UA12/6 The Voice

Newsletter created by the Office of Black Student Retention for WKU\u27s minority population

Libraries and Student Retention

Mick Williams presented the workshop “Libraries and Student Retention” at the June 2015 Association of Christian Librarians Conference. This article of the same name encapsulates key points that were shared during the workshop’s PowerPoint presentation on how academic librarians can actively promote student retention at their own institutions of higher learning

Learning Design for Student Retention

Student retention is an issue of increasing interest to higher education institutions, educators and students. Much of the work in this area focuses on identifying and improving interventions that occur during the presentation of a course. This paper suggests that these represent only one set of factors that can influence student withdrawal, and equally important are design based factors that can aid retention throughout the course. The main research question addressed by the paper is what design-related factors impact on student retention. An analysis of student withdrawal at the UK Open University conducted by the researchers produced a synthesis of seven key factors in the design phase that can influence retention. These factors have been given the ICEBERG acronym: Integrated, Collaborative, Engaging, Balanced, Economical, Reflective and Gradual. Examples of how these factors can be implemented are provided, and conclusions focus on how the model has been embedded in the module production process at the Open University

Photo Assignments: An Exploration of Student Retention Rate

In an attempt to increase student retention and graduation rates, many colleges and universities have some sort of freshman course, or first-year seminar that serves to introduce students to college life. The course also helps students transition from high school.https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/btp_expo/1013/thumbnail.jp

Determinants of Student Retention of Microeconomic Concepts

In this study, we examine a variety of individual, institutional, and course-specific factors that influence students' retention of concepts from the microeconomics principles course. Students in 15 upper-division courses in the SUNY-Oswego economics department completed a survey instrument and the TUCE exam at the beginning of the Spring 1999 semester. A regression analysis is used to examine the effect of principles course characteristics on student recall (as measured by TUCE score), controlling for student demographic and ability characteristics. Among the factors examined are the impacts of large-class instruction, writing-intensive curricular, and the time interval since the completion of the principles course. The results suggest that students who have completed a writing-intensive introductory microeconomics course perform significantly less well on the TUCE exam at the start of their upper-division courses than do students who participated in classes that relied on multiple-choice examinations.TUCE; class size; writing requirements; economic education; student performance; multiple choice exams

Correlating Student Beliefs With Student Learning Using The Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey

A number of instruments have been designed to probe the variety of attitudes, beliefs, expectations, and epistemological frames taught in our introductory physics courses. Using a newly developed instrument -- the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey (CLASS)[1] -- we examine the relationship between students' beliefs about physics and other educational outcomes, such as conceptual learning and student retention. We report results from surveys of over 750 students in a variety of courses, including several courses modified to promote favorable beliefs about physics. We find positive correlations between particular student beliefs and conceptual learning gains, and between student retention and favorable beliefs in select categories. We also note the influence of teaching practices on student beliefs

The costs and benefits of student retention for students, institutions and governments

The future of higher education is bound up with questions of costs and benefits. This paper will take an economic perspective on student retention in higher education and will argue that, as students have to contribute more financially to their education, and participation in higher education is broadened to a larger proportion of the age cohort, then student attitudes will be increasingly driven by the likely financial return they will get for their investment. They will consequently also need to take into account the risk to that investment in the form of student attrition rates. Equally as institutions compete for students and funding they will also be forced to look at the financial consequences of their retention practices. Finally governments will also take student retention increasingly seriously when looking at the overall benefits of higher education and will increasingly relate institutional funding to student retention. The paper will argue that the financial consequences of student dropout are substantial with very large sums of money at stake for students, institutions and governments. The paper will also attempt to show that there are retention activities which can make a ‘profit’ to the institutions undertaking them. These activities are mostly ‘proactive’ contact with individual students and will involve actions more usually described as ‘student support’ rather than teaching

The Killer Course Hypothesis

Due to recent legislative changes, universities in Tennessee will receive funding based on student retention and graduation rates rather than enrollment. In light of these changes it is important that academics in all disciplines study retention rates in order to identify areas for improvement. I investigate the impact of “killer courses” on student retention both in the school of agriculture and in the general student population. In addition I explore alternative frameworks for addressing retention issues.Analysis of Education, Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession, I21,