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TWO‐YEAR COLLEGEATTRITION: DO STUDENTOR INSTITUTIONALCHARACTERISTICSCONTRIBUTE MOST?Anne G. Gates a & Don G. Creamer aa Virginia Polytechnic Institute and StateUniversityPublished online: 13 Nov 2006.

To cite this article: Anne G. Gates & Don G. Creamer (1984) TWO‐YEAR COLLEGEATTRITION: DO STUDENT OR INSTITUTIONAL CHARACTERISTICS CONTRIBUTEMOST?, Community Junior College Research Quarterly of Research and Practice,8:1-4, 39-51, DOI: 10.1080/0361697840080104

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TWO-YEAR COLLEGE ATTRITION: DO STUDENTOR INSTITUTIONAL CHARACTERISTICSCONTRIBUTE MOST?

Anne G. GatesDon G. CreamerVirginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

This study examined certain effects of seven student pre-enrollment char-acteristics and three student-institutional characteristics on retentionstatus. Path analysis of these longitudinal data was unable to comparefavorably with other studies using similar determinants. Certain practicalimplications of the study also are presented, emphasizing the burden ofevidence that suggests that entering student characteristics cannot beused alone to explain the retention decision, that retention programsshould be strategically rather than generically focused, and that programholding power may be related to student career consciousness and goalspecificity.

INTRODUCTION

High attrition rates in two-year colleges are well documented (Astin,1975; Iffert, 1958; Jaffe & Adams, 1970; Pantages & Creedon, 1978;Peng, Ashburn, & Dunteman, 1977; Summerskill, 1962), includingreports of 50% attrition rates between the first and second year ofenrollment (DeVecchio, 1972; Illinois State Board of Higher Educa-tion, 1969; Medsker & Tillery, 1971; Monroe, 1972). Some reportsemphasize that two-year colleges attract students with attributesassociated with attrition or nonpersistence (Astin, 1978; Pantages &Creedon, 1978; Peng et al., 1977), including three attributes consis-tently reported as predictors of low retention—lower ability, lowersocioeconomic status, and lower educational aspirations (Eckland &Alexander, 1980; Summerskill, 1962). Still, researchers are unable toaccount for most of the variance in the withdrawal decision, evenwhen significant interactions between student and institution areconsidered (Pascarella & Terenzini, 1979), but especially when onlyentering student characteristics are considered (Cope, Pailthorp, &Trapp, 1971). The question of whether student or institutional char-acteristics contribute most to the retention of students in two-yearcolleges remains.

Retention research is subject to sharp criticism, especially from

Community/Junior College Quarterly, 8:39-51,1984 39Copyright © 1984 by Hemisphere Publishing Corporation

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40 A. G. GATES AND D. G. CREAMER

two-year college practitioners who argue that researchers simply donot understand certain special characteristics of the colleges or oftheir student clientele and that definitions of persister and leaver areinadequate. Other educators, specifically researchers themselves, arecritical of retention studies, calling for more longitudinal investiga-tion and the use of more sophisticated regression-type analysis ofdata.

This study sought to consider certain pre-enrollment student char-acteristics, entry status, enrollment status, and curricular type aspredictors of two-year college student retention status. The studyalso sought to deal, in part, with the common criticisms of retentionresearch by using a restricted definition of persister and leaver, bytaking a longitudinal perspective, by employing a path analytic tech-nique for data treatment, and by including curricular choice as aninstitutional variable. In this study, pre-enrollment characteristicswere identified as race, sex, ability, socioeconomic status, highschool grades, high school program, and educational aspirations;entry status was defined as direct (enrollment immediately followinghigh school graduation) or as delayed (enrollment one or more yearsfollowing high school graduation); enrollment status classified stu-dents as either part-time or full-time; curricular type was distin-guished by students choosing either an academic or a vocational pro-gram of studies; and retention status referred to students either aspersisters or leavers. Persisters were defined as (a) students in contin-uous attendance in a two-year college between October 1,1972 andOctober 1, 1976; (b) students in interrupted attendance who entereda two-year college sometime between October 1, 1972 and October1, 1976; (c) students who completed a certificate, license, diploma,or degree of any kind prior to October 1,1976; or (d) students whobegan postsecondary education in a two-year college between Octo-ber 1, 1972 and October 1, 1975 and were either enrolled in gradu-ate or professional school, or taking courses at a two- or four-yearcollege, or taking vocational or technical courses at any kind ofschool or college on October 1, 1976. Leavers were defined as thosestudents who were enrolled in two-year colleges sometime betweenOctober 1, 1972 and October 1, 1975, who left without receiving aformal award, and had not continued their studies as of October 1,1976, the time of the last available data.

