, since there would be no way of comparing their advantages and disadvan-tages. Periods were defined for each approach to be operational; after that it would bedisregarded since another approach would be in force.

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5. Involvement strategies and their application tothe teaching–learning process

The basic strategies aimed at getting people involved in the various sectors of theproductive process so as to attain quality effectively are developed by taking into con-sideration the specific features of the process and of the personnel. Generally, however,similar strategies can be grouped into five basic approach lines. Below is a summary ofthe general aspects of each of them and how they are applied to the teaching–learningprocess (for details, see Paladini 2000).

5.1. Involvement based on posing challenges

This type of approach seeks to encourage a person to overcome a series of obsta-cles presented as challenges, i.e. by provoking his/her capacity of reaction. This way,there are figures to be outdone, levels to be achieved, moving limits to be pursued, sothat the group in charge of such tasks is motivated continually to improve its perfor-mance. Thus, a progressive quality improvement is observed through figures—whichpeople are dared to achieve and outdo.

The application of such an approach requires objective quality evaluation basesand the awareness that it is necessary not only to improve but also to maintain thegroup’s accomplishments. Better figures are desired, but they can only be achievedwhen current results are real and guaranteed, i.e. to make progress knowing that it willnot retrogress in the future. Figures often used in such approaches are: quality levels,compliance with project specifications, capability of processes or lower costs.

It is an easily applicable approach to the teaching–learning environment, eventhough establishing measurable rates is the hardest task. In this case, they may berelated to test results, class attendance and punctuality rates, integration amongcourses, etc.

5.2. Involvement based on participation processes

Recent managerial techniques in quality management have emphasized a specificpeople involvement approach in efforts towards quality, according to which suchefforts ought to be made everyone’s task, thus evincing that only through everyone’sparticipation and dedication will those efforts be successful. Therefore, we start fromthe hypothesis that everyone has intelligence and creativity, regardless of their hier-archic position. Those who deal with a certain problem on a daily basis are believedto be the ones who best know it, so that feasible proposals can be expected from them.

In practice, the participatory approach is applied in the form of integrated qualityprogrammes, which involve the creation of work teams as the basic people involve-ment instrument for the tasks being carried out.

In order to apply this approach to the teaching–learning process, a participatorymodel of joint decision-making (including teachers and students) was developed.Two conditions were required from participants: compliance with university rules andteachers’ vetoing power. The reason for adopting these two conditions is simple: it is anew experience and, therefore, it might not be convenient to impart much decisionpower to students at first. Moreover, requiring discipline from students is part of thelocal culture—and these two conditions may be necessary to this discipline. After all,that was a recent, pioneering experience.

Work teams were created with different purposes and various acting profiles. Theparticipants in such groups were offered appropriate training as part of the programme,thus making clear from the beginning that their work is backed by the ‘company

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administration’ (teachers, in this case). This approach was grounded on the personaldevelopment philosophy, i.e. the objective is to count on and not use students foran activity which will produce positive results for the students.

Therefore, the participants in an integrated programme work as a team, seeking notonly to identify problems but also to solve them. The teams have specific characteris-tics, a well-defined structure, clearly determined elements and their implementationfollows a checklist of steps that goes from finding the appropriate strategy to periodi-cally revising the programme.

5.3. Involvement based on promotional resources

Another approach is that which uses ‘promotional campaigns’ in order to increasepeople involvement in quality production. This approach deploys promotional devicesin order to get people committed. It uses certain activities and focuses people’s atten-tion on them.

The basic hypothesis for a campaign to have people involved is that every partici-pant in the process has a useful contribution to give. The people involved are able toreduce their own errors, point out deficiencies in the process and have creative ideas toimprove it. They refrain from giving such contributions because they deem them unim-portant or they lose interest in these things. Thus, a series of events will serve to callpeople’s attention and arouse their interest, so as to promote a good level of action.

