Student Retention Essay

There has been an abundance of research on how to retain students at the university and/or college level. I collected five articles that examine variables shown to correlate to student retention in secondary institutions. These studies use common factors to determine the significance of whether they are related to college retention. Most colleges and universities focus on recruitment rather than retaining students which also poses its own set of challenges. According to Tinto (1993) over 40% of the first-time college students drop out before the beginning of their second year. Retention is very important for universities and colleges for financial stability. Not only that, as noted by Fike (2008), the federal Higher Education Act may use graduation rates as a measure of institutional effectiveness. Retention is also very important to the students who want to have a positive college experience and who can achieve their goals and become successful members of society.

Thus the reason for research in determining what factors contribute to high attrition rates at the post-secondary level as well as developing intervention programs that can identify students who may be at-risk of dropping out. Hsieh's (2007) examined student motivation towards learning which hypothesized that two factors can influence a student's possibility of dropping out: self efficacy and goal orientation. While this study focuses on these factors, Alarcon (2013) states that previous theories are limited because they neglect trait aspects of retention. He suggests that there are two traits to consider: ability and motivation with special attention as to how they are assessed. To assess these, Alarcon used standardized tests as a measure of ability and c...

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...rmining student retention. Although it may seem like an area that can be determined easily, research proves that it is not. Once a person begins to read through the abundance of published research studies, it can be overwhelming. To make the best use of these studies, it is important to be as specific as possible when researching these topics. For example, as mentioned earlier, there are significant differences in factors to consider when determining retention rates in community college students and retention rates of university students. These specific issues must be acknowledged and addressed when determining how to retain students. With so much information available so easily, I have only scratched the surface of studies on student retention but I now have a better idea of where to begin my research, how to conduct it, and how to present my findings.