All Retention all the Time: How Institutional Research Can Synthesize Information and Influence Retention Practices

This study reports how an institutional research office at a large public research university has taken the lead to call attention to retention problems, describe attrition/retention predictors, and influence policy. Building on existing retention theories and previous institutional research studies, the institutional research office began coordinating several firstyear study-based initiatives whose primary purpose was understanding and promoting first-year retention. Data on student characteristics, survey data on student involvement, NSSE data, nonreturning survey data, and data from various student engagement programs are being analyzed to better understand attrition and retention. Student commitment and institutional commitment are discussed as factors affecting attrition and retention. Strategies for maximizing these commitments as ways of increasing student success and retention are discussed. Institutional Research and Retention 3 All Retention all the Time: How Institutional Research Can Synthesize Information and Influence Retention Practices Student retention can be viewed from two different perspectives. The first perspective has to do with broad-based benefits to the university and even to society. These benefits include “enrollment management,” maintaining stable enrollments to support the university’s budget (Levitz, Noel, & Richter, 1999). The enrollment management consulting firm Noel Levitz has a retention savings worksheet to quickly estimate gains in revenues as a direct result of increases in student retention. Stable enrollments based on higher retention rates are more predictable, rely less on pressuring the admissions office to increase recruiting targets (while often lowering quality), and are more manageable in terms of course demand and level and type of student services needed. A policy report by ACT argued that retaining students will help students reach their goals and ultimately help America’s workforce compete globally (Lotkowski, Robbins, & Noeth, 2004). Higher retention benefits the image of the university when retention rates are used as indicators of institutional success. Higher retention rates typically lead to higher graduation rates. Retention and graduation rates are widely collected by IPEDS, state SHEEO’s, US News and World Report, et al., and are subsequently publicized to internal and external audiences. Attrition has a negative public connotation, even when it is understood that students do not “drop out” but rather transfer to other colleges or universities (Sanoff, 2004). However, Porter (2003) both argues and provides evidence that retention is not simply a “stay in school” or “drop out” outcome. Students stay, leave, “stop out” for indefinite periods, and transfer out. Different groups of students have different determinants of retention. For example, female attrition rates have been attributed to social factors more than for males (Landry, 2002). A meta-analysis done Institutional Research and Retention 4 by American College Testing to investigate the relationship of academic and non-academic factors to retention revealed that a combination of academic factors (ACT, HS GPA) and nonacademic factors (socioeconomic status, institutional commitment, academic goals, social support, academic self-confidence, and social involvement are influential) (Lotkowski, Robbins, & Noeth, 2004). Understanding retention thoroughly requires data from multiple sources to develop a rich understanding of why students stay and leave. The second perspective of retention has to do with fostering student success. When we admit students as new freshmen, we are inviting them to become part of our campus community. One of our goals is to enable individual students to be as successful as they can be. If we are serious about helping students succeed, retention is a necessary but not sufficient component to their success. In fact, retention should be our minimal expectation for student success, that they simply return to our campus after their first year (T. Kahrig, personal communication, January 14, 2005). One way we can do this is to involve and engage our students in their education (Kuh, Shuh, Whitt, & Associates, 1991). Student involvement--academic, social, and goal commitment--is related to quality of undergraduate education (Astin, 1993). The National Institute of Education report Involvement in Learning suggested that students who are more involved in activities related to their formal education will grow more as individuals, will be more satisfied with their education, will tend to persist in their education to graduation, and will tend to continue their learning after college (Study Group on the Conditions of Excellence in American Higher Education, 1984). Involving Colleges discusses how colleges and universities should foster student involvement on their campuses (Kuh, Shuh, Whitt, & Associates, 1991). One way to do this is to study and encourage student involvement. The experiences during the first (freshman) year affect students’ development and performance throughout college. Indeed, Institutional Research and Retention 5 attrition occurs most frequently during the first year, and retention programs most often are directed toward freshmen. Student involvement and engagement studies provide information that is important to student retention and student development. Furthermore, efforts to involve students in the life of the campus are believed to have higher retention. According to Tinto (1999), Students are more likely to stay in schools that involve them as valued members of the institution. The frequency and quality of contact with faculty, staff, and other students have repeatedly been shown to be independent predictors of student persistence. . . Simply put, involvement matters, and at no point does it matter more than during the first year of college when student attachments are so tenuous and the pull of the institution so weak. (pp. 5-6) Tinto and others have drawn a parallel between attrition rates and suicide rates. Tracing back to Durkheim’s theories of suicide, communities with higher suicide rates were typically those with less social integration between individuals and society and were deemed less healthy environments. Likewise, campuses with high attrition rates are thought to offer fewer opportunities for involvement and integration for students. Campuses with higher attrition rates are judged to offer less healthy environments for student success. Significant evidence suggests that learning communities are an effective way to involve and engage students and help them succeed. They contribute positively to educational outcomes (Lenning & Ebbers, 1999; Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005). Reported benefits include increased student achievement and satisfaction, enhanced academic skills, and increased retention and graduation rates for participants. Zhao and Kuh (2004) discussed the positive relationships between learning communities and student engagement, as measured by the National Survey of Institutional Research and Retention 6 Student Engagement (NSSE). They facilitate students’ development of relationships with other students and with faculty and staff (Hoffman, Richmond, Morrow, & Salomone, 2002). For many years the institutional research office at a large public research university in the mid-west has done an annual retention study (Office of Institutional Research, 2005). This study takes existing data from the university’s student information system and reports variables that are related to attrition/retention. Student characteristics such as sex, race/ethnicity, admissions status, residency, living arrangement, academic college and major, aptitude, high school and college academic performance, and course enrollment are among the variables studied. This study and these characteristics are similar to those advocated by Gardner, Barefoot, & Swing (2001). This report, entitled “Factors Associated with First-Year Student Attrition and Retention,” has been widely distributed and is available on-line: http://www.ohiou.edu/instres/retention/RetenAthens.pdf The information in the report has been used to identify areas in which retention is strong as well as areas with high attrition. The high attrition areas have then been addressed via different retention initiatives. For example, females in certain academic colleges with high grade point averages (above a 3.0) had higher attrition rates. As a result, the institutional research office established an intervention program to increase retention of these students from the first year to the second year. This university’s retention rate had increased from about 67 percent in the 1970’s to a high of 86 percent in the 1990’s. This change was commonly attributed to the university’s shift from open admissions to selective admissions during this time. However, in the last five years this university has experienced a gradual decrease in first-year retention. In 2004-05, this university experienced the third year in a row of decreasing retention, currently at 82 percent. Institutional Research and Retention 7 During this period the institutional research office regularly produced its retention report, which documents the year-to-year decline in retention, and communicated the university’s retention rates. Each year the report was changed in content, format, and distribution in an attempt to actively communicate to the campus community about retention issues. Following the examples of other institutional researchers (Hansen, Borden, & Howard, 2003; Angelo & Rogers, 2003), data on courses with high attrition rates were identified and reported. Information on the financial impact of attrition and the potential revenue benefits of increasing retention, even modestly, were communicated. However, little attention was paid to these findings, and retention continued to decline. In 2003-04, a number of initiatives were either begun or r