Abstract:

Higher Education Institutions are facing difficulties in increasing graduation rates of their students. Thus, for a quality management approach at Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), it is a challenge to increase retention rates in all study programs. There are established indicators of student dropout which help HEIs face this challenge and begin changes for improving graduation rate. For example, a demanding curriculum is a widely accepted determining factor of the dropout rate in a study program. However, using the level of difficulty as a sole indicator of dropout is not very reliable. It must be put into context with other indicators such as educational background of students or student’s motivation. Thus, student dropout is a consequence of a complex interaction of various indicators and the dropout rate differs between HEIs as well as between the individual study programs offered within an institution.
By using the example of the undergraduate program of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Technische Universität München (TUM) in Munich, this paper will describe a mixed methods approach for analysing the dropout rate at a HEI. This design consists of one qualitative section, comprising face-to-face interviews with the students, and two quantitative sections. These quantitative sections will analyse statistical data collected from student registration offices as well as from a quantitative online survey which is conducted at three distinct intervals of time and is aimed to reach all students in a study program. Besides describing the methods, the key results and the follow-up process within the quality management approach are shown. For example, the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering offers InPhase-EI, a six-dimensional extracurricular program for freshmen. The paper describes the advantages and disadvantages of this kind of extracurricular program and shows how to use these results within the quality management approach.

Keywords:

Graduation rate, dropout rate, quality management approach, follow-up process, study program.