1,721,026 research outputs found
Internal effectiveness of educational offer and students’ satisfaction: a SEM approach
No full textThe aim of this paper is to explain the relationship between university students’ satisfaction with their study experience career and the perception of a poor effectiveness of the organizational aspects of the teaching activities. This relationship can be modelled with a structural equation approach. The analysis is performed using a data set collected by a CATI survey on students enrolled at the University of Pisa in the academic year 2010-‘11
Italian PhD programme system: Evaluating external effectiveness by structural equation models
No full textThe analysis of the contribution of the PhD title to the PhDs employment
condition is an important tool for evaluating the quality and the effectiveness of PhD
programmes. For this reason, monitoring PhDs careers becomes fundamental for
explaining the mismatch between third level education and labour market2. The aim of
this paper is to assess the external effectiveness of PhD programmes using a Structural
Equation Model. The analysis is performed with data from a survey on "Current
situation and employment prospects of PhDs”. The proposed measure of "external
effectiveness" is a latent variable stemming from satisfaction with the employment
status of PhDs who achieved the title in 2008
Effectiveness of non-selective evaluation test scores for predicting first-year performance in university career: a zero-inflated beta regression approach
No full textThe background preparation of students entering the university system is checked through evaluation tests in Italy. The test is non-selective in most degree programmes, as it does not preclude the possibility of enrolling in the student’s chosen program. However, the initial preparation and attitude of the students seem to be key issues in explaining their performance and predicting the performance outcome of their first-year in university. The evaluation test results are used to predict the students’ performance at the end of the first year by a zero inflated beta regression model. The analysis was conducted on the evaluation test carried out in September 2013 with students at the Department of Economics and Management, University of Pisa
Students’ satisfaction and teaching efficiency of university offer
Full text linkThis study analyses the factors affecting students’ satisfaction with university experience, focusing on the aspects characterising the teaching efficiency of educational offer. For this purpose, organisation of teaching activities, available information, teaching materials, and other facilities offered to students to make their learning experience more successful, are considered as indicators of teaching efficiency. Our interest in this topic is justified by the importance that students’ satisfaction assumes, not only as indicator of the quality of educational services but also for its relationship with overall life satisfaction and subjective well-being. A structural equation model with latent variables is estimated by using survey and administrative data of the University of Pisa. Main findings seem to show that teaching efficiency has a positive effect on satisfaction and suggest that whenever it is inadequate, or at least, considered as such, students are less satisfied for their university experience. The effects of other factors on students’ satisfaction such as studies organisation, social capital and internship experience are also discussed
A finite mixture model approach on the first year university drop-out probability
No full textUniversity drop-out is one of the most important problems occurring in degree courses. The aim of this study is to analyze the first year drop-out at the University of Pisa. The analysis is focused on identifying the covariates affecting the probability to drop-out and on detecting the possible existence of unobserved subgroups of students having different drop-out rates. A dataset from the administrative data was collected for the cohort of freshmen enrolled to the first cycle degree courses in the academic years 2009 and 2010. The characteristics that affect the subgroups membership should represent an useful information for carrying out academic policy changes that could reduce the drop-out rate
Statistical evaluation systems at 360°: techniques, technologies and new frontiers
No full textThis Special Issue has drawn inspiration from the Conference “Innovation and Society 2019—Statistical evaluation systems at 360°: techniques, technologies and new frontiers” (IES2019), which represents the 9th Scientific Meeting of the Statistics for the Evaluation and Quality of Services Group of the Italian Statistical Society—(SVQS), organized on 4 and 5 July 2019 at the “Università Europea di Roma” (Italy). This Conference was held with the aim of strengthening statistical research on evaluation topics, with a particular focus on economic and social issues, and highlighting how statistical thinking, design and analysis play a crucial role in social life, as well as how useful they are to society as a whole. To make the IES2019 conference as effective and constructive as possible, participation was open not only to scholars from different disciplines, but also to experts and decision-makers, who dealt with the relationship among evaluation, innovation and social issues.
The accomplishment of this issue aims at covering an extensive array of topics on evaluation systems of the public sector through statistical methods and models. Our goal was to provide a comprehensive technical, theoretical and practical description of a variety of statistical methodologies on evaluation issue.
The 11 articles of this Special Issue, selected after double-blind peer reviews, concern scientific studies applied in several fields, using many different statistical approaches and sharing the common aim stated by the Conference IES2019. From an empirical point of view, the articles deal with topics such as Education (Camminatiello et al., Cavicchia and Sarnacchiaro); Transport (D’Ambra et al., Iannario and Monti), Policy evaluation (De Iaco and Maggio, Pagani and Panarello), Economy and finance (Biffingandi and Zeli, Giacalone) and Social media (Mariani and Marletta). As regards methodological approaches, the statistical methods and models used are Regression models (Davino et al., De Iaco and Maggio, Iannario and Monti, Pagani and Panarello), Data analysis models (Camminatiello et al., Cavicchia and Sarnacchiaro, D’Ambra et al.), Techniques for building panels from archives, Missing data disambiguation, Assessing ranking dissimilarity and inter-group heterogeneity, Improving forecasting accuracy, Simulated data (Biffignandi and Zeli, Davino et al., Giacalone, Mariani and Marletta, Vanacore and Pellegrino). The heterogeneity of application and statistical approaches underline the broad spectrum of data analyses and the richness of the methodologies
Do Quality of Services and Institutional Image Impact Students’ Satisfaction and Loyalty in Higher Education?
Full text linkThe objective of this study is to investigate whether the quality of educational services and the university’s institutional image influence students’ overall satisfaction with their university experience as well as the possible consequences of these relationships on students’ loyalty. In particular, in today’s increasingly competitive higher education environment, such concepts have become of strategic concern in both public and private universities. To explain the complex system of relationships among these constructs, several hypotheses were formulated and tested through a structural equation model. Data were collected through a web questionnaire handed out to 14,870 students enrolled at the University of Pisa. The results provide valuable insight and show that teaching and lectures and teaching and course organization are the main determinants of students’ satisfaction and students’ loyalty among the more academic components of the educational service. Furthermore, the crucial role played by university image is worth noting, both for its direct and indirect effects on students’ satisfaction as well as on students’ loyalty and on teaching and lectures
Time allocation and wellbeing in later life: the case of Italy
Full text linkAgeing processes are fundamentally linked to the concept of ‘dealing with time’. In old age time use patterns change radically and how these changes are linked with wellbeing is still mostly unexplored. By using the most recent Italian Time Use Survey (2014-15) we get an insight in the association between time allocation in old people’s daily routines and wellbeing in later life, in Italy. We use Sequence Analysis techniques to identify some “time use profiles” in old ages. Multinomial regressions are then used to understand which factors influence the risk to be in one of the profiles identified. Moreover, we analyse how those profiles are linked with different levels of subjective wellbeing, thus identifying high-risk groups and providing a new perspective on old people needs
The role played by migration and fertility on Italy’s aging trends: a provincial-level analysis
No full textThe main purpose of this paper is to quantify and compare the contributions made both by fertility and migration in the rapid aging process taking place in Italy at the provincial level. The relative variations of different indicators (concerning migration, fertility, mortality and age structure of the population) between 2011 and 2019 are analyzed in two differentiated empirical steps. In the first, through principal components factors analysis, both the relationships among variables under examination and the dynamics of their evolution at the provincial level are defined. In the second step, estimating a regression model, the roles of the determinants linked to fertility and migration on the evolution of the aging process are identified and quantified. Our results indicate the levels of fertility of Italian women as the most important decelerator of population aging, within a highly heterogeneous context at the provincial level
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