Different Types of Students in the Italian Universities: Is There a Need for Different Policies and Governance Interventions?

• Activity Number: 280
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Tuesday, August 10, 2004 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistical Education
• Author(s): Luigi Biggeri*+ and Matilde Bini
• Companies: National University Evaluation Committee and University of Florence
• Keywords: correspondence analysis ; forward search ; robustness

Abstract

The Italian university system is undergoing some radical changes that will affect almost every aspect of its organization. The changes were motivated by several needs--for example, to lower the extremely high drop out rate, to lower the number of years spent by students to obtain their degree, to increase the probability to get the first job, and to improve the quality of teaching. The performance of the teaching activity surely depends, among other factors, on teaching service and on characteristics and study conditions of the students (quality of teaching, classrooms availability, laboratories, libraries, location of the offered services, mark obtained by students in the secondary school certificate, full-time or part-time study condition, living conditions of the students, etc.). The aim of this study is to verify if there are clear different types of students so that it is necessary to implement difference policies and governance interventions to improve the capability of the students to attend in an efficient way their course programs, to obtain better academic results, and to increase the probability of getting the first job.