The general purpose of the campaign is to assure new actions, therefore it must bewell planned. It must give and receive feedback, review results and stimulate actions.All strategies available for calling people’s attention are helpful, but the approach mustnot concentrate solely on this aspect. It has to make participants aware of the impor-tance that quality has for the organization and for themselves. This can be emphasizedby means of contests to select the best quality slogans with prizes for the winners.

During the application of this approach, the teaching–learning process will take ona lively atmosphere. Suggestion boxes (with teams to analyse them), classroom tidi-ness campaigns and signs to advertise certain facts (school environment quality orclass quality, for instance) are usual activities of this approach. Promotional strategiesexcite people due to their capacity to grab people’s attention—and that is also true forthe classroom, while the approach is being implemented.

5.4. Involvement based on discipline-fostering processes

This approach is grounded on five points to be directly applied to the people incharge of the tasks (in this case, students become the target of the actions and the taskis normal syllabus fulfilment): (1) place emphasis on losses caused by mistakes, lowquality or failures from anyone involved in the process; (2) stress the losses to groupperformance as a whole, i.e. the impact of mistakes and failures; (3) point out thelosses to the individual records of those responsible for the mistakes detected; (4) holdeveryone responsible for their own acts and activities; and (5) make use of correctivemeasures by establishing penalties for every mistake made.

This approach includes contact with those people who made mistakes with the pur-pose of making clear the causes of such mistakes as well as the ways of avoiding them.Recurrent cases are to be closely monitored until the process goes back to its normaloperational condition. It is also advisable to acknowledge model students and publishtheir accomplishments throughout the whole institution.

While this approach is in use, no decisions are shared. Instead, they are teacher-centred and unquestionable. High discipline levels are expected (and observed).

130 E. P. Paladini

5.5. Involvement based on local reality analysis

This involvement process starts out from the hypothesis that it is necessary todevelop a quality system model adapted to the local reality, thus using elements whichmake it possible to adjust the model to the situation where it is going to be applied.Therefore, the approach suggests identifying process particularities, based on whichthe quality system can be structured. Then some critical aspects of the process willbe taken into consideration and given full emphasis and priority by using the resourcesavailable to them.

The main use of this approach has to do with determining control regulations basedon the quality system adjustments made to the process. Such regulations take intoaccount, for example, the capability of the process, its costs, quality levels and risksusually run.

During the use of this approach, questionnaires (to be answered by students) couldsignal class or general activity models (including activities outside the classroom) thatmight be used, depending on the particularities, interests, needs and convenience ofeach group. An effort is made to put the proposals into practice. In this case, the goalof customizing the teaching–learning process is well characterized.

5.6. ‘Power-sharing’ relations

A question still unanswered in this model has to do with ‘power-sharing relations’,i.e. how much decision power students have in the process. This question is particu-larly important when the involvement based on participation process is employed.The teacher has final ‘automatic veto power’—in fact, he conducts the class. What hasbeen done here is to share part of the authority with students, giving them ‘limitedpower’. Thus, it is possible to impart a student with authority to conduct a discussionfor 15 min, for example. When time is up, class control goes back to the teacher—whomay or may not pass it on to another student.

This question is interesting and deserves to be discussed further. So far, what hasbeen noticed is that students tend to respect the natural classroom limits. Sometimesthey get too stuck to them and do not participate as they were supposed to.However, it is worth mentioning that this experience is new and, therefore, needs tobe applied to other environments before analysing its other practical implications.

6. Analysis of involvement strategiesThe approaches listed above, when implemented in production lines, have certain

characteristics that can be seen as advantages or disadvantages. An analysis of suchaspects serves as a reference for its effective utilization. The same is true for theteaching–learning model.

First, the approach that analyses local reality is not literally an involvementapproach. Rather, it seeks to take into account the particularities of each group andcourse and, if possible, each student before deciding what is the most suitable teachingstrategy to be used.

