Abstract

Introduction. At present, among the aspects that are of the greatest interest in the educational field are the causes that lead students to drop out of their university studies. The common aim is to try to develop preventive measures and stop this process. However, despite the existing work on this, there are few national studies that have tried to determine the variables that present the most weight for students to develop the idea of drop-out and the decision-making processes of its later consolidation. In order to shed more light on this, we have studied the case of students in universities in north Spain in depth. Method. For this, an ex-post-facto research of descriptive and inferential study was developed. The sample was formed by 1,055 students belonging to different areas of knowledge, who began their careers in the 2010/2011 academic year at the university. For the collection of data, an ad hoc questionnaire with 36 items was developed. Results. The analysis of the cohort of new income show that a high percentage of students (31.5%) has considered dropping out of their university career, with over half of these consolidating their idea (17.0%). The results of this study also respond to the main objective. Thus, the most relevant variables in the approach and consolidation of abandonment, respectively, and in order of importance, are: the student's early performance, their non-academic working hours (domestic and/or paid), the relationship with the professors, the expectations generated on the content, use of study techniques and guidance received. Discussion. These results are consistent with those obtained in previous studies and demonstrate the need for global action on the part of the educational institutions that should already start in Secondary Education.