Further considerations on a new indicator for higher education student performance

Il presente lavoro si inserisce nel dibattito internazionale sul sistema di voto universitario e sulla sua sintesi come misura della performance di uno studente. Partendo dalla nuova misura proposta in Adelfio et al. (2014), in questo breve articolo si pone l’enfasi sull’importanza della scelta della misura opportuna, soprattutto nella individuazione delle possibili determinanti della performance, utile nella scelte delle opportune politiche di intervento sulla performance della carriera dello studente. Per richiamare il nuovo indicatore proposto e per fare il confronto con quello esistente, si `e fatto riferimento ai Sistema Universitario italiano. This paper joins the international debate…

IANUS - Comparative analysis - Appendix A: UST analysis

UST dimension concerns data different from already analyzed data of ABA, ENQ, and ECO for their own nature: UST data are individual/subjective data while ABA, ENQ, and ECO are aggregate/objective data. So, the analysis criterion used for UST data will be different from that used previously. Our aim, in this section, is an evaluation of the users’ opinions on facilities through a descriptive analysis of our sample results.

Migration and students' performance: detecting geographical differences following a curves clustering approach

Students’ migration mobility is the new form of migration: students migrate to improve their skills and become more valued for the job market. The data regard the migration of Italian Bachelors who enrolled at Master Degree level, moving typically from poor to rich areas. This paper investigates the migration and other possible determinants on the Master Degree students’ performance. The Clustering of Effects approach for Quantile Regression Coefficients Modelling has been used to cluster the effects of some variables on the students’ performance for three Italian macro-areas. Results show evidence of similarity between Southern and Centre students, with respect to the Northern ones.

IANUS - Metodologia pratica. Risultato N° 8. Appendice

Insieme all'applicazione del modello IANUS nelle strutture selezionate, si è sviluppata la concettualizzazione e la verifica di una metodologia per l'analisi comparativa. L'obiettivo di questo studio è mostrare i dati ottenuti, gli indicatori calcolati e i modi di effettuare confronti attraverso il sistema indicato di valutazione degli indicatori.

Pull factors for university students’ mobility: a gravity model approach

Migration phenomena are characterised by flows that are typically multilateral. Often an outgoing flow corresponds to one or more incoming flows, which counterbalances it. When the balance is negative, socio-economic problems can arise. Italy has been afflicted for years by a particular type of unilateral migration: student mobility. Thousands of students leave the South to study in the Centre-North, driven by the better socio-economic conditions of those areas, and by more prosperous job prospects. Since this flow is not followed by a return one, nor by other incoming flows, the historical, socio-economic gap between North and South is widened. Taking advantage of the big dataset concernin…

La popolazione studentesca e l’offerta didattica dell’Ateneo di Palermo

Parceling in Multilevel Structural Equation Models for the measure of a latent construct

When the variables of interest are measured by a set of items on units having a multilevel setting, conventional structural equation models cannot be used because the assumption of independence of all latent variables and indicators across units is violated due to the within-cluster dependence. In this work we propose the use of parcelling in defining of latent variables of a multilevel structural equation model (MSEM). The paper aims to face the problem of the use of categorical item response data when a multilevel SEM must be applied.

A distribution curves comparison approach to analyze the university moving students performance

Da qualche anno anche l’Italia sta assistendo a un flusso migratorio di studenti, che da un povero Sud si dirige verso un più ricco Nord. Se un tempo la migrazione avveniva nel momento di cercare lavoro, adesso questa è anticipata da studenti che ritengono di avere meggiore successo se conseguono il titolo al Nord. L’obiettivo di questo studio è verificare la sensazione empirica secondo la quale in realtà gli studenti che restano per iscriversi alla Laurea Magistrale hanno un percorso simile rispetto a quelli che si iscrivono a un percorso magistrale del Nord. Considerate diverse misure di performance, e svolto i confronti attraverso una nuova procedura di raffronto tra curve di distribuzio…

Degree course change and student performance: a mixed-effect approach

This paper focuses on students credits earning speed over time and its determinants, dealing with the huge percentage of students who do not take the degree within the legal duration in the Italian University System. A new indicator for the performance of the student career is proposed on real data, concerning the cohort of students enrolled at a Faculty of the University of Palermo (followed for 7 years). The new indicator highlights a typical zero-inflated distribution and suggests to investigate the effect of the degree course (DC) change on the student career. A mixed-effect model for overdispersed data is considered, with the aim of taking into account the individual variability as wel…

Indicators and measures for the assessment of university students’ careers

In the Italian University System the problem of student failure and of delaying the degree is causing increasing concern both for universities and for stakeholders. In this paper we compare the teaching performances of the italian universities, and individual cohort data of three Faculties of the University of Palermo, to extract some information useful to policy makers.