In turn, the use of an approach that poses challenges has the problem of correctlydetermining values for the performance figures to be presented to students as a‘challenge’ to face. Therefore, a sound theoretical background is required in orderto implement this approach. Its disadvantages are mostly related to a rather narrowview of merely improving numbers, and as a consequence the teaching–learning

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process seems to take place by means of sudden moves, being guided exclusively byfigures to be achieved and outdone.

Advantages to be mentioned are students’ determination to try new, more efficientways of performing their tasks and the permanent need to turn to creativity as a meansof facing new challenges. The greatest risk, as observed, consists of improving perfor-mance without maintaining what has been previously achieved: good results in certaintests might mean the outcome of isolated efforts and may not be seen in other tests.Consequently, checking students’ progress is as important as making sure their improve-ment is constant. However, neither of the approaches was sufficiently tested. In order tohave detailed information on their practical characteristics, they ought to be tested dur-ing some more semesters. None the less, the other approaches have been tested moreextensively both in this specific experience and in other courses. In fact, the approachthat emphasizes discipline often appears in traditional engineering courses, mostly inthe last semesters. The model that stimulates participation is becoming increasinglyused in basic courses of mathematics programmes—mainly those that are already usingartificial intelligence resources in their teaching–learning process. The approach basedon promotional resources was observed in elective subjects of basic departments, suchas Portuguese Language, Foreign Language and Social Sciences. Since they have beenmore widely used, a more consistent analysis of these approaches can be provided.

It is worth mentioning that they have common points. In fact, they seek to promoteinvolvement based on fully student-centred activities, although in the disciplineapproach, students’ attitude and characteristics are not taken into account. In termsof specific basic characteristic, the discipline approach seeks to get people involvedby means of discussions and debates. The promotional resources approach gets peopleinvolved by drawing their attention to visual effects and publicity appeal, while theclassic model enforces discipline and obedience, favouring formal hierarchy, whichgives teachers authority.

The following can be considered diverging points: by analysing the participatorymodel and the model which gives priority to compliance to regulations, it is possibleto see that the former considers that a strong argument is better than the strength ofarguments. By contrasting the participatory process and the promotional resourcesapproach, one can see that it is better to get people to participate through dialoguerather than inducing it trough publicity. Finally, by comparing the promotionalapproach and the classic process, one finds that inducing participation is better thanforcing it through discipline and obedience.

The advantages and disadvantages of each approach can be summarized as fol-lows. The participatory approach aims at student development as a person, placingan emphasis on learning as a whole, not only given in some contents. This approachtends to involve all students in the process and provides a good level of integration forthe group. It is an approach that can be easily adapted without changing class structureor the way the course is traditionally taught. It produces higher student awareness andcan also produce parallel results, such as learning group dynamics and integratedwork. This approach results in more effective communication between people(student–student and student–teacher) and fosters teamwork. In broader terms, thecontribution of this approach to content development is the solution to problems, notjust the identification of situations presented as such.

Nevertheless, those who intend to implement this approach ought to be warned ofsome negative points observed during the experiments. In this model, concreteresponses may take time (students need to learn how to participate before they can give

132 E. P. Paladini

real contributions). Some distortions can occur due to a certain level of teacher inde-pendence and the course dynamics itself. It is necessary to train students (it is clearthat participating in teamwork requires basic knowledge of group dynamics, even ifjust to avoid students who talk too much or those who never speak, for example). Itwas also evident that typical student behaviour often requires discipline and the parti-cipatory process provides a certain degree of freedom that students use inappropriately.It is up to the teacher to determine ways of rewarding those who make greater efforts inorder to ensure compensation to the students who contribute more effectively. The pro-cess ought to be conducted so as to avoid letting the discussion stray far from the mainpoints. All suggestions and requests must be given feedback, even those that are totallyout of place. Participation and the right to feedback both count.

The discipline-fostering model has well-known restrictions. This process seeks toget people involved by using methods of coercion and induction by fear, i.e. whenadopted by companies, this approach makes people fear punishment and makes themwork under compulsion.

