DEPENDENCE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN STUDENT CHARACTERISTICS AND DROP-OUT IN A DISTANCE EDUCATION COURSE IN ECONOMICS

The study presented in this work aims to foster strategic actions to avoid drop-outs, and to improve students adherence to a undergraduate course offered at a distance in the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC). The identification of a profile for the drop-outs, accomplished through the analysis of the dependence relationship between strata of students by date of access, aimed to reveal possible management strategies that could be employed by the program coordination to avoid the drop-out of new students. The data was collected using the institutional management system called CAGR, where it was possible to access reports since the first student's access (matriculation) in 2007-2, until August 28 2014. In terms of results, possibilities were found to reject the hypothesis of independence between the profile data and drop-out rates in the case of the strata race/color, local of origin and form of entry and to accept such a hypothesis in the case of gender strata, age at entry and marital status.