Regression quantiles to assess higher education performance

From 2001 Italian university system has adopted the credits to mea- sure the workload of the students. The weighted mean of marks with credits as weights is used to measure the their performance. In our opinion it does not seem a proper way to measure. We suggest to adopt the median of the weighted marks, because we are considering an ordinale variable, with a non-normal empir- ical distribution, and a®ected by outliers. Then, instead of using an OLS multiple regression, we investigate the determinants of the performance measured by the median using a regression quantile for ordinal response. A real dataset concerning 133 students of the Faculty of Economics of the University of Palermo is …

La popolazione del quartiere Albergheria

Effetti della temperatura dell'acqua sull'idratazione di nuotatori di fondo

Studenti in calo e in fuga: quale è il destino degli atenei siciliani?

Negli ultimi anni si è assistito a un notevole decremento delle immatricolazioni in generale, e in Sicilia in particolare, a cui sono anche corrisposte maggiori immatricolazioni di siciliani nelle università del Centro-Nord. Dalle analisi dei dati ufficiali del MIUR è emerso che le variabili con maggiore influenza nei confronti del calo delle immatricolazioni in totale sono i diplomati che non provengono dal liceo e le aree disciplinare sociali e umanistiche. Questi elementi sembrano delineare un panorama universitario in cui non c’è più posto per le lauree “deboli” e gli studenti “deboli”. In questo quadro sconfortante si inserisce la riduzione dei trasferimenti ministeriali che hanno subi…

Hints of latent drivers investigating university student performance

Job market, nowadays, asks for higher and higher skills and competences. Therefore, also the measurement and assessment of the university students performance are crucial issues for policy makers. Although the scientific literature provides several papers investigating the main determinants of university student performance, often results are very different, and they seem to hold just in very specific contexts. This paper aims to contribute to the international literature, focusing on the role of student specific characteristics, supporting the idea that unobservable variables (such as motivation, aptitudes or abilities) should be more investigated.

Are people willing to pay for eco-labeled wild seafood? An overview

In the last two decades, eco-labeled seafood has been becoming an instrument of sustainability directed towards consumers, addressing a market-based incentive for better management of fisheries. In this context, several studies across the countries have been conducted about how much consumers are willing to pay for fish caught by certifiably sustainable fishing activities. In this direction, the aim of this study was to systematize the available information about the willingness-topay (WTP) more for eco-labeled wild seafood. Therefore, only papers published on ISI journals were searched on “Web of Knowledge” and “SciVerse Scopus” platforms, using the combinations of the following key words:…

IL CAMPIONAMENTO

Questo lavoro fa parte degli approfondimenti metodologici di un volume avente come oggetto di studio gli standard di vita di una piccola comunità residente in un quartiere del centro storico di Palermo. Obiettivo di questo capitolo è illustrare la strategia campionaria adottata per condurre l''indagine. La complessità degli obiettivi, l''eterogeneità delle caratteristiche della popolazione oggetto di indagine e la piccola dimensione dell''area indagata costituiscono gli elementi in base ai quali è stata scelta la tecnica di campionamento. Inoltre, poiché lo scopo primario dell''indagine è stimare la proporzione degli occupati fra i capifamiglia, informazioni supplementari quali la presenza …

Can the Students’ Career be Helpful in Predicting an Increase in Universities Income?

The students’ academic failure and the delay in obtaining their final degree are a significant issue for the Italian universities and their stakeholders. Based on indicators proposed by the Italian Ministry of University, the Italian universities are awarded a financial incentive if they reduce the students’ attrition and failure. In this paper we analyze the students’ careers performance using: (1) aggregate data; (2) individual data. The first compares the performances of the Italian universities using the measures and the indicators proposed by the Ministry. The second analyzes the students’ careers through an indicator based on credit earned by each student in seven academic years. The …

Exploring drivers for Italian university students’ mobility: first evidence from AlmaLaurea data.

This article is part of a national Project aimed at studying Italian university students’ mobility. The novelty proposed here lies in the use, for the first time, of individual data from the census surveys that the Alma Laurea consortium conducts on all Italian graduates. The advantage of this data consists of information that was previously unavailable. For example, information about the socio-economic conditions of the students’ parents, satisfaction with the Bachelor’s degree course and university services, and employment status recorded 1, 3, and 5 years after graduation. Here we report the first analyses conducted on the data relating to the University of Palermo Bachelors who enrolled…

IANUS: Comparative analysis

Jointly with the application of IANUS model in the selected facilities, in WP4 Ambiente Italia has to produce an evaluation and comparison between different facilities and core indicators. The aim of this paper is to show collected data, computed indicators and comparison facilities throuh suggested indicator evaluation system.

