Hacia un Seguimiento Proactivo de la Repitencia Estudiantil: Un Enfoque desde la Esperanza Matemática

Much importance has been given at the institutional level in Ecuadorian universities to the academic follow-up of students with a view to minimizing dropout and repetition rates. Unfortunately, this process is carried out with a markedly reactive character, since priority is given to monitoring students who have already failed subjects. In this context, this study aims to provide a statistical basis for the process, which serves as a starting point in the definition of strategies to improve the level of repetition of students in a proactive manner, prioritizing institutional management efforts in those subjects with a higher probability of repetition. The starting point is a probabilistic analysis based on the empirical approach to probability and Bayes' Theorem. Then, considering the number of students who fail as a binomial random variable, the mathematical expectation of the number of students who could fail each of the subjects offered in the semester is determined. The procedure was successfully applied in the case study of the Industrial Engineering course at the Salesian Polytechnic University during the 2014-2015 semester.