COMPARABILITY OF ACADEMIC ASSESSMENTS AND EQUITY IN MERIT-BASED PROMOTION: A LONGITUDINAL ANALYSIS OF OFFICER ADVANCED TRAINING COURSES IN PARANÁ (2004–2026)

Abstract

The use of academic results in merit-based promotion requires adequate comparability between assessments conducted in different educational contexts. This study aimed to analyze the distributions of final grades obtained in Officer Advanced Training Courses held between 2004 and 2026 and to discuss their use in merit-based promotion scoring within the Military Fire Department of Paraná, under State Law No. 5,944/1969. An applied, documentary, quantitative, descriptive, and comparative study was conducted through a retrospective longitudinal analysis of 572 individual academic records, comprising 366 military police officers and 206 military firefighters across 19 course editions. Descriptive statistics, variance decomposition, the Kruskal–Wallis test, and graphical comparisons of 19 classes, including courses held in Bahia, Mato Grosso, and Paraná, were employed. Among military firefighters, statistically significant heterogeneity was identified across grade distributions (H = 164.62; p < 0.001), with 80.17% of the total sum of squares associated with between-group differences. In the 2021 courses held outside Paraná, mean grades were 9.750 in Bahia and 9.930 in Mato Grosso. In Paraná, the 2026 grades showed no overlap with the distributions recorded in 2022 and 2023. The findings reveal relevant academic differences but do not establish their educational causes or demonstrate actual effects on individual promotions. It is concluded that a common numerical grading scale does not establish assessment equivalence, supporting a review of the direct use of CAO final grades in merit-based promotion scoring, including their possible exclusion, while preserving professional qualification requirements and academic merit recognition.