Abstract:

The following report presents an analysis of the results of a diagnosis test applied by the Program for (Equal?)Access to Higher Education (PACE) of the University of Talca, Chile in its 16 affiliated high and vocational schools from 3rd to 4th grade students. Its objective is to characterize the preparation of students in terms of autonomy, vocation, learning, use of ICT and emotional development to effectively pursue higher education. The test was based on the following categories: personal, institutional, school, vocational exploration, socioemotional characterization, life project, digital identity and presence in social networks and characterization of learning in times of COVID19.

The research followed a quantitative approach, with a descriptive level and a cross-sectional design. The diagnosis test is described as an online instrument, validated through discursive agreements between the PACE-UTALCA program and the management of the involved schools. The population consisted of 2,786 subjects, considering an intentional sample of 43.04% (students present on the day of application of the diagnostic test). The application way consisted of a virtual workshop entitled: “Induction and diagnosis”, the objectives of which are to:
(a) describe the enrollment of the 16 educational schools;
(b) describe the level of participation of the 16 educational schools;
(c) characterize the academic performance of the students, and
(d) identify the initial exploration of the students regarding the area, career, university of preference and life project.

Among the main findings, two of them are outstanding:
(a) regarding the academic performance, it is highlighted that on average 50.1% of the students are close to meeting the requirement demanded by the PACE program referred to being in the 15% of best school performance to obtain a place in any of the 29 institutions of higher education that support the Program and
(b) in the understanding of the life project and vocational exploration it was determined that only 78, 4% of the students intend to be trained in a specific academic area (professional or technical career), while the remaining 21.6% showed interest in training in non-academic areas such as labor field, police forces, law enforcement, among others.

It was concluded that according to the academic preferences of the students, 17 areas of knowledge of their interest were categorized, highlighting four areas with the highest preferential concentration: Health Sciences with 27.5%; Engineering Sciences with 10.1%; Education with 7.4% and Social Sciences with 7%. Regarding the other academic areas of knowledge (Arts and Humanities, Basic Sciences, Agricultural Sciences, Computer Sciences, Legal Sciences, among others), there was evidence of student preferences at levels ranging from (0.2-5.7) %, making them the least preferred areas.

Keywords:

Diagnosis, students, secondary-education, higher-education, support-program.