Introduction

Recent transformations in the labor field have had impact on workers and on how they relate to each other and to the labor context. Changes resulting from productive restructuring, flexibilization of labor legislation, precariousness of work routines and new ways of organization management have consequences for the workers’ subjectivity and affect many professional categories ( ^{VILELA; GARCIA; VIEIRA, 2013} ; ^{LÉDA, 2009} ; ^{LANCMAN, 2008} ; ^{MENDES et al., 2007} ).

The teaching work, specifically, started having a new logic in academic routines, based on acceleration and intensification of activities and the permanent urgency regime, which stimulates productivity and reproduces the characteristics of flexible work in the university scope, becoming a cause of physical and psychic illnesses in professors ( ^{MANCEBO, 2007} ).

According to ^{Léda (2006)} , the repercussions of the flexible capitalist economy on the day-to-day of higher education teaching work result in precariousness of such teaching work, visible in public universities due to hiring of temporary professors, work routine intensification, work flexibilization and new assignments to professors.

The dynamics of this new environment is even more intensified when it comes to Master’s degree and Doctoral degree programs, whose authorization and recognition are granted for a fixed term, depending on the opinion from the Higher Education Chamber (CES) of the National Council for Education (CNE), based on the results of the evaluation carried out by the Coordination and Improvement of Higher Level -or Education- Personnel - CAPES, and approved according to CNE/CES Resolution No. 1, of April 3, 2001.

According to CAPES, the requirements for authorization, recognition and renewal of postgraduate courses depend on, among other factors: the existence of a previous consolidated research group in the area of knowledge, the control and completion of administrative reports, and a system evaluation for the professors involved, which translates into the internal policies of accreditation and de-accreditation of professors in relation to the program, based essentially on the amount and classification of their publications. Therefore, the academic productivism can be understood as a phenomenon derived from the processes of postgraduation program evaluation, which is characterized by the excessive valuation of academic production quantity and tendency to disregard its quality ( ^{PATRUS; DANTAS; SHIGAKI, 2015} ).

The objective of this article was to analyze professors’ work activity in the context of public postgraduate program from the Ergonomic Work Analysis (EWA), seeking to identify the constraints faced by this professional category, especially considering CAPES intellectual production evaluation system in force.

Theoretical foundation

Method

This research can be classified as descriptive, in which facts and data are recorded and correlated without manipulation (CERVO; BERVIAN; SILVA, 2007). The approach used is qualitative, in which the existence of a dynamic relation between the real world and the subject is considered, where the objective world and the individual’s subjectivity form an inseparable bond ( ^{SILVA; MENEZES, 2005} ).

As for the technical procedures, a theoretical (narrative and documentary bibliographic research) and empirical approach (use of the Ergonomic Work Analysis in the application of a case study) was used, combining a set of tools and instruments for data collection.

A practical adaptation of the EWA was used, and it is important to emphasize that this research is aimed at using this approach as a driver for the analysis of real work, in which the subject plays a central role, and not performing an ergonomic intervention. Thus, in order to simplify the method described by ^{Guérin et al. (2001)} , this work is based on four essential stages of analysis: a) demand analysis; b) task analysis (established work); c) activity analysis (real work) and; d) diagnosis.

The case study was carried out at a federal public university, in the Department of Production Engineering, considering the responses of all 21 professors belonging to the board, and 15 of them working in the postgraduate program. This application was made to allow identification of the different perceptions about the intellectual production evaluation by those who work and do not work in the postgraduate program, since, according to ^{Yin (2015)} , the investigation of the case study should have multiple sources of evidence to increase reliability.

In order to enable data triangulation and collection of information about teaching work, the tools used were:

Results

Impacts from work context

The impacts arising from the work context were associated with the intensity with which certain procedures, postures and efforts are required in order to carry out the activities pertinent to the work. Need of having good memory and mental concentration (65%), using vision continuously and paying attention (58%), solving problems (41%), and controlling emotions (35%) were the major requirements pointed out by professors. Learning new things and dealing with unforeseen events were both pointed out by 29% of the respondents and, finally, dealing with the need for predicting events, pointed out by 23% of the interviewees, was the last requirement considered highly demanding.

As a result, being in static positions for a long time, having to disguise feelings and standing for a long time, are considered moderately required demands and were pointed out by 35%, 29% and 23% of the professors, respectively. In the space for comments, it was emphasized that the teaching activity is an exhausting and solitary work, in which the system is responsible for causing lack of interaction with co-workers, integration that occurs only in meetings whose objective is many times only to resolve conflicts, without promoting an important social union.

In addition, it was mentioned that the goals and short deadlines associated with the dependence on factors and people that the professor has no control over is a highly stressful factor, bringing serious physical impacts. Another professor said having the impression that most of the colleagues impose the work demands, which have to be dealt with in the daily routine.

