Contributions of the biographical-narrative approach to the study of student trajectories

Abstract

Studies of the trajectories of higher education students are relatively old, although they appear associated with other constructs, somewhat older, such as, academic performance, graduation rate, dropout, shelling, terminal efficiency, etc. Student trajectories are processual, relational and contextualized trajectories, and are constructed at a singular, social, historical and political level. The risk of recording and measuring rates and indicators, instead of a qualitative approach to the lives of students, which affect their academic careers, can cause the true subjects of university education to be hidden behind the numbers.