Abstract

GONZALEZ CATALAN, Felipe Ignacio  and  ARISMENDI VERA, Karin Jeanette. Student Dropout in Technical-Professional Higher Education: Exploring factors that influence freshmen students. Rev. educ. sup [online]. 2018, vol.47, n.188, pp.109-137. ISSN 0185-2760.

The studies about the desertion at university level has been a focus of interest for experts in the educational field, especially since the dropout rate in the last decade has oscillated between 30% and 50% (Centro de Microdatos, 2008). This has motivated the development of research in the area in different countries of Latin America. In Chile, the study of college dropout has been associated with conceptual models (Himmel, 2002), evaluation of economic costs (González & Uribe, 2005) and the generation of predictive models that allow us to recognize the factors that would explain to this phenomenon (Villa & Barriga, 2010; Mizala, 2011). These inquiries have been in the context of the university, while in technical-professional education the focus has been on describing the situation rather than generation of predictive models. Given this, this work aims to determine the variables that significantly explain the dropout of students in a technical-professional institution in the 2014-2016 cohort, through a study with explanatory scope and non-experimental. The sample corresponded to 1876 first-year students and the data were processed with the R software, applying a generalized linear model with binomial error distribution and Logit link function. The results show that the factors with greater statistical significance correspond to the gender, year of graduation of secondary education and school hours. Likewise, it is important to specify that this will depend on the training school, since the model varies according to the particularities of each training field.

Keywords : College dropouts; Dropouts models; Causal model; Predictor variables; Technical education.