Pre-college Attributes, Academic Choices, Social Factors, and Intervention Programs Predict Student Retention at Marietta College

Studying student retention has been an important strategy for determining the most efficient administration of student enrolment in colleges and universities for almost half a century (Spady, 1970; Bean and Metzner, 1985). While many studies have examined the impact that freshman characteristics, such as GPA and test scores, have on retention, the current study considered a large range of variables that were separated into four categories: pre-college attributes, social support, academic choices, and intervention programs. Both Fall to Spring (F-S) and Fall to Fall (F-F) analysis showed the predictive strength of pre-college attributes. Analysis of F-S retention showed that academic choices added to the predictive strength of pre-college attributes. When considering F-F retention, pre-college attributes alone was able to best predict student retention. These findings not only support the reliability of pre-college attributes when considering student retention, specifically for students at Marietta College, but also show the difficulty of predicting students’ retention in the first semester. PREDICTORS OF STUDENT RETENTION 7 Pre-college Attributes, Academic Choices, Social Factors, and Intervention Programs Predict Student Retention at Marietta College Colleges and universities thrive off of the efficiency of their enrollment. Institutions require revenue, and in order to be a successful institution, they must recruit and retain students. Much like employees working for a company, it is fiscally more advantageous for the institutions to retain their students than it is to recruit new ones. Colleges use many strategies to get students to the school, but once a student has been admitted, colleges must also retain students by preventing students from withdrawing, transferring, or being dismissed for a whole host of reasons. It is important for colleges to monitor both admission and retention in order to operate as an efficient institution. Early research on retention by Spady (1970) found that students dropped out of college because of a lack of value congruence with the institution and social support from peers and faculty (Bean and Eaton, 2001). These early studies led to the development of different strategies for predicting retention. Many of the early studies on retention only considered student populations as a whole. It was not until 1985 that researchers began to focus on subgroups of students, considering that decisions to withdrawal from a school will be driven by different factors for different subgroups of students (Bean and Metzner, 1985). By considering specific subgroups of college students, researchers examined differences in student characteristics. Factors such as perceived intelligence, psychological aspects, and school participation have been used to help researchers define subgroups of students’ characteristics. A student’s willingness to stay at an institution can be influenced by economic, organizational, and psychological factors (Seidman, 2005). The economic perspective involves a student weighing the cost-reward ratio. The organizational perspective refers to the academic and extracurricular structure provided by the institutions, such as the course curriculum and PREDICTORS OF STUDENT RETENTION 8 degree requirements. The psychological perspective refers to the characteristics of the student. In order for institutions to properly study retention, they must consider not just the historical influences on retention, but also what might be affecting their current students. Retention researchers commonly consider student factors such as pre-college attributes and academic choices, and institutional factors such as intervention programs and social support, when searching for patterns in retention behavior. Many of the variables that institutions use for studying retention measure the same factor. By using more than one variable, the combined effect of these factors on retention may be studied. By analyzing the combination of factors, the predictive ability of the factors in comparison with other factors can be determined. In order to choose which factors to study, the institution must look at what is relevant to their student body. An institution’s motivation for retention practice and research can be different considering what is relevant to the specific institution (Borland, 2002; Seidman, 2005). As mentioned above, institutions can be thought of as a business. The economic perspective may seem insensitive to the student’s well being because of its fiscal motives, but it still considers the student’s future success. The economic perspective indirectly benefits the students through promoting enrollment and increasing the institution’s economic status and wellbeing (Borland, 2002). The economic perspective can also be used to increase a student’s cost-reward ratio by revealing administrative redundancies that increase tuition, giving the students the most out of what they pay. When an institution views retention with an economic perspective, the goal is for the personal investments in education to bear returns on the individual’s investments of time, money, and energy (Becker, 1964). Not all institutions that practice retention are seeking economic gain. Although higher retention can increase an institution’s economic profits, there are other reasons for promoting retention that are more considerate of the student. PREDICTORS OF STUDENT RETENTION 9 Institutions that are more concerned about the student as individuals may take the learning or developmental perspective. The learning perspective leads researchers to look at retention as a way to provide the students with better opportunities, which should, in turn, enhance their learning (Borland, 2002). By developing strategies to promote curricular structure for a student, institutions can increase the value of a student’s education (Berger & Braxton, 1998). This involves focusing on the education curriculum a student is exposed to, including classroom and extra-curricular. In this case, the institutional goal is to benefit the student and the institution, not just the institution itself. The developmental and learning perspectives both aim to benefit the growth of the student; however, the developmental perspective focuses specifically on the growth of a student’s character (Borland, 2002). The psychological characteristics of a student are important to consider because they can shape how the student views the institution (Bean & Eaton, 2000). These characteristics, such as commitment, intelligence, and proactive behavior, can affect a student’s satisfaction with an institution. The developmental retention paradigm focuses on creating programs that not only help students through college, but also prepare them for after graduation. Regardless of the perspective taken by the institution, the goals of retention research should always include strategies to meet the students’ needs. Most institutional perspectives on retention are influenced by the school’s economic and academic standings. Identifying the purpose for assessing retention is the first step to fixing the possible problem (Borland, 2002). Whatever the reason for assessing retention may be, it must be considered carefully, with purpose, and be action oriented. The most well recognized model for assessing retention is the Borland Six-Step Conceptual Model (Borland, 2002). This process ensures that the study will be thorough and result in the most meaningful findings for how to PREDICTORS OF STUDENT RETENTION 10 increase retention. The model includes: purpose identification, outcomes identification, measurement and evaluation design, data collection, analysis and evaluation, and action. These steps ensure that the institution will take the proper procedures for enhancing retention and for conducting the most effective retention research. While Borland’s model (Borland, 2002) for studying retention approaches the issue of retention from a methodological standpoint, another well-regarded retention model developed by Tinto (1993) suggests which specific aspects of the student’s educational career are most likely to attribute to the individual’s retention at a higher-level institution. Tinto’s model uses a combination of pre-entry attributes, pre-entry goals and commitments, institutional experiences (including both social and academic), integration into the institution, and goals and commitments during college. This model, in collaboration with Borland’s model, allows researchers to combat low retention with an extensive understanding of the factors that influence it. These models can help shape strategies for increasing retention rates at any institution. The purpose of the current study is to analyze a set of factors that develop throughout a student’s academic career. The first factor considered in this study is pre-college attributes, which consists of variables determined prior to a student’s enrollment in an institution, similar to Tinto’s pre-entry attributes (Tinto, 1993). This group of variables allows us to isolate measures that are entirely unaffected by the students’ relationship with the institution and more accurately determine how characteristics unrelated to the institution affect retention. The second factor of a student’s academic career is the academic choices that a student makes upon entering an institution. This factor consists of variables that are presented to students upon entering college and that have little to do with the students’ personal development with the institution. Academic choices focus on the students’ academic goals and the path they take to achieve these goals. The PREDICTORS OF STUDENT RETENTION 11 third factor considered is intervention programs that are designed to help academically at-risk students. These variables measure how well the institution is able to work with struggling students. As mentioned earlier, students already enrolled are the mos