The teacher takes on a rather differentiated position in relation to the group andbecomes distanced from it. Students get the impression that there are not equal partici-pation chances for all. The teacher, good grades or even a peculiar type of behaviour candetermine differentiated participation criteria. This model is also notorious for the crea-tivity restraints it imposes, since it requires little student participation. The possibility ofpunishment results in a strong tendency to fraud, covering mistakes and dissatisfaction.

Against all odds, this approach (classic, as it is known) has some positive points.As a matter of fact, what is seen as positive is the focus on discipline and the effectivecontrol of each student’s performance. The cause–effect relation is notably stressed andan emphasis is placed on achieving goals conditioned to the efforts made. There isrecognition of the formal structure of the institution or the undergraduate programmeand a closer contact with students. The model causes information to be spread effi-ciently once students start adopting preventive attitudes. People involvement is alsonoticed in the form of implicit encouragement to become experts in order to avoidpunishment because of a lack of knowledge.

The promotional resources approach has effectively reduced mistakes caused byinattention or oversight. Student attention is prioritized and therefore students tendto remain more aware, careful and attentive. The model yields fast results and evincesteachers’ confidence in their students.

Together with the positive points, some drawbacks were noticed as well. For exam-ple, excessive publicity can lead to saturation and student participation seems to beobtained artificially. Therefore, participation is induced, not spontaneous. The partici-pation often seems to be strictly based on rewards and, more often than not, encour-agement becomes burdensome.

Broadly speaking, the promotional approach can be said to produce fast results,although of little consistence, unlike what happens in the participatory approach.The classic approach, on the other hand, creates a situation of instability on the stu-dents’ side, however with undeniable results in terms of discipline.

Table 2 shows the positions of the students on these points.

7. Practical application and conclusionsThe most relevant conclusion of this experiment is related to two basic aspects.

Firstly, there are many ways of getting students involved in the teaching–learning

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Positive points Classical (%)Emphasis on discipline 22Stress on cause–consequence relation 17Support to formal framework 16Closer contact 14Good information-sharing system 12Specialization encouragement 5More effective control. 4

Positive points Participatory (%)People development 19Tendency to involve everyone 15Integration within the company 12Easy adaptation, without changing company structure 11More consciousness-raising 9Side effects—costs, for instance 8More efficient communication between people 7Group work encouragement 6Possibility of mitigating conflicts 5People like what they create 3Problem solution; not only identification 3

Positive points Promotional (%)Reduction of errors caused by oversight 45Quicker results 24Trust in staff 20

Negative points Classical (%)Motivation under compulsion 32Induction by fear 27Creativity limitation 19Preference for hierarchy; no equal chances for everyone 11Tendency to fraud and error concealment 6Dissatisfaction caused by punishment perspective 2

Negative points Participatory (%)Concrete responses may take time 23Distortions caused by hierarchy independence 12People sometimes require discipline 12It may require costly training 10Staff exploitation, for not acknowledging their efforts to

provide solutions9

Does not always compensate the more committed people 9Possibility of the discussion straying from the main points 8It may cause contempt for formal hierarchy 7

Negative points Promotional (%)Excessive publicity leads to saturation 41Collaboration obtained artificially 30Induced participation, not spontaneous 18Collaboration only for rewards 5‘Burdensome’ encouragement 4

Table 2. Positive and negative points of the strategies (main results only).

134 E. P. Paladini

process. For any of these, however, considering students’ human aspects from theperspective of their involvement in the process seems to be fundamental if one expectsan effective response from them to the stimuli each course intends to offer. Secondly, itis necessary to bear in mind that the best involvement model is not that which the tea-cher deems easier to implement or the most suitable in terms of his/her own profile asan educator. Rather, the best model is that which can be adjusted to his/her students’reality. Thus, for example, in many cases the classic approach will substitute for theparticipatory model if the purpose is to adopt discipline; in others, students may beconsidered to be sufficiently aware and mature to face participatory strategies or, still,the teacher may realize that only by having their attention drawn can he/she obtainresponses to stimuli.

