College student dropout

The thesis prepared by Valentina Veloso Casado, entitled "Factors that intervene in the change of institution of dental students in Chilean universities", has been directed by Dr. David Rodríguez-Gómez. The thesis was read before the tribunal formed by Pilar Figuera Gazo (University of Barcelona), acting as President, José Luís Muñoz (Autonomous University of Barcelona), acting as secretary and Anabel Moriña (University of Seville), acting as member.

The high dropout rates in higher education have motivated countless studies and analyzes for decades. However, desertion does not only contemplate abandonment, but in this concept various academic trajectories are integrated, within which we find the transfer of students between institutions. It has been seen that the change of institution in careers in the area of ​​health sciences is increasingly frequent and that is why this research work aims to analyze the factors that intervene in the institutional change of dental students in Chilean private universities.

To approach this study, a mixed three-stage methodology has been used. The first stage, qualitative and exploratory in nature, seeks to investigate the possible causes that a student would have to decide to leave an institution and enroll in the same career at another university, which is carried out through interviews with key people. The second phase, of a quantitative nature, is the application of a questionnaire, called "questionnaire of transfer factors of university students", which allows, on the one hand, to collect the sociodemographic and academic data of the transfer students and, on the other hand , assess the importance of each of the possible reasons for change, 114 students have participated in this stage. The third stage, also of a qualitative nature, seeks to investigate and explain the findings of the previous stages through discussion groups.

The results of this research show that the reasons that can lead a student to decide to change university are diverse. From the model obtained in this research, September causes are obtained: general satisfaction, teaching and classroom, university support, university environment, previous academic preparation, level of demand and stress, and economic cost. However, depending on the student's characteristics, mainly socioeconomic ones, some of these factors may have a greater or lesser relevance. Regardless of this, the most important factor is the level of demand and stress to which the students are subjected, which culminates in significantly reducing the levels of satisfaction towards their university, deciding to break the link and look for a new institution. Another important finding reveals that sociodemographic characteristics are even more relevant when deciding whether to change universities compared to academic characteristics. First-generation students and students who move from the city to attend university are the ones who are most affected especially by the teaching and classroom factor and by the support (or lack of support) from the university. Furthermore, and in the same sense as the international literature, it is observed that students with less family financial support are more affected by the economic factor. Thus, it can be concluded that the analysis of the factors that intervene in the institutional change of dental students is not only presented as a list of reasons but rather on the contrary, there are a series of elements that interact in this process, be factors dependent on the universities or social, economic or academic factors of the students.

Finally, it is important to highlight the exploratory nature of this research and point out that, until now, there are no similar studies published in the scientific literature, which look for the causes of transfer in university students in the health area.