retention 101

Virginia Beach, VASeptember 30 – October 2, 2007

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retention 101

Professional Development Workshop

The Educational Policy Institute’s


PART II: Building a Personalized Retention Strategy


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Motivation/Benefits for this Work

– Cost reduction associated with reduced student turnover• Freshman attrition cost $10.9 million in lost revenue (2004

estimate)– Assessment feedback can help students capitalize on

strengths• Program that includes training on “strength-based” advising

and coaching for faculty and staff– Increased student satisfaction (person-environment fit)

• Creates a stronger/long-term bond between the institution and the student/alum


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Personality: What is it?

• Predispositions to behave in certain ways and how others would describe such behavior– Traits or dispositions that may influence people’s

careers, life satisfactions and outcomes– Learn to maximize use of adaptive traits; improve, work

around, or delegate weaknesses


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Does Personality Matter?

• A growing body of research suggests that personality predicts job performance and job attitudes independently of other individual characteristics

• However, the role of personality in academic success (GPA, retention) has remained largely unexplored


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Student Retention is a KeyInstitutional Performance Factor

• Nationally 47.2% of all entering freshmen do not graduate

• Suggests a possible mismatch between admission policies and student outcomes

• Raises questions as to how colleges meet students’ need to be successful on campus, i.e. graduate.


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How are Admission Decisions Commonly Made?

• Cognitive ability scores (ACT, SAT) • H.S. GPA or class rank• Letters of recommendation • H.S. awards, activities • Essays • Legacy Status • Athletic Skills


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Why Consider Personality?

• ACT tells us what a person “can do”• Personality can tell us what a person “will do” in most situations

and over the long run (more in-line with retention issues)HS Rank and ACT, alone, won’t tell you

how to keep current students how to change your institution to better

serve student needs• Each presents only part of the picture


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Selecting the “Right” Test

• Modern Big 5 Personality tests• NEO-PI• Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI)

Based on Hogan’s Socioanalytic TheoryGetting alongGetting ahead

Validated on job performance of more than 1,000,000 working adults


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HPI ‘s 7 DimensionsAdjustment: Relaxed, free from anxiety, depression, &

negative emotionalityAmbition: Self-confident, leader-like, competitive,

energeticSociability: Enjoys interactions with othersLikeability: Tactful, socially sensitive, altruisticPrudence: Conscientious, conforming, dependableIntellectance: Bright, creative, intellectually curiousSchool Success: Enjoys academic activities, values

academic achievement for its own sake


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What is personality assessment?

1. practical job = predict non-test behavior

2. measures a person’s “interpersonal style”

3. statistical relationship: matching groups with observer descriptions

4. critical “signs” indicate probability, not certainty

5. descriptive, not explanatory


11Socioanalytic Theory = social behavior regulated by two broad

and usually unconscious motives


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Socioanalytic Theory

Acceptance and recognition

by our peers

Status and power relative

to our peers


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HPI: features and benefits

A business-related assessment of normal personality (strengths/skills)A business-related assessment of normal personality (strengths/skills)

Validated on more than 200 occupations covering all major industries

Validated on more than 200 occupations covering all major industries

“Bright side” characteristics that are noticed quickly by others“Bright side” characteristics that are noticed quickly by others

Based upon the Five-Factor Model of PersonalityBased upon the Five-Factor Model of Personality


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Foundations for the HPIFoundations for the HPI

• reputational aspects of personality• doesn’t measure “traits”, rather, predicts social

outcomes (five factor theory)• intuitively understood by non-psychologists


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1998-2000 Pilot Study: Understanding the Role of Personality Factors in

Student Success College Adjustment

An Approach to Finding “At-Risk” Students Among a High

Achieving Population


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Phase I: Initial Validation Research

• Job analysisPIC test

120 faculty & 275 UMR students• Correlations with a known, good criteria,

SACQ test127 students taking both SACQ and HPI


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0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Adjustment Ambition Sociability Likeability Prudence I ntellectance School

Success

----- Student PIC----- Faculty PIC

Nati

onal N

orm

sPIC test Results


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Adjust Ambition Sociab

Like Prudence

Intellec SchoolSucces

s

AcademicAdjustment

.43** .40** .13 .26** .19* .26** .34**

Social Adjustment

.44** .54** .37** .43** .07 .19* .18*

PersonalAdjustment

.54** .40** .12 .22** .13 .10 .12

Commitment

to University

.28** .32** .18 .28** .10 .06 .18*

HPI & SACQ Correlation Results


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Evidence Indicated

• Faculty and students, alike, exhibited high agreement for the personality traits needed for success at UMR

