Early identification of students at risk of school success/failure in the 1st cycle of Basic Education

The educational institutions aim to define specific strategic plans and interventions that intend to promote success and prevent failure, requiring the necessary information to identify the students in need of these types of interventions. Unfortunately, throughout the years, the educational system has been resorting exclusively to the feedback that is given by the teachers, which has been proven to be inefficient since the identification of these students has been performed in a late stage of the learning process. Taking this into account, this research aims to contribute a better comprehension of the success and failure phenomena in primary schooling from a longitudinal perspective. In this project, it is intended to identify the factors that better explain school failure. Moreover, it will also be proposed an approach based on Data Mining techniques that aim to facilitate the identification and prioritization of students who are more prone to fail. Thereafter, this identification is followed by the promotion of opportunities to intentionally and prematurely act on these cases, which will promote success and prevent school failure. The final results aim to clearly identify the success and failure profiles, validated at an empirical level and at a conceptual level, and create a support system to the teachers’ and school managers’ decisions.

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Partner: Centre for Research in Higher Education Policies

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Coordinator: Professor Ana Balcão Reis

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