FOLLOW UP STUDY OF STUDENT TRAJECTORIES IN A MEXICAN UNIVERSITY LANGUAGE TEACHING PROGRAM: A CASE STUDY / ESTUDIO DE SEGUIMIENTO DE TRAYECTORIAS ESCOLARES DE LA LICENCIATURA EN LA ENSE？ANZA DEL INGLES EN UNA UNIVERSIDAD MEXICANA: UN ESTUDIO CASO

The trajectory of higher education in Mexico in recent years has been marked by an extraordinary growth in enrollment (Tuirán, 2012); although statistics show that half of university freshmen dropout. In the light of these figures, 8 State Universities, decided to conduct a school trajectories study. “School trajectories is understood as the set of factors and data that affect and make us aware of the school behavior of the students during their stay in the university” (Cuevas, 2001:145; in Fernández, Pe？a and Vera, 2006). The aim of the study was to get a deeper understanding of our students for increasing students′ retention rates; the information gathered would also allow and support efficient decision-making policies for improving the quality of the educational program. A questionnaire was administered to 449 students (Paredes and Chong, 20l6). As a result of the study, we considered the need to conduct a follow-up study. The purpose of the follow-up study is to find out if and how students’ perceptions from the cohort 2013 had changed, the problem/s, if any, they experienced so that preventive efforts and actions could be implemented. Semi-structured interviews were used. Among the major findings: the highest dropout rate (63%) occurred at the end of the first and second semesters. Cohort 2013 main causes for not continuing with their studies were: the need to earn money, poor social and interpersonal skills, academic workloads, and the program did not cover students′ expectations. Regarding students′ perceptions about the educational program, course-content, the academic staff, internal and external factors, slightly changed. However, interpersonal problems did have an impact on this research population. The data also provided useful programmatic information for improving prospective language teachers’ qualifications. Further studies have to be conducted to include the variables that were not addressed e.g. students′ previous scholar background