Degree Name

EdD (Doctor of Education)

Program

Educational Leadership

Date of Award

5-2007

Committee Chair or Co-Chairs

Terrence A. Tollefson

Committee Members

Pamela H. Scott, James H. Lampley, Andrew Czuchry

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to investigate the associations between first-time full-time freshmen's attributes and fall-to-fall retention at Northeast State Technical Community College. The 15 attributes included age, first-generation student status, gender, high school classification, race, the student's application date to the institution relative to the start of the semester, the 4 ACT test sub-scores, remedial/developmental course placement, major program of study, financial aid status, first-semester grade point average, and end-of-first-semester credit hour enrollment status. In addition to collecting the variables under study, each first-time full-time freshman's entry term and enrollment status for the subsequent fall semester was ascertained. This information was used to categorize individuals into persister and non-persister classifications for the subsequent fall. The data for this longitudinal study were housed in Northeast State's student records database, Student Information System.

A preliminary analysis of the data was conducted to ascertain descriptive statistics. Chi Square and independent samples t tests were used to determine if there was an association between each variable and fall-to-fall retention. A multiple linear regression model was used to estimate the effect of the predictor variables upon the criterion variable, fall-to-fall retention. The results indicated that the variables of age, first-generation student status, gender, and race were not significantly related to fall-to-fall retention, while high school classification, application date, the 4 ACT sub-scores, remedial/developmental course placement, major program of study, financial aid award, first-semester grade point average, and end-of-semester credit hour enrollment status were significantly related to fall-to-fall retention. A multiple linear regression model indicated that the greatest influences upon fall-to-fall retention when researching the collective predictor variables were

  1. first-semester grade point average,
  2. the number of remedial/developmental courses required,
  3. the number of hours in which the student was formally enrolled in at the end of the first semester,
  4. an application date greater than or equal to 61 days prior to the start of the fall semester,
  5. receipt of financial aid in the form of Pell Grant funds only (negative association),
  6. associate of applied science student status (negative association), and
  7. GED graduate (negative association).

Document Type

Dissertation - unrestricted

Copyright

Copyright by the authors.

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