In this sense, putting into practice an approach which respects the local reality,even if on an experimental basis, made possible a new way of organizing courses,the teaching–learning process in itself and also the normal activities pertaining to it.The process itself will be given much more emphasis than the undergraduate pro-gramme projects or the descriptions and contents of their courses and each programmewill be adjusted to the process. This system will lead to a reorganization of theteaching–learning process.

The participatory approach, in turn, has such features that require special attentionwhen being implemented. As has been discussed briefly, this approach may allow fordangerous behaviours, with students putting at stake the teaching–learning systemitself or the undergraduate programme as a whole. This is an unwanted situation.Therefore, teacher control over adaptation and involvement mechanisms is critical.

The analysis described in the previous section allows us to conclude that theapproaches observed have certain specific characteristics which, according to eachcase, may turn into either advantages or disadvantages. It seems more logical to pointout that in practice a combination of two of more approaches is used: the environmentin question is taken into account and those techniques offering only advantages orminimizing disadvantages are applied. This conclusion is at the same time a recom-mendation of a procedure to adopt, since the ultimate goal is to define such an invol-vement policy which complies with the objectives of the courses to be taught as well aswith the undergraduate programme as a whole and is able to allow students to respondaccordingly.

It is worth mentioning that the combination of two or more strategies of differentapproaches can produce different results from those expected in the case where thestrategies were used separately. This is an obvious conclusion if one considers, forinstance, the use of both the participatory and the classic approaches, where, at a givenpoint, teachers give students a chance to make suggestions and participate in decisionsand alongside it they make it clear that decision power is in fact in the hands ofteachers.

In order to ground these conclusions, research was done on students of each coursewhere the approaches were applied, as described above.

First, it is important to give some details of experimental procedures.In practical terms, experimental procedures comprised the following elements.

(a) Model application period: from March 1997 to December 2002.(b) Total students involved: 862, arranged in six groups (with an average of 142

students per group). One of the groups consisted of students who were doingthe one-semester quality management course.

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(c) Group description: three groups (1–3) had only production engineering stu-dents. The models were applied during nine consecutive semesters, from1997 to 2002. Group four was made up of mechanical engineering students(three semesters, between 1999 and 2002). Group 5 included electricalengineering students (three semesters, between 1999 and 2002). Group 6 con-sisted of civil engineering students (three semesters, between 1999 and 2002).

(d) Strategy application: all the five strategies were applied to all groups.(e) Group comparison: the best results in terms of participation came from the

production engineering groups. The worst results were found in the civil engi-neering groups, which had the most apathetic students. The other groups pro-duced intermediate-level results. The fastest results in terms of learning camefrom the production engineering groups. Electrical engineering studentsproduced the slowest results and showed the strongest comprehension difficul-ties. The other groups produced intermediate-level results.

(f) Group confrontation: few differences were found between groups when takinginto consideration one undergraduate programme at a time, such as civil engi-neering, for example.

(g) Methods: for analysis purposes, the same teaching–learning methods wereused in all groups. What changed, of course, were the interactive processesbetween teachers and students, which changed gradually in order to becomeup to date. The idea consisted of always presenting the same learning processesby making use of interactive actions which would render the motivation meth-ods proposed concrete.

The results (positions of the students after the experimental procedures) are shown intable 3, in percentage, and they represent only the most frequent answers. Intervieweeswere given up to three choices of response (which is why percentages add up to over100%).

There are some positive and negative points to each of the strategies used. Thisevaluation was made by the students. Table 3 shows only the main results of eachstrategy.

