Effect of admission quotas and socioeconomic factors on students academic performance in an integrated technical course: a case study

 

Abstract

The objective of this study, of a quantitative nature, was to identify whether socioeconomic factors and whether students were beneficiaries of affirmative action quotas impacted the academic performance of students in the Integrated Technical Course in Informatics offered by the Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Minas Gerais, Campus Formiga (IFMG -Campus Formiga) in 2017. The Academic Performance Coefficient (APC) was used as an indicator of students’ performance. In addition to evaluating the impact on the performance of quota students, the influence of factors such as the students school background, whether they were graduates of public or private schools, race, gender, family income, and year of entry were assessed, with regression analysis used to quantify possible relationships. Among the results, it was noted that, in the studied year, most students came from public schools, were male, self-identified as white, followed by mixed race, and from low-income families. There was evidence that being a quota student or not, and family income, were not significant predictors of the academic performance coefficient. Furthermore, among the results, there was evidence that black students and female students had, on average, lower performance than white and mixed-race male students.