Early school leaving is a major social problem and a socio-political priority in knowledge-based societies, especially in southern European countries that have a tendency for comparatively high dropout rates. The literature has focused strongly on the exogenous factors that cause students to leave school early. Meanwhile, endogenous factors, such…

Contribution: A demonstration of a move from face-to-face to blended learning in an engineering Master's program by adding a parallel online group, which showed the synergy between blended and online approaches in terms of level of interaction, enrollment, student satisfaction, dropout rate, and final grades. Background: Education's transition…

The dropout rate of university engineering studies is correlated with the absence of retention of freshman in the basic subjects. The aim of this work is to determine the effect of cooperative learning and the characteristics of students on learning, persistence, and academic performance. We have performed a study of learning, persistence and…

This work presents the assessment of the development and evolution of an active methodology (Project-Based Learning--PBL) implemented on the course "Unit Operations in Environmental Engineering", within the bachelor's degree in Environmental Engineering, with the purpose of decreasing the dropout rate in this course. After the initial…

The purpose of this paper is to carry out an empirical examination of the supply-side factors influencing dropout rates in MBA programs. We analyze the extent to which the resources and characteristics of the program (content, teaching methodology, course load, class size, partnerships, reputation) influence these rates. A GLM analysis was…

Data from over 21,600 students who left Catalan higher education institutions during the academic years 2000-2001 and 2001-2002 have been analysed in order to describe the academic and personal profiles of university dropouts. Additionally, a telephone survey and face-to-face interviews with a pilot group of leavers were conducted to gather…

The dropout rate is an indicator of complex analysis and there is no consensus on its significance. Universities lack systematized, univocal methods for collecting student dropout data, making measurement problematic. In consequence, the formulas applied to analyze this phenomenon differ between countries and it is therefore an immense challenge…

Online learning has become a widespread method for providing learning at different levels of education. It has facilitated the learning in many ways and made it more flexible and available by providing learners with more opportunities to learn information, further access to different learning resources, and collaboration rather than face-to-face…

Migratory processes in southern Europe over the last two decades have brought about substantial changes to the ethnic makeup of secondary schools. Classrooms have increased in their complexity in terms of teaching, as there are pupils with different cultural and economic backgrounds and educational needs, but also in the relationships among the…

The purpose of this study is to describe, analyse and evaluate the successive comprehensive reforms in Spain as a "paradigmatic" example of the emergence, evolution and crisis of the comprehensive school. In the first part, we describe the development of the comprehensive school project (1970-2013), using the image of the life cycle,…

Spain has one of the highest levels of early school leaving and educational failure of the European Union. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the anatomy of early school leaving in Spain and its characteristics. In order to do so, in the first part we discuss the measurement problems related with this concept and the evolution of drop-out…

This paper describes the experience of applying a new teaching strategy to a basic mathematics course at the Open University of Catalonia. This strategy requires students to engage with practice and assessment tests with automatic feedback. The main aim of this research is to look into the extent to which the key elements of this teaching strategy…

This policy profile on education in Spain is part of the "Education Policy Outlook" series, which presents comparative analysis of education policies and reforms across the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Building on the OECD's substantial comparative and sectoral knowledge base, the series offers…

The reengagement of disenchanted secondary students is one of the priorities of the educational system. Over a six-year period (2003-2004 to 2008-2009), 63 disruptive and low-performance secondary school students were integrated into a two-year garden-based learning program, which took place in southeastern Spain. This article intends to assess…

This paper develops personalized models for different university degrees to obtain the risk of each student abandoning his degree and analyzes the profile for undergraduates that abandon the degree. In this study three faculties located in Granada, South of Spain, were involved. In Software Engineering three university degrees with 10,844…