Transformation of teaching practice through university training programs

Abstract

This qualitative research, framed within a micro-ethnographic design, was conducted at the Universidad de Oriente, Venezuela, with the purpose of analyzing and understanding university faculty discourse from the perspective of the power relations involved in assessment processes for students in Initial Teacher Training (ITT). The intentional sample consisted of 25 students from the Bachelor of Education program, who were taking the course Educational Assessment. These participants collected and recorded statements and comments made by their instructors in the context of classroom dynamics. Critical Discourse Analysis was used to analyze the data, which allowed us to identify four significant dimensions in assessment discourse: intimidation, frustration, mind control, and manipulation. The findings reveal that faculty discourse, within the framework of assessment, is permeated by a logic of power and domination, which materializes in expressions that generate discomfort and tension in the pedagogical relationship, directly affecting the student's training experience. In this sense, assessment not only operates as an academic tool but also as a control device that influences students' subjectivity, conditioning their perception of the teaching-learning process and their role within it. These results invite us to rethink university assessment practices from more dialogical, ethical, and emancipatory perspectives that promote mutual respect and authentic knowledge construction in the field of IDD.