STUDY OF THE EFFECT OF EARLY REORIENTATION IN HIGH EDUCATION SUBJECTS

The progressive implementation of EHEA (European higher education area) in Spain results in the extinction of the previous syllabus. In consequence each year several subjects are in their last year of giving lessons. Students who attend to these subjects are especially worried about their continuation in the career they chose several years ago.

The benefits of early reorientation of several of these extinguishing subjects have been studied in High Naval Engineering Technical School through an Educational Innovation Project funded by the Technical University of Madrid. The main action based on this strategy involves giving some (one or two) extra tests at the beginning of the evaluation process. That way, if some students get poor results on any of the first tests, they can improve them by obtaining a higher mark on one of these extra tests rather than dropping the course. This way, students have had the chance of taking some exams that allowed them to improve their marks or even to resit the lessons they have failed before. Moreover, the same philosophy has been applied to several subjects of the EHEA syllabus in order to study the portability of reorientation to the EHEA.

The comparison between the subjects where students have reorientation with the subjects where students only have a chance to pass has been evaluated through the following rates: success rate (pass students/students who have sat the exam), the absenteeism rate (students who have not sat the exam/enrolled students), and the achievement rate (pass students/ enrolled students).

Important benefits resulted in the implementation of early reorientation.