Impact of Developmental Requirements on Student Retention

1. Impact of Developmental Requirements on Student Retention NORTH LAKE COLLEGE Planning and Research Teresa Isbell – Director Yam Avram – Coordinator

2. Community colleges students come from more diverse social and economic backgrounds • Older • Part-time • Less academically prepared • Employed • Commuters • Have Dependents • Single parent • Financial need • High school drop out or GED recipient.

3. About 70% of those who begin their higher education at four-year colleges receive a baccalaureate compared to only 26% of those who begin at two-year colleges. (Dougherty, 1992) • Over 50% community college students leave during or after the first year (Tinto, 1993).

4. Where did they go? • Why did they leave? • How do North Lake College students compare with the literature? • How do developmental requirements impact retention?

5. 470 Full time 23.6 Mean Age Gender 52% Female 48% Male Ethnicity White 40.9% African-Am 10.2% Hispanic 24.0% Asian 10.6% Other 14.3% North Lake College Fall 2001 FTIC Cohort

7. NLC Full Time FTIC Coursework

8. NLC Full Time FTIC Credits and GPA

10. Retention Rates for Fall 2001 Cohort

11. Factor Analysis Methodology Principal Axis Factoring with Varimax Rotation

12. Variables for Analysis FT_GPA DMAT OBJECTIVES DREA DEPENDENTS DWRI FGC FAID CMPS_ACTIVITY ETHNICITY AGE GENDER

13. Communalities

14. The five most influential factors from high to low for spring 2002 • D-read (0.685) • Campus activities (0.653) • Ethnic (0.583) • Age (0.474) • FGC (0.271) and D-math (0.271)

15. Spring 2002 Eigenvalues Total Variance Explained

16. Spring 2002 Scree Plot

17. Spring 2002 Rotated Factor Matrix

18. Spring 2002 Positive Retention Factors • Campus activities • Developmental Reading • Non-minority • DMAT, DWRI, FAID also have positive impacts, but not as significant

19. Spring 2002 Negative Retention Factors • First Generation • Having dependents • Delaying enrollment (Above Average Age)

20. Fall 2002 Influential Retention Factors • Age (0.887) • Developmental reading (0.680) • Campus activity (0.572) • Ethnic (0.498) • First term GPA (0.337)

21. Fall 2002 Retention Findings • Being first generation college, having dependents are still having negative impact on retention. • Age changing from negative to positive, but has inter-relationship with more than one factor.

22. Spring 2002 Analysis No Gender and Ethnicity • Campus activities (.560) • Developmental reading (.389) • First generation college (.290) • Dependents (.262)

23. Fall 2002 Analysis No Gender and Ethnicity • Age (.543) • Campus activities (.429) • Developmental reading (.408)

24. Study Findings Campus activities and developmental reading have a positive impact on retention through time. First generation and minority students are at risk for dropping out. Having dependents and delaying enrollment impact the first semester retention.

25. Study Findings Gender, educational objectives and DWRI have very little impacts on retention. DMAT and FAID have some impact but not significant. FT_GPA has some impact but not as significant as for four-year institutions.

26. Where do we go from here? Additional analyses Other institutions