Considering tiredness and difficulties mentioned above, it can be seen that the professor’s work routine can lead to physical symptoms, which corroborates 85% of the professors’ responses that indicated pain and discomfort. Moderate head and neck pain were reported by almost 60% of the respondents, whose reasons mainly include the time they spend on the computer to perform research, prepare classes, fill out forms and other function activities. Mild to moderate pain and tingling in the shoulders, arms and wrists were noted in more than 40% of responses and are associated with activities that require the use of the computer. In the comments, many professors associate the discomforts they feel with tensions and relationships at work and not with physical demands.

Work organization conditions

Concerning the difficulties faced at work, aggressive pressure for results (publications) was pointed out by about 65% of the respondents as the main problem. Existence of conflicts in the work environment was also highlighted, which included comments about individualism and little interaction among colleagues, stimulated by the program evaluation program.

Communication among peers is considered unsatisfactory by 53% of the respondents. This is a relevant question, since co-workers can be considered a psychosocial support to the worker, not only in terms of the quality of interpersonal relationships, but also in the development of objective conditions to guarantee the work performance ( ^{GREGHI, 2007} ). All work activity should be analyzed from the interactions in the work collective, which, in turn, should be established under the dynamics of trust among its members ( ^{DEJOURS, 2004} ).

Still on the work organization, aspects such as rigid norms for the execution of activities and lack of stimulation to the prioritization of time for self-development appear as negative aspects that frequently occur.

On the other hand, working at a university allows a certain flexibility that reflects very positively on the professors’ performance and perception. Autonomy to carry out the activities, for example, is indicated by more than 70% of the professors as a positive factor.

Infrastructure and adequate facilities also contribute to the accomplishment of the work and please more than 60% of the interviewees. Most of the professors, 84%, consider that they have a pleasant work environment in most of the time, and that, despite a differentiated hierarchical structure (in which all are peers), there is the influence of a leadership that directs part of the activities, without limiting the freedom to perform work.

The division of responsibilities relevant to teaching activity is not considered clear to most professors. Almost 90% of the respondents pointed out that teaching, research and extension activities for which they were hired are not well-defined and are mixed in the order of priority, even suffering interference from several other responsibilities that take time and require more or less dedication.

More than 70% of the respondents consider that the eight-hour work period established is not respected and that although there is flexibility to leave work or eventually solve personal issues during that time, and even being possible to develop a part of the work at home, most of the time it is not healthy not to disconnect from activities, working when you should be enjoying your free time.

Other aspects still related to the topic of organization generated division in professors’ opinion, such as time management as a generator of anguish at work: half of them consider that this never occurs and corroborates work autonomy; and the others indicate that sometimes, and even with some frequency, they experience distress by having to choose periods or limit work time based on a great demand for activities.

In the interviews, it was made clear that there is some difficulty in finishing work even when at home. In the reports, it was possible to perceive work frequently interfering with personal life and vice versa, making the task of delimiting the responsibilities as professor and as individual complex.

Regarding the recognition of work results and the fair evaluation of the performance, 65% of the professors said that these processes eventually occur. For ^{Dejours (1998)} , recognition is decisive in the construction of the individual’s identity and in the transformation of suffering into pleasure. Recognition is by nature essentially symbolic, but it can also be expressed by material means and derives from the individuals’ analysis of their work meaning in the collective, mediated by peers and superiors.

When the quality of work is recognized, efforts, doubts, anxieties, and disappointments make sense. Suffering is validated because it contributed to the organization (productivism) and to the individuals themselves (differentiation between peers, contributing to the formation of their identity). On the other hand, if recognition is not granted, it generates suffering and a vicious circle that may lead to personality destabilization, and even mental illness ( ^{DEJOURS, 2004} ).

Issues caused by work context

Pressures at work reflect physically and psychosomatically on workers. Regarding teaching role, more than 70% of the respondents say they feel pain in the body, headaches and malaise as a result of the workday. The second most reported issue involves changes in sleep, reported by 60% of the professors. More than a third of those surveyed said they often used tranquilizers and sedatives. Feeling of emptiness, difficulty in making friends, loss of self-confidence and irritation with everything are reported by 29% of the interviewees. To better explain this context, Chart 2 presents the verbalization of some professors interviewed.

With a moderate frequency, there are changes in appetite and digestive disturbances, social isolation, sadness and the habit of drinking to relax, indicated by a little more than 20% of the professors. However, habits such as smoking, using other types of illicit drugs, crying for no apparent reason, losing control or being aggressive are never or rarely experienced. There are also no reports of circulatory or cardiovascular disorders. The medical treatments that professors have undergone in the last six months were related to gastritis, viruses, ringworm, allergies, depression, anxiety, migraine and cervicalgia.

