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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Educ.
Sec. Higher Education
Volume 9 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2024.1416183
This article is part of the Research Topic Educational Transformation: 21st century skills and challenges for higher education View all 17 articles

Cognitive motivational variables and dropout intention as precursors of university dropout

Provisionally accepted
Yaranay López-Angulo Yaranay López-Angulo 1*Rubia Cobo-Rendón Rubia Cobo-Rendón 2Fabiola Sáez-Delgado Fabiola Sáez-Delgado 3Javier Mella-Norambuena Javier Mella-Norambuena 4María Victoria Pérez Villalobos María Victoria Pérez Villalobos 1Alejandro Díaz Mujica Alejandro Díaz Mujica 1
  • 1 Departamento de Psicología, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de Concepción, Concepción, VIII Biobío Region, Chile
  • 2 Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de Desarrollo, Santiago, Chile
  • 3 Centro de Investigación en Educación y Desarrollo (CIEDE-UCSC) y Departamento Fundamentos de la Pedagogía, Facultad de Educación, Universidad Católica de la Santísima Concepción, Concepción, Chile, Chile, Chile
  • 4 Departamento de Ciencias, Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, Concepción, VIII Biobío Region, Chile

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Introduction: the intention to dropout and dropout is a problem still unresolved in higher education institutions. Objective: to estimate the differences in the levels of engagement, motivation and academic satisfaction according to (a) intention to dropout and (b) students who remained with those who dropped out. Method: non-experimental designs were used. Two studies are reported, study 1 involved 3256 students and study 2 involved 2110 students. The Utrecht Work Engagement Scale Student Test, the Academic Self-Regulation Scale and the Academic Satisfaction Scale were used. The intention to dropout was measured with 3 items and the final dropout data was taken from the official register of students who dropped out of university. Results: There are significant differences in the levels of engagement, autonomous motivation and satisfaction between the students who remained and those who dropped out of the university. Discussion: Students who dropped out in the 3rd semester presented lower levels of academic engagement, motivation and academic satisfaction than those who remained. The intention to dropout and lower levels of these cognitive-motivational variables may contribute to the identification of students at high risk of dropping out. These results contribute to unveiling key variables for the educational transformation of Higher Education in the 21st century.

    Keywords: Academic engagement, Motivation, Academic satisfaction, intention to dropout, dropout, university quitting, higher education

    Received: 11 Apr 2024; Accepted: 30 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 López-Angulo, Cobo-Rendón, Sáez-Delgado, Mella-Norambuena, Pérez Villalobos and Díaz Mujica. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Yaranay López-Angulo, Departamento de Psicología, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de Concepción, Concepción, VIII Biobío Region, Chile

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.