Assessment at University. Some international experiences aimed at fostering early retention of student population

Abstract

Early student population desertion is a central concern within massive university systems and goes beyond national and regional limits. Dropout causes are diverse, as well as the instruments used to mitigate it, as part of retention strategies developed by institutions of higher education which have been systematized and analysed by a number of experts. However, Little it has gone in-depth on the impact that different assessment mechanisms have on student population desertion, particularly, throughout the first year of university careers, although is common knowledge that dropouts’ ‘peaks’ happen after mid-term and final exams periods. In this article, our proposal is to analyse and to compare assessment mechanisms integrated into teaching strategies developed and implemented within European, North-American and Australian universities that are considered to contribute to solve student desertion as a
result of discouragment or poor academic perfomance. During the last twenty years, these universities have been working on new teaching models, innovative ways of assessment as well as on the incorporation of technological tools. Simultaneously, these higher education institutions have deepened the idea of generating stimulant and significant learning environments for their students. Therefore, these
experiences provide with a series of contributions which could be adapted to the Latin American higher education level context