Proposes a role for institutional research in changing institutional attitudes about priority placed on student retention efforts. Identifies organizational/attitudinal barriers to improving student retention efforts relative to theory on stages of grief (denial, hostility, bargaining, depression, acceptance); outlines tactics for moving the…

A study of first-year chemistry students (n=962) in one Canadian university investigated factors that may contribute to retention or withdrawal of women in science study. Results show transition patterns into and during the first year of university that suggest that career paths and lifestyles begin to differentiate between genders in ways much…

Nearly one-quarter of students in community colleges leave school during the first year of enrollment for reasons other than transfer or credential completion. Generally, nontraditional community college students drop out within their first year at higher rates than do traditional students. Using data from Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges…

Many stay-in-school programs support some individuals but do not serve the larger school population. This digest describes a project that would integrate an array of interventions for "at-risk" youth with planned organizational and curricular re-structuring activities. The project consists of 8 groups of 55 to 60 students. While the…

To obtain a quantitative meta-analysis of studies addressing the effects of community college Developmental Studies Programs (DSPs) on students enrolled in higher education, an analysis was undertaken of a sample of studies culled from journal articles, dissertations, unpublished works found in ERIC, and published and unpublished proceedings of…

A five-year follow-up study is being conducted of l0,015 students who transferred from Illinois two-year colleges to 42 senior institutions in the state in fall 1979. An analysis of the persistence and achievement rates of the transfer students during their second year after transfer (1980-81) revealed: (1) 71% of the Associate in Arts…

Despite the legal mandate for fulltime school participation between the ages of 6 and 18 and the mandate for high school completion, many youths do not fulfill these expectations and are viewed as dropouts. To investigate the characteristics of seventh and eighth grade students who leave school and the reasons why they do so, school personnel in…

In 1989, a follow-up study of non-returning students who had attended Johnson County Community College (JCCC) during fall 1985, spring 1986, or summer 1986 was conducted to assess the former students' achievement of their educational goals. A target population of 7,910 long-term leavers was surveyed regarding their opinions and perceptions of…

The assessment of the institutional effectiveness of community colleges is illustrated through a description of the assessment program used by Johnson County Community College in Overland Park (Kansas). Emphasis is on measures of the degree to which students meet their educational objectives, identified through career, transfer, and…

The research analyzed data sets covering 1981-1985 enrollments, transfers, and withdrawals at two large urban high schools (called Urbana and Northern) in eastern Massachusetts and personal interviews with selected school administrators in four school districts to investigate high dropout rates among Hispanics. Findings indicated that 30% of the…

Random samples of 1979 and 1980 entering freshmen were given the Non-Cognitive Questionnaire (NCQ), which was designed to assess noncognitive dimensions predicting minority student academic success. The validity of the NCQ in predicting graduation after five and six years was determined. The graduation rate was found to differ significantly for…

In fall 1986, the San Diego Community College District initiated a pilot project to develop and offer an honors curriculum. After the first semester, during which 11 courses were offered to 110 students, an evaluation was conducted, consisting of the development of a profile of participants, a survey of students who withdrew from the program, and…

An overview is provided of the problem of student attrition and the essential components of effective retention programs. Following introductory arguments that the secret of retention is in the development of communities committed to education rather than retention, the paper discusses several major causes of student attrition, including academic…

A study was conducted at Miami-Dade Community College (MDCC) to determine the extent to which the college's Associate in Arts (AA) degree graduates possessed the characteristics of "nontraditional" students (e.g., older, employed, married, or attending on a part-time or stopout basis). A random sample of 400 AA graduates was drawn from the 2,829…

A study was conducted to investigate the validity of Tinto's model of college withdrawal in a public four-year college and a private two-year institution. The model consists of six sets of variables in a causal sequence; i.e., background characteristics, initial goal and institutional commitment, academic and social integration, subsequent goal…