An analysis of Italian university students' performance through segmented regression models: gender differences in STEM courses

2021

AbstractThis paper investigates gender differences in university performances in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) courses in Italy, proposing a novel application through the segmented regression models. The analysis concerns freshmen students enrolled at a 3-year STEM degree in Italian universities in the last decade, with a focus on the relationship between the number of university credits earned during the first year (a good predictor of the regularity of the career) and the probability of getting the bachelor degree within 4 years. Data is provided by the Italian Ministry of University and Research (MIUR). Our analysis confirms that first-year performance is strong…

Gender Differences In Stem Courses: Analysis Of Italian Students' Performance

2021

Gender gap in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) courses is a prevalent topic in the recent literature, and quantitative studies on this relationship are essential to understand better the discussion and issues claimed by the arguments and the theories on this topic. In Italy, since 1989, the overall share of females enrolling at university is larger than the males' one, but females are still underrepresented in almost all the STEM fields, while overrepresented in nursing, humanities, and law schools. Our paper aims to investigate the gender differences in terms of university performance in STEM courses in Italy. This is done via segmented regression models, representin…

Prima, durante e dopo: il percorso degli studenti dall’immatricolazione fino a cinque anni dopo la laurea

L'aumento degli immatricolati e la diminuzione percentuale dei " movers " nelle università italiane: merito del Covid?

ANALISI DELLE CARRIERE UNIVERSITARIE NELLE LAUREE SCIENTIFICHE DI BASE IN ITALIA NELL’ULTIMO DECENNIO

2018

An analysis of italian university science students’ careers in the last decade · This paper deals with the study of Italian university science careers by analyzing administrative longitudinal data from the Italian Ministry of Education. Three freshmen cohorts enrolled in a three-year degree course 2011/12, 2014/15, and 2016/17 are analyzed in three time points : at enrolment, in order to assess their choices with respect to their individual characteristics ; at the beginning of the second year, in order to assess who moves to another course and who drops out ; at the fourth year, in order to determine the “best” students’ profiles. The students’ variables involved are gender, type of school…

Estimating the Number of Changepoints in Segmented Regression Models: Comparative Study and Application

2020

This paper deals with the problem of selecting the number of changepoints in segmented regression models. The aim is to review selection criteria, namely information criteria and hypothesis testing, and to propose a novel application in the context of students' careers in higher education. The performance of the selection criteria is assessed through simulation studies. Furthermore, we investigate the relationship between University students' performance and one of its main determinants, finding out that this relationship is actually broken-line.

Gli studenti stranieri negli atenei italiani: un’analisi statistica dell’ultimo decennio.

2020

La mobilità studentesca universitaria è un fenomeno che, negli anni recenti, ha assunto una rilevanza notevole, in ambito nazionale. Essa è, infatti, prevalentemente oggetto di numerosi studi sui flussi migratori Sud-Centro e Sud-Nord degli studenti universitari italiani che scelgono sedi universitarie in regioni diverse da quella della propria residenza. Nel tempo le dimensioni numeriche di questi flussi sono divenute sempre più consistenti, con ripercussioni non certo trascurabili sul tessuto socioeconomico delle zone di origine. La mobilità studentesca gioca un ruolo rilevante nell’ampliamento della “forbice” tra le macro-aree regionali (Nord-Centro e Sud e Isole), ovvero quel divario so…

Chi rimane e chi se ne va? Un’analisi statistica della mobilità universitaria dal Mezzogiorno d’Italia

2020

Nel 1999, il “Processo di Bologna” ha proposto la realizzazione dello spazio europeo di istruzione superiore (concretizzatosi nell’European Higher Education Area - EHEA) con l’intento di promuovere la conoscenza, la mobilità e la coesione culturale fra i paesi europei e il resto del mondo. Tali obiettivi sono stati ribaditi nel Comunicato di Bucarest (2012), approvato dai Ministri dell’Istruzione Superiore dei 47 membri dell’EHEA, in cui si mette l’accento sulla necessità di garantire, da un lato, il massimo livello possibile di finanziamento pubblico per l’istruzione superiore, come forma di investimento per il superamento della crisi finanziaria e, da un altro lato, un accesso paritario a…

Does taking additional Maths classes improve university performance?

2022

Several recent studies in educational literature showed how students’ skills in maths affect their success at higher levels of education. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the effect of taking additional maths class at high school on first-year performance of Italian university students. However, university performance and the choice of the high-school depend on several factors that make this evaluation challenging. Using information coming from three different sources, we carry out a multilevel propensity score procedure to estimate the average treatment effect between the applied sciences track and the traditional scientific one. After balancing for school- and student-level covariates…

A new bipartite matching approach for record linkage: the case of two big Italian databases

2022

In recent years, university student mobility in Italy has worsened the north-south economic divide. Therefore, studying this phenomenon and its determinants is necessary to provide helpful information to support socio-economic policies. Thus, this paper aims at integrating two big databases about university students in Italy: the first one is provided by the Ministry of University and Research, concerning the university careers of student cohorts; the second one is provided by the AlmaLaurea consortium, concerning the university experiences of graduates and their success in the labour market. Both databases contain socio-demographic information that complements each other. The proposed meth…

Foreign Students in Italian Universities: A Statistical Analysis of the Last Decade

2021

In recent years university students’ mobility has become increasingly important at a national level. It has been the subject of numerous studies on the South-Centre and South-North mobility flows of Italian students who choose university out of their residence region. The aim is twofold: to provide quantitative information on the university enrollment of the foreign students in the Italian universities (the size of the flows of foreign students enrolled at Italian universities, according to some socio-demographic characteristics); to measure the dropout rates and the time taken to obtain the degree comparing to the Italian students. Foreign students (FS) were classified into two groups: stu…

A novel sequential testing procedure for selecting the number of changepoints in segmented regression models

2023

In this work, we address the problem of selecting the number of changepoints in segmented regression models. We propose a novel stepwise procedure and assess its performance through simulation studies. We demonstrate that our proposal behaves well with the Gaussian and Binomial responses.

L’aumento degli immatricolati nel Mezzogiorno d’Italia nell’anno accademico 2020-21: merito del Covid?

2021

Inequalities in student performances in the Italian universities

2023

Does taking additional Maths classes in high school affect academic outcomes?

2023

Several studies in the mathematical education literature show the effect of students’ high school skills in maths on their success at higher levels of education and work. In particular, the importance of maths course taking in US high schools is highlighted to be important for college enrolment and completion. The choice of taking additional maths courses or, as in Italy, of choosing a high-school curriculum with more maths, is not random: it depends on several substantial factors such as gender and socio-economic status. This selection bias implies that the differences in the academic outcomes might be traceable not only to mathematics ability and knowledge. In this paper, the aim is to es…

Quali atenei scelgono i diplomati del Mezzogiorno d’Italia?

2019

La geografia della mobilità degli studenti meridionali nel passaggio dalle superiori all’università è qui analizzata nel periodo che va dal 2011/12 al 2016/17 (anni scolastici o accademici). I dati, analizzati da Massimo Attanasio, Marco Enea e Andrea Priulla mostrano una fuga allarmante, e persino crescente nel tempo, dal Mezzogiorno verso gli atenei del Centro- Nord.