Benefits of the Erasmus mobility experience: a discrete latent variable analysis

Internationalization of higher education has become a priority in the Eu- ropean education policy. For this reason, research in this area is expanding with the aim of understanding motivations and potential benefits of international mobility. In such a context, an online survey addressed to about 1,600 students with Erasmus mobility experiences was conducted by the University of Bergamo (IT). Two latent traits, that is, the impact of the Erasmus experience on the student’s abilities and the student’s satisfaction for this experience, are analyzed through a two-dimensional latent class Item Response Theory model under a concomitant variable approach. The twofold issue concerning the choice of the optimal number of latent classes as well as the selection of significant covariates is specially addressed.