Success/Failure in Higher Education: how long does it take to complete critical 1st. year subjects?

Author(s):

Graça Leão FernandesMargarida Chagas Lopes

Conference:

ECER 2008

Network:

22. Research in Higher Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

22 SES 11A, Moving into Higher Education: Studies in Transitions

Paper Session

Time:

2008-09-12

16:45-18:15

Room:

B2 213

Chair:

Jani Petri Ursin

Contribution

Success on academic performance at 1st cycle becomes even more important now that Bologna Chart is on the way for tertiary education. However University remains the least researched segment among individual scholar trajectories in Portugal, despite the high rates of retention and drop out during higher education 1st cycle attendance. Those rates are particularly high in the first year of the cycle. It seems therefore most pertinent to investigate the main factors affecting the transition from high school to university as well as the success\failure at the beginning of higher education. Therefore the main purpose of this paper consists in systematically assess semi-longitudinal data on individual trajectories retrieved from ISEG Pedagogic Observatory in order to approach the main determinants of success\failure at the beginning of 1st cycle as a dynamic and past dependent process.

Method

We took life cycle theories as the main theoretical framework. In this paper we are concerned with dynamic transitional processes instead of single turning points (as the transition into university) and intend to assess the interplay between processes usually taken as independent and rather static as the interaction between schooling, labour market insertion and own family raising, if so. Actually, success and failure are the outcome of dynamic and complex interacting features spread quite diversely along individual’s trajectories and whose effects impart along larger or shorter spells of time. Therefore, we apply duration models to data on individual life cycle trajectories. We measure (un)success in tertiary education by the time required to complete a bundle of three critical subjects previously established. The econometric adjustment will rely upon Cox Regression model.

Expected Outcomes

From previous case studies we are aware of the influence exerted upon individual school trajectories of a set of conventional determinants as individual characteristics, socio-economic status of the family of origin, own prior scholar performance, kind of study at high school (for upper secondary’s), as well as own situation towards employment, career requirements and raised family characteristics (for post-graduates). Nevertheless, as to our knowledge, no research of the kind has been developed for Portuguese undergraduate students trajectories, specially in their critical starting point, taking into consideration dynamic success factors. Therefore we expect to derive an useful insight into the determinants of success in the 1st cycle of Bologna Chart by analysing semi-longitudinal data obtained from one of the Portuguese higher education institutions (ISEG). We also expect that the outcomes from the current research will be useful for politics of education purposes by shedding light on the articulation between upper secondary and tertiary education, still a critical point among Portuguese students scholar trajectories.

References

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Author Information

Graça Leão Fernandes

School of Economics and Management,Technical University of Lisbon

Mathematics

Lisboa

174

Margarida Chagas Lopes

SOCIUS (Research Center in Economic and Organizational Sociology)

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