Cycle: XXXIX

PhD student: Claudia Pes

Role: R1 - First Stage Researcher

Supervisor: Prof. Giuliano Vivanet, Dr. Marta Pellegrini

She is a psychologist with an extensive professional experience. She has worked in over 50 schools in projects targeting the reduction of school dropout rates and the enhancement of well-being within educational institutions. Additionally, she has served as a trainer at the Regional Education Office (USR Sardegna). She possesses practical classroom experience. This includes both teaching Philosophy and Human Sciences as a Secondary School Teacher and also serving as a tutor for the Educational Technology Laboratory at the Primary Education Sciences program (University of Cagliari). Her research interests revolve around student motivation, school climate, and the integration of new technologies in education. Her ongoing Ph.D. project involves a review of national and international studies on interventions addressing school dropout with a specific focus on the effects on student psychological factors (e.g., motivation). It also includes the investigation of policies and practices addressing school dropout, particularly at national and regional level and a data collection from the local stakeholders, in order to design a school dropout prevention program.

The research project has as its main theme school dropout and has as its first objective to study what is known about the effectiveness of interventions for the prevention of school dropout through a synthesis of the scientific literature on the subject. The phenomenon is then analyzed in Italy with a particular focus on the Sardinia Region and on the initiatives already activated in the territory; in parallel, the perception of the phenomenon by the actors involved (school principals, teachers, students) is investigated. From the integration of the synthesis of scientific evidence with the data that emerge from the analysis of the context, it is intended to proceed to develop and evaluate a project for the prevention of school dropout.