Abstract

The purpose of this research was to determine if there are characteristics that can be identified as predictors in an undergraduate's second year of college that may forecast the possibility of students' attrition prior to their third year. This current research was based on the literature that identified the following variables as impacting issues of retention and attrition between the second and third years in college: Term of admission offer, type of admission offer (Roth-Francis, 2013), home mailing address (Tierney, 2000), gender and age (Schaller, 2010), college enrolled in and major (Graunke & Woosley, 2005; Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005), ethnicity (Miller & Herreid, 2009; Sciarra & Whitson, 2007), first generation status (Paulsen & St. John, 2002), hours completed (Pattengale, 2000), overall grade point average and university grade point average (Gohn, Swartz, & Donnelly, 2001; Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005), residency status (Paulsen & St. John, 2002), and ACT score and SAT score (Miller & Herreid, 2009). The cohorts examined consisted of students who began their freshman collegiate careers in the Summer or Fall terms from 2009 to 2013, and had completed two years at a university located in a southeastern state. When merged, there were 26,957 rows of data collected. The results of the Multicollinearity and Path Analysis indicated, among other things, three attrition areas at the end of the second year. These variables included university GPA, hours completed, and major. Regarding recommendations, it was suggested to build a second-year advising, mentoring, and faculty/professional staff outreach infrastructure to increase the retention rates of second-year students who may be at-risk of attrition.

Notes

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Graduation Date

2016

Semester

Summer

Advisor

Cintron Delgado, Rosa

Degree

Doctor of Education (Ed.D.)

College

College of Education and Human Performance

Department

Educational and Human Sciences

Degree Program

Educational Leadership

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

CFE0006411

URL

http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0006411

Language

English

Release Date

August 2016

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Access Status

Doctoral Dissertation (Open Access)

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