• Stable personality traits predicted aspects of adjustment to college

• HPI appropriate for our purposes


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Phase II: Questions Asked

1. Can personality variables accurately predict actual student success?

2. How do HPI test scores compare with ACT scores and H.S. class rank as predictors?

3. What relationship exists between personality, ACT and H.S. rank ?

4. Can valuable information be gained above and beyond ACT and HS rank?


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Method

• Participants and Procedure– 520 (of 712) freshmen entering in Fall 1998 term

completed the HPI– After 4 years, student ACT scores, high school class

rank expressed as a percentile, and UMR cumulative GPA were matched with freshman HPI scores

NOTE: HPI Data was also collected from volunteering new students in 1999 & 2000


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Before going to what happened over a four year period notice

• The freshman class closely resembled what students and faculty PIC results had indicated were the most important characteristics for success

• The university’s admission policies were doing good job of selecting students that fit with UMR


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0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%

---Incoming Freshmen---Upper Level Undergraduates---Faculty


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Correlations with Retention

• Cumulative GPA .53• HS percentile .28• ACT Math .13• ACT English .13• HPI Sociability -.13• HPI Prudence .14


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4 year Cumulative GPA

• H.S. % Rank .50• ACT Math .29• ACT English .25• ACT Science .13• ACT Reading .13• HPI Sociab. -.20• HPI Prudence .21


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Conclusions

• Best subscales of HPI predicted success as well as the best subscales of ACT

• Suggests more to college success than just academic ability

• Sociability (negative relationship)• Prudence (reliability, thoroughness, and responsibility)


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Phase III: What we are doing now and where we hope to go

• Use assessment to help guide university retention practices and policies

• Use assessment to help students succeed • Create a relevant student communication program

with a clear outcomes theme


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UMR Enrollment: Recent Successes

• Both student enrollment and retention rates have increased over past three years. Current levels:– 87% freshman return rate– 64% graduation rate

• Objective: Raise both rates to next level– 90% freshman return rate– 70% graduation rate over 6 year period


29Primary Fears of Freshmen

• Go to Class

• Learn to Study

• Ask for Help

Successful Students/Graduates Recommendations for New Students

•Flunking out of college

•Not making friends

54% Plan to be Leaders


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Leadership Education: A Unifying Theme for UMR

• UMR: The Leadership-Based Campus– “Educating Today’s Leaders for Tomorrow”– Leadership: Habits, attitudes, talents, ways of seeing the world,

and ways of interacting with people, things, and ideas that enable one to do something particularly well.


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Features of a Leadership-Based Campus

• Principal Axiom: Capitalize on students’ strengths rather than their weaknesses– Identify student strengths, leadership skills– Teach methods for capitalizing on strengths and skills– Help faculty teach to strengths and skills– Train faculty and student mentors to do strength-based advising

and coaching– Teaching to strengths increases motivation, likelihood of success,

persistence– Most people don’t care to focus on their weaknesses


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Assessment: A New Strategy• HPI: Potential uses

– Develop a profile of and communicate with successful and “at-risk” UMR students • Acquire a electronic communication system that can target appropriate support messages and

information to students based on their personality strengths. Engage students with content focused on increasing retention.

• The system will regularly send appropriate messages to the pre-selected freshmen groups, addressing issues that affect first-year students as they adjust to campus and their new surroundings. Communications will focus on keeping freshmen informed about resources available to them on campus and hopefully spark constructive conversations about their UMR experience with advisors, student support staff and their families.

• By also using an online surveying tool, UMR will try to better monitor the important student issues that lead to students withdrawing. The surveys may also better identify strong students who may be considering dropping out. This type of engagement data will provide UMR advisors and student support staff with unprecedented insight concerning previously ignored “at-risk” students.

– Help currently enrolled students take advantage of their strengths• Leadership development• Participation in programs and activities

– Examine longitudinal trends in student profiles to facilitate long-term planning


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Follow-up Activities

• Empirically-based evaluation of specific UMR student development programs and activities

• Examination of campus environment to enhance fit with student needs and values

• Develop profiles of successful graduates/alumni• Continue with fine-tuning of communication program:

“Success Chain”


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Success Chain

• Goal: Develop a first semester communication flow of information specifically designed to assist students based on their personality type.

• Time the information to coincide with the relevant activities during the academic semester (i.e. “living with roommates” after move-in, “time management skills” after the first week of classes, etc).


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QUESTIONS & COMMENTS


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retention 101

Professional Development Workshop

The Educational Policy Institute’s


PART II: Building a Personalized Retention Strategy

retention 101

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