Questão 2 - UEG Conhecimentos Gerais 2026/2

Leia o texto a seguir para responder à questão

 

Dropping out of higher education: Analysis of variables that characterise students who interrupt their studies

 

• 17.5 % of students (n = 150,018) discontinued their university studies.
• Men are more likely than women to leave university education.
• Students pursuing health sciences are the least likely to drop out.
• Dropout studies based on big data enable the attainment of robust conclusions.

    As stated by Parra-Sánchez et al. (2023), dropping out of university should certainly be seen as a global phenomenon, occurring worldwide. This is confirmed in research such as that by Freitas et al. (2022, p.8) or Álvarez (2021), who noted that academic “dropout is a very relevant phenomenon” in different continents, the consequences of which are felt not only in academic contexts, but also in society at large (Ahn & Davis, 2020). According to the OECD (2016), countries such as Hungary, New Zealand and the United States have dropout rates of around 50%, compared to other countries such as Australia, Denmark and Japan, where dropout rates are around 20%. According to Acevedo (2021), dropout rates in higher education institutions in Latin America are also very high. In the European scope, Spain has fairly high university dropout rates. According to the Ministry of Universities (2022), the percentage of university students who drop out is over 15%. Likewise, according to CRUE (2022), dropout rates in onsite public universities are above 20% and exceed 40% in off-site public universities. In the latest report published by the Spanish Ministry of Universities (Fernández-Mellizo, 2022), the dropout rate from undergraduate studies in on-site universities was 13% of the student body. These figures give an idea of the impact exerted by this problem. In terms of dropout rates according to branches of knowledge (CRUE, 2022), the most noteworthy are Engineering and Humanities (27.19%), Arts and Humanities (24.05%), Science (19.8%) and Social and Legal Sciences (18.40%). However, the trend of low dropout rates in Health Sciences (12.01%) continues.

    Characterising university dropout is a complex problem. Studies carried out so far have shown the relationship of dropout with different types of variables (Aina et al., 2022; Constante-Amores et al., 2021; Peña-Vázquez et al., 2023). Low academic performance (Casanova et al., 2018), economic problems (Bertola, 2023), disadvantaged social contexts (Calamet, 2020), lack of integration at university (Esteban et al., 2017), stress (Eicher et al., 2014), low academic motivation (Thuy et al., 2017), relationships with faculty and peers (Bernardo et al., 2016), low academic engagement (Álvarez et al., 2021), poor self-regulation of learning (Merino-Tejedor et al., 2016), procrastination, and dissatisfaction with studies (Lindner et al., 2023; Merino-Tejedor et al., 2016), emotional problems (Pérez et al., 2022) or low satisfaction with the teaching received (Álvarez & López-Aguilar, 2020). These are variables that are positively related to dropout and explain why a high percentage of students give up their studies before completing them.

Disponível em: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000169182400547X. Acesso em: 25 fev. 2026.

Considering the reasons for dropping out, it can be stated that