Tracking the University Student Success: Statistical Quality Assessment

Higher education institutions are continually striving to make education relevant to the working environment students will encounter upon graduation. One of the tools for enhancing an institution's quality and sufficiently informing students about their outcomes and learning opportunities is a quality assessment. Quality assessment is a long process which establishes measurable student learning outcomes, then analyses and interprets them. This enables students to receive feedback on their learning and helps them to improve their performance. The authors' objective was to gather empirical data on students´ learning in order to improve the process of learning and to refine study programmes. A longitudinal study was used to observe students' performance and outcomes from entrance exams to state exams. Statistical analysis revealed that there is a correlation between the results of the admission tests and the study results, especially the connection between the results of the entrance test and the chance of successful completion of studies. No statistically significant correlation was found between the overall results of military students' studies. An interesting issue is a comparison between military and civilian students, as well as civilian students´ results. As a continuous process, assessment of students' performance was observed up until the Final State Examination.