Perception of CAPES evaluation system

When asked about the intellectual production evaluation system (specifically article publications) proposed by CAPES and internalized in the program norms in accreditation and de-accreditation criteria, their answers are divided into four groups: i) they consider it an unfair and oppressive system 41.2%); ii) they do not consider it unfair, within normality (17.6%); iii) they think it is consistent and necessary for a consistent program evaluation (29.4%); and iv) they do not know or do not want to comment (11.8%).

The first group affirms that the intellectual production evaluation system is considered simplistic, oppressive and limited because it does not consider differences between areas, personal contexts, the reasons why the researcher is not publishing, and it is seen as a single measure of the professor’s performance. It does not involve the entire scope of teaching, research and extension that is compulsory for universities.

Some professors consider that being measured only by what is published favors disregard for other important activities such as teaching, developing a student, managing departmental activities, among others. In Chart 3 , it is possible to analyze the context considering the words of one of the respondents.

In the opinion of another respondent, the “publishing meter” stimulates productivism of poor quality and without any return to society, not fulfilling the research scientific role, which is to promote social solutions.

As for the group of professors who do not consider the evaluation system unfair, the verbalizations are more neutral as “normal,” or “subordinated to international mechanisms.”

On this aspect, in one of the interviews, it was pointed out that the evaluation system proposed by CAPES is suggested by peers in the area, colleagues who share the same needs and difficulties found in several programs. If there is desire to change the evaluation reality, attributed weights and other particular criteria, the professor has to become reference with prominent evaluation in order to start having “voice” and representativeness that guarantees the evaluation of new proposals for improvements and changes.

On the other hand, professors who consider the system fair are based, for example, on the coherence of the criteria, which are widely discussed and aligned with all the programs in the same evaluation area. In addition, they consider that the postgraduate program is an individual choice for the career, and the best choice is at the discretion of each professor, enabling the association between the pleasure of the research and the pressure to which they are submitted in this education level.

In one of the positive statements about the evaluation metrics, one of the professors mentioned them, as can be seen in Chart 4 .

Other professors in this group report that the accreditation and de-accreditation of professors, based on the volume and quality of the periodicals in which their texts are published, occur in all areas, not only in Engineering III. As it is a criterion by which the program will be evaluated, it should be the reference for the internal evaluations as well.

The professors had room to give their opinion on the possible changes that could be made and how they could be enabled. One of the possibilities mentioned would be to make the indicators of academic productivity flexible, valuing other activities, such as teaching and orientation.

Some reports emphasize that the weight given to article publishing is greater than, for example, the construction of patents or technical books that often represent greater difficulty and more complex development, and end up being less valued.

Another factor cited, which demands change in the logic of evaluation, is that this productivism and marketing system, of “making articles and papers” tends to distort the professors’ role within the university as it encourages activities more directed to article publication than to the development of research and researchers.

In the last questioning about a good professor’s true role, the answers were diverse, but they expressed need to become better people in order to be able to fully exercise their professional activities, which in turn should cover priority aspects of the students’ human formation, both personally and professionally. In addition, they also mentioned, according to Figure 5, that:

It is important to emphasize that, although research has been an important factor in the formation of a good professor, the valuation of intellectual production does not appear as a criterion to indicate a good professional. None of the respondents mentioned that it is necessary, in order to practice the teaching profession, reference to the publications of each professor or to their recognition and prestige within the postgraduate program or even within the university.

Discussion of the results

The evaluation of the Brazilian postgraduate program, although widely debated ( ^{MATTOS, 2008} ; 2012; ^{BIANCHETTI; MACHADO, 2009} ; ^{MOREIRA, 2009} ; ^{TREIN; RODRIGUES, 2010} ; ^{ALCADIPANI, 2011} ), has not solved the contradictions pointed out by professors and researchers ( ^{PATRUS; SHIGAKI; DANTAS, 2015} ). For these authors, the culture of productivism has transformed the knowledge process into commodity, limiting it to products, performance levels and quality standards. Although Capes does not evaluate the professors’ individual performance but the performance of the Postgraduate Programs, in practice CAPES criteria are those that put the most pressure on the professors to increase their individual performance. Due to this fact, it is relevant to study the contribution of this system in academia.

Thus, based on the analysis presented in this article, it can be observed that the intellectual production evaluation of the professors who work in the postgraduate program greatly increases the constraints in the work, and it occurs because of the need for maintaining the volume of publication according to CAPES criteria.

Pressing themselves to publish articles along with the public process of accreditation and de-accreditation of professors make the work at postgraduate programs an activity that causes constraints, frustrations and even feelings of injustice. The work observation, the verbalizations made at the meetings and the interviews allow affirming that, despite the collective understanding of need to disseminate scientific research in articles and journals, this aspect seems to take greater proportion of the work done, since it is prioritized to the detriment of guidance or giving classes.