THE SAMPLE AND THE METHODOLOGY

The National Longitudinal Study (NLS) of the High School Classof 1972 provided the data base for this study (Peng, Stafford, &

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STUDENT-INSTITUTIONAL CHARACTERISTICS AND RETENTION STATUS 41

Talbert, 1977). A sample of 4,854 records was drawn from the totalpopulation of 22,652 records in the NLS file, consisting of all re-spondents who chose an academic or vocational field of study in atwo-year college. Fifty data elements from the records were used asthe critical variables for this study. For a detailed discussion of thedata base, limitations of the data, and variable specification, seeGates (1981, pp. 22-30).

The following questions guided this research: (a) What was the neteffect of curricular type on retention status? (b) What was the neteffect of entry status on retention status? (c) What was the net effectof enrollment status on retention status? (d) What was the net effectof the pre-enrollment characteristics on retention status? (e) Whatwas the net effect of pre-enrollment characteristics on retentionstatus through curricular type, enrollment status, and entry status?(f) What was the effect of curricular type on retention status inde-pendent of entry status and enrollment status? (g) What was theeffect of entry status on retention status independent of enrollmentstatus and curricular type? (h) What was the effect of enrollmentstatus on retention status independent of curricular type and entrystatus?

Path analysis was used to test a causal model (see Figure 1) as theprimary method for investigating these questions. Path analysis is amethod of decomposing and interpreting linear relationships by test-ing the relationship of independent variables as they singly and col-lectively explain the variance of the dependent variable. The inde-pendent variables included in the model of retention status wereability (ABLTY), socioeconomic status (SES), race (RACE), sex(SEX), high school program (HSPGM), high school grades (HSG),educational aspirations (EDASP), entry status (ENST), enrollment

, Student StudentPre-enrollment institutional Retentioncharacteristics characteristics status

Block I Block II Block III

r y ABLTY

) RACE ACDVOC ii//'• SEX FTPT</^ RNST-

> HSPGM ENST

iHSG

->EDASP

FIGURE 1 Causal model ordering events within the retention cycle.

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42 A. G. GATES AND D. G. CREAMER

status (FTPT), and curricular type (ACDVOC). The dependent vari-able was a dichotomous variable of persisters and leavers (RNST).This approach was chosen to determine the effects of selected mea-sures of background characteristics, aided by entry status, enrollmentstatus, and curricular type, on students' propensity to persist.

The block recursive model, shown in Figure 1, indicates the vari-ables of interest in their assumed order of causal priority. The causalrelationships within the blocks were unanalyzed and are shown bycurved double-headed arrows. The letters t, u, v, and w represent thevariance of the error terms, calculated as the square root of oneminus the multiple correlation squared (1 — R2 )1/2 and depict theunspecified causes for retention status or those falling outside themodel.

ANALYSIS OF DATA

The zero-order associations, means, standard deviations, and numberof cases are shown in Table 1.

Standardized regression, or path, coefficients were used to inter-pret the extent to which the independent and dependent variableswere causally related (total effect) in comparison to their total asso-ciation (zero-order correlation), accepting alpha = .05 to determinestatistical significance. Standardized regression coefficients also wereused to determine the net effects on a dependent variable, retentionstatus, after all other independent variables were controlled, and todetermine the indirect causal effects; that is, the indirect influence ofa particular independent variable—in this case curricular type, enroll-ment status, and entry status.

Table 2 shows the regressions of Block II, or intervening variables,on Block I or pre-enrollment student characteristics, indicating astatistically significant relationship between entry status and ability;between enrollment status and race, sex, and educational aspirations;and between curricular type and ability, sex, and educational aspira-tions. These associations suggest that high ability students in thissample were more likely to enter two-year colleges directly from highschool; that white students were more likely to be enrolled part-timethan were black students; that males were more likely to be enrolledfull-time than were females; that those with higher educationalaspirations, higher ability, and who were male were more likely tobe enrolled in an academic curriculum. Block I variables explainedless than 1% of the variation in entry status, 1.8% of the variation inenrollment status, and 5.9% of the variation in curricular type.

The regressions of retention status, the dependent variable, on

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TABLE 1 Correlations, Means, Standard Deviations and Number of Observations for Variables Shown in Figure 1

RNST ENST FTPT ACDVOC ABLTY SES RACE SEX HSPGM HSG EDASP

RNSTENST - .178FTPT - .073 - .034ACDVOC .009 - .034 - .063ABLTY .145 .068 - .036 .139SES .085 .036 - .035 .089 .325RACE .017 .065 .037 .032 .432 .373SEX .005 - .022 - .062 .105 - .008 .058 .069HSPGM .127 - .002 - .069 .118 .348 .214 .108 .044HSG .140 - .000 - .040 .079 .406 .056 .117 - .218 .195EDASP .134 - .016 - .102 .207 .198 .198 - .008 .138 .329 .218

