Relationship and performance: sociometric and bibliometric study of the scientific production of the graduate program in accounting at Unisinos

The relationship between the ability to relate social actors and their performance has achieved great attention recently, indicating the need for respect among various stakeholders and their environments. Accordingly, following Torres et al. (2013), this article analyzes the scientific publications of the researchers at the Graduate Program in Accounting at Vale do Rio dos Sinos University (Unisinos) from 2007 to 2012 based on their relational perspectives and performance. Based on an analysis of curriculum lattes of those surveyed, and through sociometric methods, bibliometrics, social network analysis, and other statistical approaches, the program was identified and studied. The program has 13 researchers who presented 605 scientific publications distributed among the Annals of Congress and periodicals. These publications represent a score of 1.620 in the first three years (2007-2009) and 3.260 in the second (2010-2012), and were analyzed individually (perresearcher) with indicators of the centrality of networks. A descriptive analysis was based on the performance points of the researchers and their relational perspectives, noting, as a final consideration, a predominant direct and persistent association between indicators of relationship researchers and their performance in points (Qualis score).

PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING AND ITS EFFECT ON LEARNERS’ RELATIONSHIPS

Detailed knowledge of learners’ relationships is very important for successful teacher pedagogical work in a classroom. The familiarity with the relationships is important, especially in the case of teenagers’ class. All teachers should deal with the problem of learners that are out of their classmates’ interest (so called isolated learners or isolates) in such class and think about possibilities to integrate them into the class. Natural idea how to do it is that of using some non-traditional learning methods, especially the methods based on working in small groups involving learners’ cooperation. Problem-based learning (PBL) as one of these methods with an influence on learners’ relationships was a subject of the further described research. Within PBL courses, students work with classmates to solve complex and authentic problems that help develop content knowledge as well as problem-solving, reasoning, communication, and self-assessment skills. The aim of the research was to answer the question: Can the problem-based learning help to integrate isolated learners into the class? The research was realized as a pretest-posttest design for the sample of 182 learners of seventh, eighth and ninth grades of basic school. Standardized sociometric questionnaire B-3 was used to determine the number of isolated learners before and after using the problem-based learning. Consequently, using the Wilcoxon statistic test of significance, the hypothesis was verified that the number of isolates after the problem-based learning is statistically significantly lower than that of the case before using the non-traditional learning method. Accordingly, the research results justify implementation PBL into education. Key words: problem-based learning, learners’ relationships, sociometric methods, isolated learners.