Abstract

RODRIGUEZ ALBOR, Gustavo; ARIZA DAU, Marco  and  RAMOS RUIZ, José Luis. Institutional quality and academic performance: The case of Colombia's Caribbean universities. Perfiles educativos [online]. 2014, vol.36, n.143, pp.10-29. ISSN 0185-2698.

This article aims to provide empirical evidence on the determinants of the academic performance of university students in Colombia's Caribbean region, particularly with regard to the results obtained in the areas of Administration, Accounting, Economics, Law, Engineering and Medicine, as well as in the Bachelor's Degree test on Saber Pro - ProLearn 2009 -, which was presented by 22,525 students from 41 universities in Colombia's Caribbean-region states (Atlántico, Bolívar, César, Magdalena, Córdoba, La Guajira and Sucre) through a multilevel modeling framework. Several findings are of particular interest with a view to providing an explanation on academic performance, such as: the "university effect," determined by individual institutional quality, the weak explanatory power regarding the socioeconomic status of the students, and gender gaps found in the different areas of study covered.

Keywords : Academic performance; Multilevel model; Human capital; Performance gap; Quality of higher education; Education policy.

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