University student talent: the real driver for performance?

Investigation about the university student performance, and its measurement, are very crucial issues for any policy maker. Since the economic crisis, jobs market requires even higher skills and competences. Literature offers a lot of papers about the university student quality and performance, in order to identify the main determinants of them. Often, results are very different, and they seems to hold just in a specific context. This paper aims to investigate the role of a latent variable that can take into account the student motivation, aptitude, and abilities, here conveniently called talent. A random effect Quantile Regression on a new measure of Italian student performance has been ado…

Effects of three different water temperatures on dehydration in competitive swimmers

Summary Aims The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of three different water temperatures on physiological responses (dehydration, sweat rate, urine output, rectal temperature and plasma electrolytes) of competitive athletes during a “simulated” race of 5 km in an indoor swimming pool. Methods Nine male competitive master swimmers swam 5 km with the water at temperatures of 23, 27 and 32 C. Immediately before (Pre) and after (Post) each trial, samples of blood and urine were collected, body weight was recorded and rectal temperature was measured. The dehydration percentage and sweat rate were the highest at 32 C and the lowest at 23 C (23 C: −0.9 ± 0.5; 27 C: −1.3 ± 0.6; 32 C…

Breast cancer subtypes can be determinant in the decision making process to avoid surgical axillary staging: A retrospective cohort study.

Abstract Introduction The need for performing axillary lymph-node dissection in early breast cancer when the sentinel lymph node (SLN) is positive has been questioned in recent years. The purpose of this study was to identify a low-risk subgroup of early breast cancer patients in whom surgical axillary staging could be avoided, and to assess the probability of having a positive lymph-node (LN). Methods We evaluated the cohort of 612 consecutive women affected by early breast cancer. We considered age, tumor size, histological grade, vascular invasion, lymphatic invasion and cancer subtype (Luminal A, Luminal B HER-2+, Luminal B HER-2−, HER-2+, and Triple Negative) as variables for univariat…

The student talent in a random effects Quantile Regression Model for university performance

This paper is a development of a previous work on performance of Italian university students. A Quantile Regression was carried out on a proposed performance indicator, based on a transformation of the median of the marks weighted by credits. Results suggested to investigate the role of students peculiar features on their performance, measured by the transformation of the weighted marks. Therefore, a random intercept Quantile Regression model is fitted on real data concerning graduates over the legal university duration set in Italy, enrolled in 2002 in two Degree Courses of the University of Palermo. Results show that the student performance seems to be influenced by the student's aptitude…

Do personal characteristics affect the Rasch measures of perceived physical risk? A quantile regression approach

This paper focuses on the measurement of the perception of healthy risk according to personal characteristics. The Physical Risk Assessment Inventory was adopted as measurement tool and it was administered to 551 students enrolled in the first and in the fifth classes of some high schools of Palermo. The analysis of the determinants of the perceived risk is based on its quantitative measures. Therefore the analysis has been developed into two tracks. First track is devoted to obtain a quantitative measure of the perceived risk: an Extended Logistic Rasch Model was used considering separately males and females. Results highlight the different perception of risk between males and females, alt…

Sampling

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

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…

Can the students' career performance be helpful in predicting an increase in universities income?

The students’ academic failure and the delay in obtaining their final degree are a significant issue for the Italian universities and their shareholders. Based on indicators proposed by the Italian Ministry of University, the Italian universities are awarded a financial incentive if they reduce the students’ attrition and failure. In this paper we analyze the students’ careers performance using: 1) aggregate data; 2) individual data. The first compares the performances of the Italian universities using the measures and the indicators proposed by the Ministry. The second analyzes the students’ careers through an indicator based on credit earned by each student in seven academic years. The pr…

LA METODOLOGIA DELLA RICERCA

Italian University student evaluation of teaching: does it changes over time?

This paper concerns the measurement of the Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET) by undergraduates. For almost 15 years Italian Universities have been monitoring that aspect, performing on students’ opinions about teaching, e.g. on teacher punctuality, clearness and willingness, and on suitability of the facility, logistics, and on course scheduling and managing. Each University carries out a survey with own procedures and through a questionnaire consisting of two set of items: a set of items equal for all Italian Universities, and a set of items built by each University. The survey basic aim is to gather information on teaching skill, educational goals, coordination among teachings, and ade…