Factores determinantes del bajo rendimiento escolar desde el punto de vista de los implicados

Abstract

Studies about low academic performance assign multidimensional reasons to the associated causes, which are related to macro-micro determinants factors (Risso, Peralbo y Barca, 2010), highlighting the connection between them (personal, family, academic and social) (Hernández y Santana 2010; Barca, Peralbo, Porto, Barca y Santorum, 2013). However, there is no hierarchy in identifying what relevance adopts each factor, nor what variables exert a greater influence (Reynolds y Teddlie, 2000) (Cfr. Marchesi y Hernández, 2003), for this reason we considerate necessary to identify and describe these aspects in a specific context. For it we developed a Delphi research composed by three rounds of questionnaires, to identify the causes attributed by who are involved with the low academic performance and to analyze the degree of influence of each cause. In this research participated 40 participants related to the educational community: educational administration, researchers, teachers, families and students. The most relevant results show a wide variety of causes connected to each other: a) historical-social (socioeconomic and cultural level, availability of resources and funding, social expectations for education, educational policy, poverty and social exclusion, labor market demands), (b) teachers (teaching competence, professional interest, involvement and professional engagement, coordination of teaching teams, evaluation of teaching practice, attention to diversity), (c) student (motivation towards studies, culture of effort, continue low academic performance, study habits), (d) institution (schools bureaucracy, level of autonomy, institutional impulse, assessment and recognition of the efforts undertaken) and (e) family (family involvement, home learning environment, sociocultural and economic level). Listening to involved voices approached us to the current educational reality, interpreted from different perspectives.