When a professor does not reach the goal of publication, he/she have to analyze his/her permanence in the program and stimulate a series of decisions ranging from the systematic increase of his/her intellectual production to his/her self-exclusion from the program. This reflection, which can be done individually or by means of debate in collective forums, may be distressing, and leads a portion of the professors (in the case of the respondents, 41.2%) to consider CAPES evaluation system, proposed and used in the program, unfair and generator of physical and mental tiredness.

However, although it does not influence the professor’s monetary return and has little impact on the professional progression of the federal academic career, being part of the group of researchers that composes the postgraduate program brings personal satisfaction, since it enables scientific development for the professor’s area, participation in research, contact with researchers from other institutions, contribution to training of future researchers, and contact with more mature students.

In addition, the postgraduate program forms an “intellectual elite” within the university and participation in this group brings satisfaction that is used by professors as a mechanism of recognition and prestige of their own work. Therefore, even with the embarrassment that comes from acting in the postgraduate program, it brings appreciation, recognition and personal satisfaction.

Teaching activity is defined by the principle of autonomy of intellectual activity, whose objective in education is to train new teachers, encourage new researchers, prepare professionals for non-academic activities, anchored in their culture, awaken individuals for reflection, discovery, invention, creation; finally, in other others, to develop people ( ^{CHAUI, 1999} , ²⁰¹⁶ ). In this sense, the university should be seen as the place where a theoretical-critical process of ideas, opinions, and positioning is developed, as well as a space capable of generating concrete proposals aimed at the effective development of society ( ^{FÁVERO; SGUISSARDI, 2012} ). However, teaching work is also affected by the transformation of the work environment that takes place at the university, of new priorities and of new ways of organizing work.

Considering the professors’ work of the postgraduate program studied, it is clear that a logic of productive demand - ranging from the basic responsibilities of teaching to the administration and management of the university and culminating in the obligation to frequently publish their intellectual production - compares teaching work with industrial work (monitored, rhythmic and often limited).

In order to monitor and classify the quality of the programs, CAPES proposes an evaluation model that considers the professors’ intellectual production intensely. Although the publication of articles is a usual result of research development, all professors know that this does not reflect the quality of the program as a whole.

It is important to maintain this debate updated, since the rules of classification and evaluation of the intellectual production are the main factors of dissatisfaction of the professors who are part of the postgraduate program of the case studied. In the comments made by the professors, it was possible to identify more than 40% of rejection to this pressure for publication and the discussions about this subject in meetings generate discomforts and diverse embarrassments.

Thus, considering all these aspects of teaching activity reported in the case study of this research, and relating them to the theoretical constructs on teaching work found in the literature, it is possible to confront some verbalizations and verify that they corroborate the research that has been done about the higher education teaching work. Chart 1 presents a synthesis of the theoretical and empirical relationship present in this article.

Conclusion

It should be noted that the main constraint pointed out by the professors is the constant demand for publication in journals classified in high Qualis strata, which contributes to the intellectual production evaluation as an oppressive and limited process that does not reflect a good professor’ performance in his/her teaching, research and extension activities.

The effects of CAPES’s proposed intellectual production evaluation system, and replicated in the processes of accreditation and de-accreditation of postgraduate program professors include feelings of oppression, emotional tiredness and individualistic attitudes among team members. Therefore, it leads to a disruption of the work collective, observed in most of the opinions evaluated and which is also corroborated by the scientific literature.

Although there are some professors who agree with the formal evaluation procedures, there is no consensus among the group that the pathway adopted by the postgraduate program in Production Engineering continues to be capable of maintaining a multidisciplinary scope, at the same time seeking a higher evaluation grade.

Thus, higher education teaching work proved to be an activity of high physical and cognitive demand, expressed by an even more pronounced dichotomy in the postgraduate program, between the pleasures of knowledge production and the tiredness caused by the demands of intellectual production.

Therefore, the actual analysis of the work activity built in this research contributes to the visualization of an updated panorama of the higher education teaching work reality in the postgraduate programs in the country. Although they are limited to the local university studied, the data analyzed are compatible with other studies in the literature that contextualize the teaching activity, once again explaining the relevance of EWA as a method of analysis and as a driving force to contribute to changes in the work environment.

For future research, the continuity of studies to the proposition of public policies that may alter this reality of work, as well as the construction of broader scenarios of the teaching situation in the postgraduate programs in the country and even in other countries, are possibilities for the effectiveness of the Activity-centered Ergonomic purpose, which is: to transform work and, in this case, contribute not only to the worker professors involved, but also to the whole process of developing higher education and producing quality knowledge through scientific research.