STUDENT RETENTION AND ACADEMIC SUCCESS

STUDENT RETENTION AND ACADEMIC SUCCESS

Discussion Paper Two

Prepared by the Offices of the Vice-President (Academic) & Provost and Enrolment Management

STUDENT RETENTION AND ACADEMIC SUCCESS

Students' success in their academic studies is the primary goal of universities. Two fundamental ways universities measure student success are graduation rates and retention rates. The first, graduation rates, are determined after students have completed an entire program, say, a four-year degree program. The second, retention rates, are measured while students progress through various stages and levels within a program. The most frequently measured and publicly reported levels are retention after an academic term, such as a semester, and after an academic year.

Fortunately, the majority of students who begin their studies are successful and graduate. However, many students do not. These students are called in the popular vernacular "drop-outs". There are many reasons why students drop-out, and one of our objectives in this discussion paper is to examine the research literature in order to derive general causes of or reasons for students' attrition from their programs. A second objective is to learn from the research findings what universities are doing to encourage and enable students to persist in their studies and to graduate. Some students drop-out because of circumstances beyond the influence of the university. Nonetheless, there is considerable research evidence to suggest that universities can mitigate significantly some of the causes of or reasons for student attrition.

A third objective in this discussion paper is to represent through charts, tables, and graphs the retention and graduation rates of our students in our academic programs and to determine what they can tell us about those factors or influences that encourage and enable students to remain in university and to graduate from our programs.

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MANY PATHWAYS TO GRADUATION

As students progress from admission to graduation, a complex interaction of four major factors ? personal, social, academic, and institutional-shape the quality of their educational experiences. While these factors interact in ways unique to each student, studies across populations of students over time reveal there are patterns of behaviours associated with retention that can be distilled to serve as lessons about retention generally in post-secondary education. From these lessons, we are able to make predictions about what things we can do that enable student success. However, there are many challenges when measuring retention rates. Institutional rates are limited by the quality of the data collected. For instance, students move through post-secondary using many paths on the way to graduation and strict retention definitions may provide a more negative view than the reality. A recent study by Finnie and Qiu (2009) in Atlantic Canada shows that some students "switch" institutions over the course of their studies or stop-out for a period of time. Of those who stop-out, they found that after one year of dropping out, over 20% of college students and more than 35% of university students returned to post-secondary institutions. Some students may apply for a particular term, not show up at their scheduled registration date, and then enter at a later date. Students' taking what is called a "gap" year or two after high school before registering in a post-secondary institution make up increasingly large portion of new students.

A conversion rate refers to the percentage of students who apply, are admitted and who actually register. In a preliminary analysis of our university's conversion rates, which includes all new and continuing students, an average of 60% of total applicants enroll directly from high school (Table 1). However, many students enter at a later term than they originally applied for, which confounds the data we seek.

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Fall Started

Table 1: UFV Application and Conversion Rates by Entering Fall Term

# of applicants

# enrolled

# enrolled

Conversion in later

Rate

term

Average age*

% direct % female* entry*

1999

3217

1897

59%

465

23.1

54%

38%

2000

3044

1795

59%

465

22.9

57%

40%

2001

3543

2093

59%

508

22.9

57%

39%

2002

3598

1995

55%

499

22.5

54%

40%

2003

3557

2147

60%

424

21.4

55%

42%

2004

3497

2034

58%

475

22.8

58%

41%

2005

3408

2067

61%

387

22.3

59%

46%

2006

3094

1949

63%

302

22.3

60%

45%

2007

2890

1716

59%

290

22.4

56%

43%

2008

2855

1885

66%

82

22.7

56%

39%

Total

Average 3270

1958

60%

*Includes only those students enrolled

22.5

57%

41%

Institutional retention rates that measure students who transition directly from high school and complete their degree in four years may provide a simplified and misleading picture of the paths that students take to program completion. In many cases, students leave and may return at a later date to the same, or different, institution (Grayson and Grayson, 2003). This pattern of participation may account for what is called "positive attrition". In "positive attrition" situations, students have achieved their goals prior to completing their program, and possibly gained employment. Alternately, students may have realized that a course or program is not appropriate to their needs and aspirations. However, they would be grouped with the rest of the drop-outs and thus create a somewhat misleading over-all institutional picture (McGivney, 2003).

