Working Paper 59 confirms the high quality of the information provided by Eduscopio.it indicators.
To evaluate the capability of secondary schools to prepare their students for university, Fondazione Agnelli’s Eduscopio.it focuses only on the results achieved during the first academic year after graduation. The assumption behind this method is that such results are strongly correlated to subsequent performances, and that secondary school education’s influence is strongest upon students’ initial impact at university, and later becomes weaker as they develop further experiences.
This study, by Carmen Aina and Enrico Lippo of the University of Eastern Piedmont with Massimiliano Bratti of the University of Milan, was conducted to test such hypothesis.
By following the performances of three cohorts of students, first enrolled for academic years 2009/10, 2010/11 and 2011/12, the researchers recalculated Eduscopio’s indicators for the third year at university and come to the conclusion that, although the schools’ effect persists for the three-year period, secondary schools’ performances are unvaried. There is a perfect correlation between the Eduscopio indicator calculated with data from the first year at university and the one calculated with data from the third. Similarly, the correlation between Eduscopio’s quality index and the probability that students from a certain school will graduate from university is very strong (0.94).
All things considered, data confirm one of Eduscopio’s basic assumptions and the portal’s indicators are further reaffirmed in terms of information quality.