The effect of grading policies on Italian Universities’ attractiveness: A Conditional Multinomial Logit approach

Through the decades, the Higher Education System globally experimented a huge increase in the average marks that each student receives. Among several hypothesis, in this article the idea that grading is one of the tool that every department can use in order to attract a larger amount of students will be stressed. Regarding the Italian case, the speed in obtaining a degree is among the criteria considered by the Ministry of Education in order to evaluate universities, financing them proportionally. As a shortcoming, this can boost an artificial increase in marks. So, the number of students becomes important for those universities with the worst ranking positions, in order to finance themselves through fees. On the other side, it is reasonable to expect that a student emigrates toward places which offer higher chances of receiving a job. In other words, mobility might be driven by the search for better working conditions, and not by the 'ease' of the faculty. Testing this hypothesis, a Multinomial Conditional Logit Model will be implemented in order to measure the probability of choosing a certain destination depending on the harshness and reputation of a University and on the rates of unemployment at a regional level

Measures for Ph.D. Evaluation: the Recruitment Process

Recently the quality of Higher Education (HE) system and its evaluation have been key issues of the political and scientific debate on education policies all over Europe. In the wide landscape that involves the entire HE system we draw attention on the third level of its organization, i.e. the Ph.D. In particular, this paper discusses the necessity of monitoring the recruitment process of Ph.D. system because it represents a fundamental aspect of the Ph.D. system as a whole. We introduce a set of concepts related to the recruitment process and then we make them computable with synthetic indicators. The study provides an empirical analysis based on doctoral schools of four academic years at the University of Siena. Proposed indicators are finally used for detecting weakness and strength of each Ph.D. school.Ph.D. schools, Ph.D.s. recruitment, diversity, external attractiveness, polarization

Exploring the determinants and trends of STEM students' internal mobility. Some evidence from Italy

In recent years, there has been a widespread consensus that science, tech- nology, engineering and math (STEM) education is crucial for the long-term productivity and growth of a country. In this light, the present paper aims to explore the phenomenon of the mobility of Italian STEM students, namely, the ows of graduated students from the Southern regions who enrol in the universities in the Northern/Central area and choose a STEM degree course. We exploit microdata from the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR) on 8 cohorts (from a.y. 2008/2009 to a.y. 2015/16) of enrolled students in STEM elds who obtained high school diplomas in Southern Italy. The main results of our analysis show that the ow of STEM movers increases from year to year. This ow particularly aects the top- performing students and, therefore, is a threat to the socio-economic growth prospects of the Southern regions whose gap with respect to the Central and Northern regions is expected to grow year by year

Measuring the impact of financial crisis on quality of life in Europe

Improving and monitoring Quality of Life is becoming one of the most important goals of European Union policies. However, its measurement is complex and multi-faceted, as an individual's current and future state of wellbeing depends upon a great number of variables. Moreover, there is no doubt that crisis impacted differentially in European countries. Against this background, the aim of this article is to provide a better understanding of the changes in quality of life in European countries and the role of receiving contexts in influencing these outcomes. In order to achieve it, the paper proposes a multidimensional and fuzzy approach to measure Quality of Life and investigate the evolution of different dimensions of quality life over time by use a propensity score method for isolating the effect of crisis from the net change

Linking University Harshness and Students’ Choices: Sociodemographic Differences based on Italian Universities’ Characteristics

Through the decades, the Higher Education System globally experimented a huge increase in the average marks that each student receives. Among several hypothesis, in this article the idea that grading is one of the tool that every department can use in order to attract a larger amount of students will be stressed. Regarding the Italian case, the speed in obtaining a degree is among the criteria considered by the Ministry of Education in order to evaluate universities, financing them proportionally. As a shortcoming, this can boost an artificial increase in marks. So, the number of students becomes important for those universities with the worst ranking positions, in order to finance themselves through fees. On the other side, it is reasonable to expect that a student emigrates toward places which offer higher chances of receiving a job. In other words, mobility might be driven by the search for better working conditions, and not by the ’ease’ of the faculty. Testing this hypothesis, a Multinomial Conditional Logit Model will be implemented in order to measure the probability of choosing a certain destination depending on the harshness and reputation of a University and on the rates of unemployment at a regional level

The effect of grading policies on Italian Universities’ attractiveness: A Conditional Multinomial Logit approach

Through the decades, the Higher Education System globally experimented a huge increase in the average marks that each student receives. Among several hypotheses, in this article the idea that grading is one of the tool that every department can use in order to attract a larger amount of students will be stressed. Regarding the Italian case, the speed in obtaining a degree is among the criteria considered by the Ministry of Education in order to evaluate universities, nancing them proportionally. As a shortcoming, this can boost an arti cial increase in marks. So, the number of students becomes important for those universities with the worst ranking positions, in order to nance themselves through fees. On the other side, it is reasonable to expect that a student emigrates toward places which oer higher chances of receiving a job. In other words, mobility might be driven by the search for better working conditions, and not by the 'ease' of the faculty. Testing this hypothesis, a Multinomial Conditional Logit Model will be implemented in order to measure the probability of choosing a certain destination depending on the harshness and reputation of a University and on the rates of unemployment at a regional level

Assonanze e dissonanze nel passaggio alla valutazione on-line della didattica

Le norme relative alla raccolta delle informazioni sui giudizi espressi dagli studenti sono state recentemente modificate secondo le linee guida previste dall’ANVUR.. Tra le molte novità introdotte, risultano particolarmente rilevanti le modifiche apportate in merito a: i) obbligatorietà della valutazione da parte degli studenti; ii) estensione della rilevazione ai non frequentanti; iii) avvio della modalità di rilevazione on-line. Come si può facilmente comprendere, si tratta di aspetti certamente rilevanti che possono comportare significative modifiche non solo in termini delimitazione dell’universo osservato, ma anche nel modo stesso di esprimere il proprio giudizio . Obiettivo di questo lavoro è pertanto quello di analizzare i possibili effetti di tali cambiamenti, limitatamente al giudizio espresso dai frequentanti, confrontando l’andamento delle valutazioni del 2012/13, condotte con la tradizionale rilevazione cartacea in classe, con quelle del 2013/14 realizzate invece con procedura on-line