School dropout in graduate distance education: evidence from a study in the interior of Brazil1*

Oliveira, Pedro Rodrigues de; Oesterreich, Silvia Aparecida; Almeida, Vera Luci de

doi:10.1590/S1678-4634201708165786

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Thematic Section: Higher Education • Educ. Pesqui. 44 • 2018 • https://doi.org/10.1590/S1678-4634201708165786 copy

School dropout in graduate distance education: evidence from a study in the interior of Brazil¹ 1 - Acknowlegements: The authors are grateful for the assistance of the coordinators of distance education tutors at UFGD - Cleide Tirloni, André Nakamura, Lucimeire Brandão, Célia de Deus, Munier Abrão and Kleyton Ferreira; the authors also thank the interns who helped collect data. ^* * Translated by Ana Paula Renesto.

Authorship SCIMAGO INSTITUTIONS RANKINGS

Abstract

The rapid development and dissemination of information technologies in the last decades has allowed a great expansion in the offer of undergraduate and graduate distance programs. However, this dissemination has been accompanied by high dropout rates, consistently reported in different programs and countries. This is the reality of distance education in Brazil too: a great expansion, including the establishment of Universidade Aberta do Brasil (UAB - Open University of Brazil), but with high failure rates. This study evaluated school dropout and its causes in a graduate certificate program of Programa Nacional de Formação em Administração Pública (PNAP - National Training Program in Public Administration), which aims to train public administrators in the interior of Brazil. High failure rates in these programs have been an obstacle to achieving the objectives of PNAP, because they prevent the training of labor precisely where it is most needed. This article investigates the main factors that lead to this phenomenon, by means of documentary analysis and collection of data on students from Universidade Federal da Grande Dourados, in Mato Grosso do Sul state, Brazil, via survey. After the collection, conducted through questionnaires and interviews, we did a statistical analysis of the data, which revealed a graduate student profile consistent with that reported in the literature and conducive to school dropout. It is verified that, given this student profile, some administrative strategies are necessary to prevent dropout rates from being so high. Such strategies are notoriously not enough to reduce dropout rates to acceptable levels; on the other hand, not developing strategies ensures dropout rates will not decrease.

Dropout rate; Distance education; PNAP

UAB centers	Municipal Management	Public Management	Health Management
Bela Vista	50	50	50
Costa Rica	-	50	-
Porto Murtinho	50	50	50
Total number of students	100	150	100

	Municipal Public Managment	Public Management	Health Management	General
Places offered	100	150	100	350
Students	83	141	103	327
Students completing the program	29	55	26	110
Dropouts	54	86	77	217
Dropout rate	65.06%	61%	74.76%	66.36%

Variable	Mean	Standard deviation	Minimum	Maximum
Age	33	8	21	56
Man	0.34	0.47	0	1
Children	0.93	1.12	0	4
Dropped out	0.56	0.50	0	1
Weekly study hours	7.02	5.24	0	36
Distance education graduate	0.32	0.47	0	1
Public management	0.43	0.50	0	1
Municipal public management	0.30	0.46	0	1
Health management	0.26	0.44	0	1
Bela Vista	0.53	0.50	0	1
Porto Murtinho	0.34	0.47	0	1
Costa Rica	0.13	0.34	0	1
Civil servant (at the beginning of the program)	0.64	0.48	0	1
Illness (at the beginning of the program)	0.04	0.18	0	1
Distance from the DE center (in km)	171.76	250.78	0	2592
Lives in the city where the DE center is located	0.39	0.49	0	1

Program	Respondents	Students who dropped out	Students who dropped out (%)
Public Management	74	40	54.05%
Municipal Public Management	52	28	53.85%
Health Management	45	27	60%
Total	171	95	55.56%

Age	Frequency	% of samples	Dropout rate
Up to 25 years	40	23,4%	47.5%
26 to 35 years	78	45.6%	52.6%
36 to 45 years	38	22.2%	65.8%
Older than 45 years	15	8.8%	66.7%
Total	171		55.56%

Employment status	At the beginning of the program	%	At the end of the program	%
Civil servant	109	63.7%	124	72.5%
Private sector	36	21%	37	21.6%
Unemployed	8	4.7%	6	3.5%
Inactive	18	10.5%	4	2.3%
	171		171

Gender	Frequency	Relative Frequency	Dropout rate
Woman	113	66.1%	51.3%
Man	58	33.9%	63.8%
	171	100%	55.56%

Characteristics	On campus bachelor degrees	Online bachelor degrees	Signif.
Age	32.44	34.52
Man	32%	37%
Has children	46%	59%
Number of children	0.85	1.11
Weekly study hours	7.37	6.28
Lives in the city where de DE center is located	34%	50%	*
Distance from the DE center (km)	183.17	147.02
Was ill when s/he started the program	3%	4%

Employment status when starting the graduate certificate program
Worked in the public sector	63%	65%
Worked in the private sector	17%	30%	*
Unemployed	7%	0	***
Did not work or look for a job	13%	6%

	Mean distance from the DE center	Standard deviation		Obs.	Percentage
Dropped out	162.51	177,66	Lives in the city where the DE center is located	67	39.18%
Did not drop out	183.21	320,55	Does not in the city where the DE center is located	104	60.82%
			Total	171	100%

Faculdade de Educação da Universidade de São Paulo Av. da Universidade, 308 - Biblioteca, 1º andar 05508-040 - São Paulo SP Brasil, Tel./Fax.: (55 11) 30913520 - São Paulo - SP - Brazil
E-mail: revedu@usp.br

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[1] Pedro Rodrigues de Oliveira holds a doctorate in Economics from Escola Superior de Agricultura “Luiz de Queiroz”, Universidade de São Paulo (ESALQ/USP). He is a professor at Faculdade de Administração, Ciências Contábeis e Economia (Administration, Accounting and Economics School), Universidade Federal da Grande Dourados (UFGD).

Silvia Aparecida Oesterreich holds a doctorate in Sports and Physical Activity Sciences from Universidad de León, Spain. She is a professor at Faculdade de Ciências da Saúde (FCS - Health Sciences School), Universidade Federal da Grande Dourados (UFGD).

Vera Luci de Almeida holds a doctorate in Engineering and Knowledge Management from Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC). She is a professor at Faculdade de Administração, Ciências Contábeis e Economia (Administration, Accounting and Economics School), Universidade Federal da Grande Dourados (UFGD).