MeansS.D.No. of

cases

.688

.463

4480

.315

.464

4587

.325

.468

4768

.621

.485

4587

50.7937.418

3357

.861

.670

4795

.861

.345

4255

.519

.499

4838

.499

.497

4849

5.5181.323

4462

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TABLE 2 Multiple Regressions of Student Institutional Characteristics on Causally Prior Factors

variables

ENSTFTPTACDVOC

ENST

FTPT

ACDVOC

ABLTY

.075*- .012

.078*

.004(.001)

- .000(.001).005

(.001)

SES

.009-.029

.029

.006(.015)

- .020(.016).021

(.016)

RACE

Path

.037

.065*-.024

Independent variables

SEX HSPGM HSG EDASP

coefficients (standardized regression coefficients)

- .028- . 0 6 1 *

.090*

- .020-.034

.027

Regression Coefficients**

.050(.032).088

(.032)- .034(.032)

- .026(.020)

- .058(.020).087

(.020)

- .018(.021)

- .032(.021)

- .026(.021)

- .033- .033

.029

- .011(.008)

- .011(.008).010

(.008)

- .020- .065*

.152*

- .011(.013)

- .037(.013).090

(.013)

R2

.009

.018

.059

.160

.531

- .047

*Indicates absolute size of coefficients equals or exceeds 1.96 times its standard error.** Standard errors in parentheses.

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STUDENT-INSTITUTIONAL CHARACTERISTICS AND RETENTION STATUS 45

Blocks I and II variables are shown in Table 3. These data suggestthat students with a delayed entrance were more likely to persistthan direct entrants; that the higher ability student was more likelyto be a persister (largely a direct effect, independent of SES, highschool grades, high school program, educational aspiration, sex, race,entry status, enrollment status, and curricular type); that studentswith very good high school grades were more likely to persist (alsolargely a direct effect); that those with higher educational aspirationswere more likely to persist (an influence attributable largely to un-analyzed associations, or those outside the model); that full-timestudents were more likely to be retained than part-time students;that enrollment in a college preparatory high school program en-hances propensity to persist; that students with higher SES weremore likely to persist (a direct effect, largely independent of othervariables in the study); that students enrolled in a vocational curricu-lum were more likely to persist than those enrolled in an academiccurriculum; and that black students were more likely to persist thanwere white students.

The Block I variables—ability, SES, race, sex, high school program,high school grades, and educational aspirations—accounted for 4.3%of the variation in retention status. When Block II variables wereentered into the regression, a total of 8.1% of the variation in reten-tion status was explained. Thus, 92% of the variation in retentionstatus comes from factors outside the model.

The total causal effects of Blocks I and II variables in explainingthe variation in retention status were ranked in order of importanceas shown in Table 4. The table addresses structural relationships ofthe variables more than strength of explanatory power since none ofthe variables, singly or collectively, explains variation in retentionstatus to practically worthy levels.

DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONSFOR RESEARCH

The importance of this study may be found in its attempts to dealwith common criticisms of retention studies, such as in the methodof analysis, in its focus on two-year college students, and in its inclu-sion of both academic and vocational students in the sample. Notonly is most retention research directed at four- rather than two-yearcollege students, but most all of it ignores the vocational students, asizable population for two-year colleges. A weakness of the studymay be found in its failure, like so many before it, to account forpractically useful explanations of variations in retention status.

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TABLE 3 Multiple Regressions of Retention Status on Causally Prior Factors

Independent variablesDependentvariables ABLTY SES RACE SEX HSPGM HSG EDASP ENST FTPT ACDVOC R2 a

Path coefficients (standardized regression coefficients)

RNST .078* .048* - .052* .015 .055* .090* .063*RNST .095* .050* - .042 .010 .050* .083* .062* - .185* - . 0 6 1 * - .044*

Regression coefficients**

RNST .004 .033 - .069 .014 .051 .031 .035 .043 .165(.001) (.015) (.031) (.019) (.020) (.008) (.012)

RNST .005 .034 - .056 .009 .047 .029 .035 - .185 - .060 - .042 .081 .225(.001) (.015) (.031) (.019) (.020) (.007) (.012) (.019) (.019) (.019)

*Indicates absolute size of coefficients equals or exceeds 1.96 times its standard error.** Standard errors in parentheses.

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STUDENT-INSTITUTIONAL CHARACTERISTICS AND RETENTION STATUS 47

TABLE 4 Decomposition of the Total Causal Effects on Retention Status*

Entry statusHigh school gradesAbilityEducational aspirationsEnrollment statusHigh school programRaceSocioeconomic statusCurricular type

Directeffects

- .185.083.095.062

- .061.050

- .042.050

- .044

Indirecteffects

—.007

- .017.001—.005

-.010- .002

—

Totaleffects

- .185.090.078.063

- .061.055

- .052.048

-.044

Rank

123456789

*In standardized regression coefficients.

It is noteworthy that the findings of this study generally were con-sistent with earlier research using entering characteristics of studentsto explain retention status. Though precise comparisons with otherstudies are impossible due to variations in pre-enrollment characteris-tics, roughly parallel findings can be reported. For example, