Exploring Characteristics of Measurement and Analysis
Purpose of study
The primary purpose of this study is to determine the factors that affect the attrition rates of first year college students. On a narrow perspective, this research attempts to establish effects of financial background, academic and social integration, socio-economic status, and institutional commitment, institutional environment, and student’s decision on a major career on the retention rates of first yea college students. The study aims at determining how each of the specified factors affects the student attrition rates.
Research question
The following are the research questions for this study:
- How does financial background affect student attrition rates of first year college students?
- What is the relationship between academic and social integration and student retention rates?
- Is institutional commitment an effective administrative strategy for increasing student attrition rates?
Research design
The goal of this study is to examine the various factors affecting the retention rates of first year college students. The main guiding research question for the study is: what are the factors that affect the student retention rates of first year college students. It is apparent that some of the proposed variables require quantitative analysis of data whereas other variables require qualitative analysis. In light of this view, this research will entail both qualitative and quantitative research methodologies. Variables such as institutional commitment, institutional environment, and academic and social integration will require qualitative analysis. On the other hand, variables such as financial backgrounds, socio-economic status will entail analysis of quantitative data. Bivariate comparison will be used to determine the relationship between the variables and the retention rates of first year students in a local community college.
The research design will primarily involve monitoring numerous cohorts of first year students to evaluate the retention rates in a local college (Fisher, 2007). Measuring retention rates will primarily focus on the number of first year students transferring to other colleges, with specific reason of transfer noted down; the number of continuing students will also be noted down; and the number of students who have dropped their studies for various documented and undocumented reasons. The total number of admitted first year students will serve as the baseline sample for calculating the retention rate and attrition rates (Jones, 2003). Background research will be undertaken to measure variables such as socio-economic status and financial background. Levels of academic and social integration will be obtained from college records relating to the student’s academic integration, whereas social integration will be evaluated by the opinion of peer students. Institutional commitment and environment will be assessed by conducting a survey among the student fraternity and evaluating their opinions regarding the efforts and strategies adopted by the college to curb student attrition. A correlation will be done to determine the relationship between student persistence and the identified potential factors that are likely to influence student attrition (Ruane, 2005). Other factors such as student’s decision on a major career will also be taken into consideration during the study.
Appropriate level of measurement and justification
Financial background entails an analysis of the income levels of the family of the students who dropped their studies. This will require analysis of working family members and their respective incomes, difficulties in paying tuition fees. After a quantitative analysis will classify the family financial backgrounds as poor, average and financially well off. In this case, low-income levels, and extreme difficulties in paying college tuition fees will characterize poor financial backgrounds (Jones, 2003). Average financial backgrounds will be characterized by minimal difficulties in paying college tuition fees and moderate-income levels at the family level. financially well off backgrounds will be characterized by absolutely no difficulties in paying college tuitions. Defining and measuring socio-economic status will entail low SES, average SES and high SES. Measuring SES backgrounds for the subjects will make use of numerous variants including economic resources, educational attainment of family members and their respective occupations (Ruane, 2005).
Measuring and defining variables for institutional commitment will entail a qualitative analysis of efforts and strategies adopted by the college to curb student attrition rates. As a result, the levels of institutional commitment will vary from low, average and high. Low institutional commitment will basically mean that the college has no strategies to address student attrition rates; average institutional commitment will mean that the college has adopted strategies but they are not effective in achieving their goals and objectives; high institutional commitment will mean that the strategies are effective in achieving their goals and objectives. Academic and social integration will based on the opinion of peer students (Ruane, 2005). Measuring academic and social integration will be based on a scale of 0 to 3, with zero indicating poor academic and social integration, 1indicating normal integration, 2 indicating good integration, while 3 indicating excellent integration. Student’s decision on a major career will be a binary measurement, either yes or no. This is because decision can only take two states, with no intermediate measurements (Ruane, 2005).
References
Fisher, C. (2007). Researching and writing a dissertation. Edinburgh: Pearson Education Limited.
Jones, R. (2003). Pre-College Academic Programs and Interventions. Washington, DC: Pathways to College Network Clearinghouse.
Ruane, J. M. (2005). Essentials of Research methods: a guide to social science research. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.
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