Academic performance of students from entrance to graduation via quasi U-statistics: a study at a Brazilian research university

We present novel methodology to assess undergraduate students’ performance. The proposed methods are based on measures of diversity and on the decomposability of quasi U-statistics to define average distances between and within groups. They have been employed as an alternative to the classic analysis of variance especially when the assumption of normality is not met. The quasi U-statistics nonparametric method can handle tests for interaction and uses jackknife to get p-values for the tests. The nonparametric method also results in smaller error variances, illustrating its robustness against model misspecication.