Abstract

MARTINEZ SANCHEZ, Maritza Maribel; PEREZ MORFIN, Armando; DZAY CHULIM, Floricely  and  CABANAS VICTORIA, Vladimir Veniamin. Student reflections on desertion: the case of a Mexican university. Rev. Mendive [online]. 2023, vol.21, n.4  Epub Dec 30, 2023. ISSN 1815-7696.

The educational dropout is a phenomenon that has occurred at all levels: primary, middle, secondary, and higher education for decades in the Mexican context, specially, after the COVID-19 pandemic in which a high rate of dropout has been observed (INEGI, 2021). This article comes from a project which objective is to specifically explore, from an emic perspective, university students' dropout causes in a Mexican southern university. Thus, ten semi-structured in-depth interviews were analyzed in a concrete way and under a metacognitive process to identify the reasons behind dropping. Data was processed as codes and organized into categories to form, later, central concepts, by using the MAXQDA software. Among findings, we can mention that the dropping phenomenon is complex and multifactorial; nonetheless, it was possible to identify three central causes: academic (e.g., organizational management of undergraduate programs), personal (e.g., mental health), and economic (e.g., to prioritize work before studies). Similarly, some mechanisms to support students, between a short- and long-term period of time (e.g., a program to strength the graduation efficiency rate), are proposed to reduce the high rates of dropout in this study case.

Keywords : dropout causes; educational dropout; higher education; Mexico; university problems.

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