[An institutional evaluation design]

This study aims at describing the design used in the evaluation of technical nursing courses in São Paulo State's Education System by means of quantitative and qualitative institutional performance indicators. Such indicators, established by former students and by the labor market, showed to be useful in the evaluation and demonstrated the need for increasing, by means of similar evaluation studies, parameters related to the academic staff's performance as well as that of practical teaching fields. It is concluded that the use of a reasonable number of indicators allowed the articulation among data and a better understanding of the evaluated institutions.