Abstract

MEDINA MORENO, Alejandra del Pilar; AGUIRRE SANHUEZA, Mario  and  LUENGO MACHUCA, Luis. Predictability of the secondary school grade point averages according to the educational center in the academic achievement of dentistry students. Educ Med Super [online]. 2014, vol.28, n.1, pp. 65-73. ISSN 0864-2141.

Introduction: the emergence of private universities has brought about changes in the origin of students that enter the universities. Among the admission requirements of dentistry studies in Universidad de Concepción, the grade point averages obtained at the secondary education has 25% weighing, so it is important to determine its predictive validity and to verify whether this average is the same for the different educational centers or not. Objectives: to determine the evolution of the dependency and the predictive validity of the grade point averages of the secondary education, by making a comparison among the different types of educational establisments. Methods: longitudinal, observational and descriptive study of first-year dentistry students. The admission profile forms were checked, thus obtaining the information on the secondary education grade point averages and on dependency. The academic performance of students was obtained from grade worksheets of the Register and Control office. Results: it was observed that the number of students from subsidized educational centers increased, 33.3 % in 2004 to 57.4 % in 2011, whereas the number of students from private schools decreased, 44.9 % in 2004 to 22.0 % in 2011. The contributing percentage of the grade point averages to the academic achievement reached 10.8 %. The highest contributing percentages went to the grade point averages of private schools with a 15.0 %, followed by the municipal and subsidized schools with 9.6 % and 8.6 % respectively. Conclusions: there is a tendency to increase of the number of students from subsidized schools, and to decrease of the number of students from private schools. The predictive validity of the grade point averages was limited, since there is prediction bias favoring the municipal and subsidized schools.

Keywords : different educational centers; Secondary School grade point average; predictive capacity; academic achievement.

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