Academic engagement an response to dropout and university lag

Content

• Higher education and prosperity
• The problem: dropout and university lag
• Academic engagement, an answer ..
• Strategies that promote academic engagement
  • 1. Practice mindfulness
  • 2. Student teaching relationship
  • Bibliography

Higher education and prosperity

The population's access to higher education is recognized by WHO (World Health Organization) in the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) 2015 - 2030, in its number 4 goal, as One of the nations development indicators (1). This is an instrument with a proven usefulness to close the socioeconomic gap that leads to the marginality and exclusion of communities, in addition to being a human right, It is an important development engine and one of the most effective instruments to reduce poverty, allowing to facilitate access to social security and achieve gender equality, peace and stability, since it leads to promoting innovation, strengthening institutions and promoting social cohesion (2). Despite the advantages of education, dropout rates are increasingly high, a situation that constitutes a problem of interest for both higher education institutions and for educational authorities and governments (3).

The problem: dropout and university lag

The Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation (OECD) comments that "Academic dropout is a problem of both efficiency and equity" (p. 13), In the analysis of the difficulties presented by university students to maintain and culminate their educational goals, diversity of personal, economic, sociocultural and institutional (3) factors that affect academic performance, and that are found that are found, related to the deterioration of the intrapersonal, interpersonal, academic - university, social and cultural environment (2).

When observing the statistics, worldwide identifies that EE.UU., It is one of the countries with the greatest academic separation, which reaches 52%, in Latin America this rate ranges from 40%to 75%, UNESCO mentions that Worldwide 1 out of 10 young people between 25 and 29 years completed their training in higher education (4), due to various heterogeneous factors, which can be of individual, academic, institutional or socioeconomic order (5).

If we focus promptly on the mental health relationship and permanence in the educational environment, It has been identified from different edges, the relationship between the presence of alterations in mental health and the risk of academic dropout (6), being the academic distress one of the factors that deteriorate the mental health of the students (7), manifesting itself in the journey of their academic life (3).

Academic engagement, an answer ..

At this point, academic engagement arises as a vision of positive psychology which “cares about the proper functioning and strengths of the individual in the face of stress events and that tries, in this way, to overcome the approach to the deficit and deficit The pathology ”(8), there are several models, but the most accepted is the three -dimensional of Salanova and Schaufeli created in 2003 and defined as "A positive mental state, satisfactory, related to work, which is characterized by vigor, dedication and absorption" (9), in the words of Torres et al. (10), the construct is related to the "physical and psychic energy that invests individually in students to participate in academic and extra -academic activities ”.

To be much clearer in the definition of this construct we must break down the 3 variables that build it vigor, absorption and dedication:

He Vigor it is characterized by high energy levels and mental resistance while the activity is carried out, the desire to invest effort in the activity that is being carried out, even when difficulties appear in it; the Dedication: That denotes High involvement, together with the manifestation of a feeling of significance, enthusiasm, inspiration, pride and challenge; and the Absorption: what happens when is totally concentrated, While it is experienced that the time "flying" and there are difficulties to disconnect from what is being done due to the strong doses of enjoyed enjoyment and concentration (11).

Strategies that promote academic engagement

Next, we will mention the 2 most important interventions that have shown to improve academic engagement: Mindfulness - Interventions in Positive Psychology and the Student Teaching Relationship

1. Practice mindfulness

For authors such as Muñoz (12), Moeller et al. (13) and Zamani et al. (14), in training in Mindfulness - Interventions in Positive Psychology, They are one of the best strategies to mitigate the problems in the mental health of the students and reduce academic dropout, mentioning promptly that the training process in this technique, under programs designed and pre -established, considerably decreases stress levels, and its implications in the university context, Since it provides tools to students that allow them to have better “study habits, time management, hobbies identification, management of coping emotions and strategies”, this leads to improve the mental health of the student community, these interventions are They must perform in periods greater than 8 weeks to have a satisfactory result.

Seligman and his positive team Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania, in the United States, has demonstrated in its multiple works the positive impact of this type of interventions on the prevention of problems and disorders in mental health, allowing the improvement in the living conditions of young people and therefore of the context of life and mental health, All this "through training coping strategies, relaxation, decision -making, thinking or assertive control", which allows them to "face stressors and problems of daily life" (15) (15)

2. Student teaching relationship

As for the teaching/student relationship, Briody et al. (16) mentions that For students it is relevant that their teachers interact more frequently with them, mentioning that there should be spaces where they can talk with them, in this way, to be able to look for them as mentors beyond class work, including network work, advice and research opportunities or simply be in friendly terms, highlighting the usefulness of personal relationships , and highlighting the role of teachers as a potential source to help. It should be noted that the interaction could be linked to the context of cultural models and social distance, mediated by a cultural orientation based on strong hierarchies, which lead to the avoidance of the teacher, revealed by significant intimidation (16).

On the other hand, Portalanza (17) mentions that to the Improve civility, the academic environment is improved and therefore engagement, This is achieved when civility, is initiated by teachers and students, or by a combination of both, which present opportunities for the development of engagement, in their emotional, behavioral and cognitive components, allowing to intervene as Student's Mental Health Protective Factor, Highlighting the role of the teacher in the process of training and adaptation to the university environment, it is important to mention the considerations of Tang (18), which are shared by all the Briody et al. (16), Senior et al. (19), Belito (20), Portaleza (17), Marín (21), and Nurtrilla et al. (22),

Taking these conditions into account, Academic engagement should be considered as a multidimensional construct, which allows us to understand emotional, cognitive and behavioral connections Within the academic environment and the active behavior of the student, without forgetting the role of the context of the commitment which is an alterable state of the being that is very influenced by the ability of what surrounds it: society, institution, family, classmates, etc. ... (23), which needs to be covered and generate new interventions that allow to glimpse all the ability of hooking and adhering to students and thus reduce university dropout.

Bibliography

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