What is it about?
This study focuses on college students who did not return to the university for a second year and examines their stories about school and about home throughout their first year experience. These students wrote more negative stories about school-related events than they did positive ones and exhibited low levels of campus involvement/engagement. Also, they seemed to struggle with their college living experience, including socially and financially, and dealing with trouble at home.
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Why is it important?
Despite widespread interest in improving retention rates, relatively little research, especially qualitative, exists that focuses on what students do to adapt to a new environment and their new roles as college students during their first year in the academy. Moreover, most existing research on student retention focuses on at-school issues and often fails to consider influences outside the campus environment. More specifically, what aspects of students’ “home” lives might influence their decision not to return to college for a second year? Both on- and off-campus factors that may influence college adaptation and retention decisions of first-year college students are examined in the present study.
Perspectives
There exists an underlying assumption that choosing not to return to that college or university for a second semester (or a second year) at that time is bad. Institutions ought to re-conceptualize their retention goals to consider the fact that remaining at their institution may not be the best decision for all students, and they honor the decision not to return as a good one for some students.
Jason Martin
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: It Just Didn’t Work Out, Journal of College Student Retention Research Theory & Practice, October 2015, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/1521025115611670.
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