Staying in the first year of university: student voices

Abstract

This article presents qualitative findings from the research project “Permanence and Disaffiliation in the First Year at the University: Instrumental Development and Integration of Predictive Models”, funded by the 2021 call for Research Projects to Improve the Quality of University Teaching, organized by the Sectoral Commission on Teaching and the Sectoral Commission on Scientific Research of the University of the Republic, Uruguay. The qualitative approach aimed to understand, from the student perspective, the reasons and meanings attributed to permanence during the first year of university. The participants were 49 students from the 2022 entry generation, belonging to six faculties that represent the academic areas of this University: the faculties of Psychology, Nursing (health sciences area), Social Sciences, Economic Sciences and Administration (social and artistic areas), and Sciences and Engineering (technology and natural and habitat sciences area). The techniques used were focus groups and semi-structured interviews. A mixed categorical content analysis was conducted. From a deductive approach, an ecological model based on four levels (subject, institution, educational system, and macrosocial context) was used. Student voices highlight motivational aspects, relationships with peers, and relationships with teachers in the classroom. From an inductive approach, the category of interstice emerges as a construct that reveals the student experience in the first year of university in ongoing dialogue with their previous experiences in secondary education. The findings challenge the notion of theoretical and real trajectories, as well as the conceptualization of university permanence.