Ensino a distância como estratégia para capacitação profissional: pesquisa-ação na Universidade Infraero

Abstract

Changes needed to combat the COVID-19 pandemic have directly affected the way people interact socially, especially in large urban areas, including corporate environments. To maintain business sustainability, many organizations had to adapt several of their processes to this new situation, especially by using information and communication technologies. Alternatives such as remote work and distance education have gained strategic importance in this context. Rapid changes and investments that had not been previously prioritized or even planned, are now required to transform face-to-face resources and activities into virtual ones. This is a qualitative and applied study that has addressed the strategies implemented by Universidade Infraero to adapt - to the distance mode of education-one of the major corporate professional development programs required in the Brazilian legislation. It is a mandatory training program for all professionals who work in the operational area of public aerodromes, and whose activities are related to the safety of airborne and airport operations. The theoretical framework of this research covers distance education; professional development (especially in civil aviation); operational safety management system at airports; corporate universities (particularly, Universidade Infraero); the instructional program about aerodrome operational safety; the concepts of training effectiveness evaluation, behavioral evaluation, evaluation of results and comparison of results. The analysis of the strategies adopted by Universidade Infraero was based on data from bibliographic research and documentary research in Infraero’s own databases. Since this researcher works as a content writer, instructor and technical reviewer at the aforementioned corporate university, some of the data were also collected through empirical observation, process monitoring and application of questionnaires. The overall objective of this study is to design methods and processes to evaluate the effectiveness of professional development courses that started to be offered online, based on the practical performance of the trained professionals. The proposed methods are based on the model created by Donald Kirkpatrick, for observation and assessment of the behavior and performance of professionals, as well as on specific results of organizational performance, measured by means of strategic indicators. The technical product resulting from this study is expected to be a performancebased efficiency assessment model that can be used by all links in Brazilian civil aviation. Moreover, it is meant to encourage airport managers to use the critical analysis of this effectiveness assessment as a strategy for continuous improvement of airport operational safety performance.