The impact of remote teaching on the dropout and retention of students in the Statistis Course at UFSCar

Abstract

Dropout in higher education has been studied by many researchers and, in particular, by higher education institutions in order to identify the reasons that lead students to abandon a course or university. In the specific case of Bachelor's degrees in Statistics in Brazil, studies indicate that around 25% of freshmen have completed the course in recent years, indicating a dropout rate of approximately 75% of students. In the case of the Statistics course at UFSCar, historically between 40% and 50% of students completed the course. During the Remote Teaching period, from the 2020 academic year to the 2021 academic year, UFSCar relaxed its minimum performance rule for students to continue in the courses. In this work, it was observed that dropout rates were lower during this period, as well as the retention of students in initial subjects, especially those related to the area of mathematics. These two facts should have contributed to a higher course completion rate, but this did not happen. Two hypotheses, in this case, are being investigated: the difficulty of readapting students to face-to-face teaching and the expansion of home office internships, which led several students to extend the duration of the course to make it compatible with remote work.