It is important to point out that these responses were given by students who wentthrough an involvement process and, consequently, became more critical in relation tothe learning process as a whole. Students wish to participate; so much so that theyrequire opportunities to be heard, give opinions, make suggestions and even criticize.Evidently, students emphasize rewards, facilitation of the evaluation process and indi-vidual attention to each student. Aware of the school environment, they also stress theneed to improve classroom environment. Their requirements in relation to teachersinclude expertise in the topics of courses, practical applicability of the courses, fair,coherent, adequate and democratic treatment, authority, fast feedback of evaluationsand student performance, and evaluation processes compatible with the reality of eachgroup. Additionally, they require activities outside the classroom (which promotegroup integration) and internal competition (an item which, in order to be correctlyapplied, needs to be cautiously developed). The fact that most items include teacherposture and student attention is striking.

The responses are conclusive. The main remark to be made is that in addition to‘classic’ issues such as facilitation of evaluating and passing processes, there are otheraspects that are not always remembered, such as study environment, fairness and ade-quacy in terms of student treatment in the classroom, and opportunities to exchange

136 E. P. Paladini

ideas and to be heard. Thus, when related to the approaches discussed, such aspectsallow us to determine specific action policies, aimed at quality in the classroom.

Therefore, it is highly advisable that before defining a given approach a poll becarried out as to how it is to be put into practice. It is fundamental to know that a tea-cher’s way of thinking is not always the best way to get people committed. Rather, thisis achieved by taking into consideration the different views of both teachers andstudents.

Finally, it is relevant to stress that the involvement process should not be reduced tomere rewarding strategies, mainly by means of points or evaluation facilitation. Thereare other, very efficient ways—and not necessarily more difficult to implement.

ReferencesFLEURY, A. and FLEURY, M. T. L., 2000, Estrategias Empresariais e Formacao de Competencias—

Um Quebra Cabeca Caleidoscopico da Industria Brasileira (Sao Paulo: Atlas).MASLOW, A. H., 1954, Motivation and Personality (New York: Harper and Row).MCGREGOR, D. M., 1957, The Human Side of Enterprise. The Management Review, November

1957, pp. 22–28 and 88–92.MILKOVICH, G. T., 2000, Administracao de Recursos Humanos (Sao Paulo: Atlas).PALADINI, E. P., 2000, Gestao da Qualidade. Teoria e Pratica (Sao Paulo, Editora Atlas).

About the authorEdson Pacheco Paladini is Professor of the Department of Production and Systems

Engineering, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florianopolis/SC and Professor of the

Responses Percentage

Question 1: What gets people more involved effectively?1. Individual attention to each student 352. Physical environment improvements 313. Real opportunities to be heard 284. Prizes in terms of points or evaluation facilitation 275. Course practical applicability 236. Up-to-date course syllabuses 167. Teacher expertise 118. Activities outside the classroom environment 99. Teacher assertion in terms of topics taught 8

10. Internal competition 5

Question 2: What are the main dissatisfaction points?1. Lack of practical application of concepts studied 322. Good grades to less enterprising students 313. Lack of opportunities to participate, give opinions and make

suggestions27

4. Contradictory guidelines (incoherent rules, attitudes and positions) 245. Teacher does not have enough expertise 226. Teacher’s authoritarian attitude 207. Teacher’s unfair treatment of students 198. Teacher’s lack of group control and leadership 179. Students do not get appropriate treatment 15

10. Lack of teacher feedback on assignments 15

Table 3. Responses to the poll on ways of getting people involved.

Shaping behaviour 137

Undergraduate and Graduate Programmes of Production Engineering at UFSC. He is quality

management consultant for public and private institutions in Brazil and abroad and advisor

on several Doctoral dissertations, Master’s theses and specialization essays defended and

approved. He is co-ordinator of projects supported by both national research-fostering agencies

(CNPq and CAPES) and international co-operation agencies (GTZ from Germany and IJIMA

from Japan) and has participated in technical missions abroad, in Japan, the USA and various

Latin American countries. He has had 12 books published in the fields of quality management,

production management and strategic planning.

138 E. P. Paladini