Our university provides an array of credentials and entering points, and students take multiples paths to completion. Therefore, a "fall to fall" measure of counting retention does not necessarily reflect an accurate retention picture. Therefore, traditional retention definitions must be adapted to fit our

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institutional student profile and program mix. As a starting point, in Table 2 we provide an initial analysis on entering students and their completion rates. It is important to note that all of our data must be interpreted with caution. Our data utilize a specific definition of retention that cannot account for variances among the many and diverse pathways that students pursue.

Head Fall Started Count

1999

1897

2000

1795

2001

2093

2002

1995

2003

2147

2004

2034

2005

2067

2006

1949

2007

1716

2008

1885

Table 2: UFV Retention Rates by Entering Fall Term

% cont'd to 2nd Yr

% cont'd to 3rd Yr

% graduated in 4 Yrs or less

% cont'd to 5th Yr

% graduated in 5 yrs

% cont'd to 6th Yr

% graduated in 6 Yrs

50% 29% 25%

15% 6%

5% 4%

48% 34% 25%

12% 6%

8% 5%

48% 31% 24%

12% 6%

7% 4%

49% 34% 23%

13% 7%

9% 6%

50% 34% 25%

15% 7%

48% 33% 22%

48% 33%

48% 37%

51%

% cont'd to 7th Yr

2%

4%

5%

% cont'd to 8th Yr

1%

4%

Total Average 1958 49% 33% 24%

13% 6%

7% 5%

4% 3%

Note: The % continued to 2nd year is lower than previously reported. This includes students in certificate and transfer programs (Engineering). The students who graduated from certificate programs are included in the graduated totals.

LESSONS FROM THE LITERATURE ON STUDENT RETENTION

The dominant theoretical model in the research literature is the Student Integration Model, originally developed by Vincent Tinto in the 1970s (Figure 1). Simply put, according to Tinto, students do not persist in their studies because of a lack of integration into the educational community. Persistence is a function of the interactions between an individual student and the educational environment. Therefore,

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the degree of "fit" between the student's motivation to learn and academic ability and the institution's characteristics is a significant factor in determining the likelihood of a students' decision to persist.

Tinto argues that students enter post-secondary schooling with a variety of pre-entry characteristics that are associated with their family background (i.e. socio-economic status) and varying degrees of skills, abilities and high school preparation. These factors are directly related to their initial goals and commitments when they enter post-secondary. After they begin their journey into post-secondary, they are exposed to numerous institutional experiences that Tinto groups into four main areas ? grade performance, intellectual development, peer-group interactions, and faculty interactions. These interactions within the academic system characterize the social and academic integration. Through this process, a student formulates emerging goals and commitments that ultimately affects their decisions to stay or leave.

Tinto's model was not designed to explain all reasons for student departure but to highlight the complexities within the formal and informal academic and social systems within an educational institution. The model recognizes that students may leave because of external factors, failure to meet academic requirements, or other reasons beyond an institution's control. The focus is on the institution itself and its impact on departure behaviour of students (Tinto,1982). Therefore, it presents policy and procedural questions about how an institution can change in order to try and reduce student attrition.

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Figure 1: An adaption of Tinto's Model of Institutional Departure (1993, p. 115)

Although Tinto's model is not without its share of critics, many researchers who have tested and built upon the framework have addressed its areas of weakness. For Grayson and Grayson (2003), the model was able to explain limited amounts of variance in attrition. They said that "despite the claims of some of the critics the important explanatory variables in the model were useful in explaining attrition in both commuter and residential institutions and in both two- and four-year institutions" (p. 14).

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Bean and Metzer (1980) also developed a model of student attrition (Figure 2) as an alternative in explaining student persistence. They argue that attrition is similar to turnover in work environments. They also emphasize the importance of students' behavioral intentions. Students' behavior is shaped by their beliefs and attitudes which are in turn affected by their experiences within the institution.

One notable characteristic of Bean and Metzer's model is their emphasis on factors external to the institution that play a major role in affecting a students' decision to persist or not in their studies. The external factors includes social-psychological (goals, utility, alienation, faculty contact, social life), academic (pre-matriculation academic performance, academic integration) and environmental (finances, opportunity to transfer, outside friends). Consistent with Tinto's model, the socialization (integration) factors include grades, institutional fit, and student commitment, although it recognizes the direct influence of the environmental factors regardless of the experiences within the institution.

Figure 2: Student Attrition Model (Bean and Metzer, 1985)

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