Revista Brasileira de Educação
Print version ISSN 1413-2478On-line version ISSN 1809-449X
Abstract
ARMIJO, Pablo Castillo; ZARATE, Tomas Morales and CARVAJAL, Carlos Miranda. EVALUATION OF A PSYCHO-SOCIAL SUPPORT PROGRAM ABOUT CONCEPTS OF PERSISTENCE AND UNIVERSITY RETENTION. Rev. Bras. Educ. [online]. 2019, vol.24, e240058. Epub Nov 21, 2019. ISSN 1809-449X. https://doi.org/10.1590/s1413-24782019240058.
The high number of students who fail their first year of higher education in Chile has led the Ministry of Education to create strategies of accompaniment, as a way to raise retention rates and prevent university dropouts. We sought to understand the meanings and scope of the persistence and university retention phenomenon, using a qualitative case study methodology (Stake, 1998) from a communicative-critical perspective (Gómez et al., 2006). Participants were freshmen (cohort 2015) belonging to the program “me quedo en la universidad” (“I stay in University”). Various positive and negative evaluations of the program are noted, highlighting aspects of participation, learning strategies, motivational factors and even elements such as space and identity that may come to be established with the university or with their career, which may influence the decision to continue or defect from the system.
Keywords : student retention; student dropout; higher education; accompaniment; public university.