Application of Survival Analysis Techniques to the Study of Student Delay in the Civil Engineering Major-FACET-UNT

Abstract

This paper presents the analyses carried out to determine the possible causes of the delay in the completion of undergraduate studies that is observed in the Civil Engineering Major of the Faculty of Exact Sciences and Technology (FACET) of the National University of Tucumán (UNT), Argentina. In 2019, the average time to finish the degree was 12.15 years, which is more than double the time foreseen in the study plan (5.5 years). Knowing their causes can allow us to generate improvement proposals to mitigate them. For the analysis, academic histories of 1615 civil engineering students from FACET-UNT, obtained from the SIGEA database (Administrative and Student Management System) whose period ranges from 2004 to 2019, have been used. In this work, statistical analysis techniques known as "Survival Analysis" have been utilized, which are used to analyze the expected duration of time until one or more events occur, in this case, the graduation of the career by the student. Likewise, the covariates that influence the time it takes for a student to complete their studies are analyzed, and their effect is quantified. Concerning the analysis methodology that was used, the Kaplan-Meier method gives a result that the average duration of a student's career is 12.15 years. Finally, the influence of the performance on the approval of subjects in the total duration of the career is analyzed.