English-medium instruction groups on Informatics Engineering.: Results and comparison to conventional groups

Since the School of Informatics at the Universitat Politècnica de València launched on 2010 the Bachelor's Degree in Informatics Engineering, a special teaching group (called ARA that stands for High Academic Performance) was set up, in order to attract high performing students. This group was characterized by high scores on previous years, by using English as the medium of instruction, and a lower number of students. In return, the students are preferred when asking for a mobility grant and they have a merit mention on their degrees. The number of enrolled students, their average admission mark, dropout, academic performance and success rates were computed throughout the last five academic years. These results were compared with conventional groups and with a control group on two first-year subjects. Even though teaching methodology, teachers and assessment are independent on both subjects, their performance evolves in a parallel way. Then, the only reasons we found to explain the different academic performance are those coming from the lower number of students on ARA groups, enabling a higher student-teacher interaction. We think that the greater quantity of material available in English could also contribute to their best results. We also think that belonging to this group, the students are encouraged due to the major attention of teacher, and the high performing classmates, some of them coming from foreign universities. Our conclusion is that ARA groups help to increase the academic performance of students and they should be promoted on all the degrees.