RECONHECIMENTO DE APRENDIZAGENS AO LONGO DA VIDA E EMPOWERMENT
The current narrative of lifelong learning calls for the constant need to acquire knowledge and skills to cope with the constant changes of modern society, recognizing that learning goes beyond the formal education and training, including learning resulting from life experience in different contexts. Recognition of prior learning is a process of assessment of knowledge and skills acquired throughout life, allowing them to be formally recognized by the qualification systems. This study sought to understand the changes promoted by the process of Recognition, Validation and Certification of Competences in people who had by this mean an academic accreditation, particularly in terms of psychological empowerment, and contribute to the validation of a measuring instrument and a model of psychological empowerment in the Portuguese population. Initially, interviews were conducted with 21 participants in the process of recognition of competencies, in which their motivations and perspectives were explored, and from which a scale to assess changes in participants was constructed. In a second phase, a questionnaire, which included the scale of changes and three scales of psychological empowerment, was applied to 227 adults who completed the process obtaining a school certificate to assess program results. The same questionnaire, but only with scales of empowerment, was applied to 50 adults registered for assessing levels of psychological empowerment. The analysis showed that although participants were mainly motivated by changes at professional level, the results were mostly perceived at personal level. The exploratory factor analysis of the scale of changes identified the factor personal changes with reliability. The personal changes were influenced by the level of formal qualification and by the time of certification. A third order model of psychological empowerment was tested in reflective and formative approaches by analysis of structural equations. Both measurement models have proved to be valid, but the reflective model demonstrated greater strength and significance of indicators. Confirmatory factor analysis of the reflective model confirmed the psychological empowerment as hierarchical third order factor, with all the factors presenting high levels of reliability. The second order factors correspond to intrapersonal empowerment, interactional empowerment and behavioral empowerment. These are reflected in the first-order factors leadership competency, policy control (intrapersonal empowerment), knowledge of the source of power, knowledge of the nature of power, knowledge of the instruments of power (interacional empowerment) and participatory behavior (behavioral empowerment). The general values of psychological empowerment were positive, with higher values in interactional empowerment and lower in behavioral empowerment, suggesting understanding of the methods required to cause change, but lack of participation in activities with the potential to cause change. Participants who completed the process of recognition had higher levels of psychological empowerment significantly higher than those participants only registered. Gender, employment status, household income, formal qualification, certification level and the personal changes were revealed features that influence the factors of psychological empowerment.