Evaluation of Student's Performance on a T-Shaped Degree

• Published in: IEEE transactions on education 2021-11, Vol.64 (4), p.327-336
• Main Authors: Papa, Maria Fernanda, De Castro, Maria Valeria, Becker, Pablo, Martinez, Esperanza Marcos, Olsina, Luis
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Academic Achievement; Academic Degrees; Business Administration Education; College Students; Colleges & universities; Data models; Engineering Education; Evaluation Methods; Guidelines; Heterogeneity; High School Students; High Schools; Instruments; Intellectual Disciplines; Knowledge discovery; Monitoring; Monitoring strategy; Ontologies; performance evaluation; Prior Learning; Secondary schools; Student Evaluation; Students; T shape; T-shaped degrees; Task analysis; Universities; University students
• ISSN: 0018-9359; 1557-9638
• DOI: 10.1109/TE.2021.3049767

Contribution: From prior studies on models and strategies used to study the academic performance of university students, it is evident that none of them either evaluates T-shaped degrees or does so according to the profile of the students' high school provenance. The study provided in this article employs a well-established model and strategy to show the monitoring of university students' performance in the first academic year with the premise that their heterogeneity in terms of the modalities of their high school provenance may be a determining factor as regards their performance in the various disciplines on a T-shaped degree. Background: Universities are beginning to offer T-shaped degrees in response to the growing demand for professionals with this profile. The variety of disciplines taught on these degrees means that the students enrolled on them originate from various high school modalities, which implies a difference in their respective knowledge that may affect their performance. Research Questions: Are a student's high school provenance modalities a determining factor in their performance in various disciplines on a T-shaped degree? Methodology: This study has employed the goal-oriented, context-aware, measurement, evaluation and monitoring strategy to monitor students' performance on a Service Science, Management and Engineering degree. The five years of monitoring has made it possible to characterize students from the different modalities of provenance. Findings: It was possible to characterize the performance in the different high school modalities using the model attributes evaluated, with the objective of proposing instruments that could help improve the students' performance when unsatisfactory indicator results are detected.