电大开放教育本科学生毕业时间特点研究

On Predicting the Graduation Time of Bachelor's Degree Students in China's Open Universities

电大开放教育自1999年开始招生以来得到了迅速发展，然而其教学投入并没有随着学生的增长而成比例增长，甚至有下降趋势。造成这种反差的一个重要原因是未能开展对未来在校生数量的预测工作。通过构建电大开放教育在校生数量预测模型来预测未来5年甚至10年开放教育在校生数，将为电大系统建设规划、资金投入和师资配置决策提供切实可靠的依据。在校生数由多个变量决定，其中毕业生数是一个较为可控的变量。本研究以毕业生数预测入手，以电大开放教育本科学生为样本，采用数据查询、差异检验、相关分析、聚类分析等方法，从"学校-年级"、"专业"、"年龄-性别"等三个角度探索不同批次学生毕业率和毕业比例学期分布特点。研究结果表明，电大开放教育本科学生毕业时间有一定的规律性，其中学生毕业时间集中在第5、6、7、8等学期，某一批次学生(按"学校-年级"分组)最长毕业时间跨度为13个学期，不同学校、年级的毕业比例学期分布具有一致性；人文与社会科学类专业(英语类专业除外) 学生毕业时间跨度较短，毕业率较高；毕业率随着年龄的增长而降低，二者在一定程度上呈负相关关系；20岁以上(含20岁) 多个年龄段学生毕业比例学期分布具有一致性。这就使毕业生数的预测成为可能。

Open Education in China has been developing swiftly since 1999. However, the resource allocation including funds and staffing have not increased with the number of students. This can be attributed to the inaccurate forecast of the number of undergraduate students. A better model for forecasting the undergraduate scale of Open Education in five to ten years is needed to guide decision making on development planning, fund input decision and staffing. As we know, undergraduate scale is decided by several variables and time of their graduation is one of controllable variables. This study uses the Open Education (Bachelor Programs ) of China Open Universities as the sample, adopts data analysis and mining methods such as data querying, difference tests, correlation analysis, cluster analysis, etc. , and tries to discover students'graduation rate and the semester distributing characteristics of graduation rate from three dimensions of university-grade, program and age-gender. The research results show that there are some regular patterns in the graduation time. First, the graduation time happens in the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th semester more frequently; the max graduation time span of a group of undergraduates (grouped from the dimension of university-grade) is 13 semesters; the distributing characteristics of graduation rates in semesters with different graduation rates of the different groups of undergraduates are similar. Second, the programs of Humanities and Social Sciences (excluding English programs) are shorter in the graduation time span and higher in their graduation rates. Third, the graduation rate decreases as the students'age increases; and the relation between graduation rate and student's age is negatively correlated. The distributing characteristics of the semesters with different graduation rates of the different age groups (older than 20) are similar.