Evasão em cursos de licenciatura: perfil do evadido, fatores intervenientes no fenômeno

Abstract

The present study evaluated dropout in undergraduate licentiate courses at a confessional community university located in São Leopoldo municipality, identifying the factors involved in this phenomenon. The overall objective of the study examined the dropout causes in undergraduate courses and factors involved in this phenomenon. The specific objectives outlined the profile of students who dropout the licentiate courses, from a set of quantitative and qualitative variables; it evaluated differences in results when courses are divided in similar areas and analyzed how educational policies interfered on causes of dropout in undergraduate programs. The study had its locus in São Leopoldo, in the Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos, involving students from classroom education. The methodology used in this study was a quantitative, crosssectional study of a four-year period. Data were collected in the institution secondary database. The conception of dropout was defined as a student with, at least, six consecutive semesters without enrollment in the course. Descriptive univariate and bivariate analysis and logistic regression analysis of data were used to analyze the results. Analysis of variance were also made, a priori, in order to detect differences between the different areas of knowledge surveyed. Tukey and Minimum Significant Difference tests were made as a posteriori tests. The main results of the study indicated that the high risk of evasion profile is composed by a set of variables classified into four main factors: economic, performance, social and choice. When the analysis focused on multivariate process there was a reduction in the number of factors involved, but there was always a variable that represents the four factors. The analysis of the dropouts profile in different knowledge areas made the difference between them clear, ie, the main factors that lead students from a particular knowledge field to dropout are different from the ones from other areas. Public policies for students retention in the educational system have not shown positive results. The Programa Universidade para Todos turned to be most efficient both in access and maintenance of students in Higher Education. Most public policies seek to ease student access to higher education, but make little effort in keeping them in it. There has to be a set of public policies not only with national and mass coverage, but also turned to the needs of different regions, institutions, courses or knowledge areas, and specially the students, who are the main focus to the dropout problem.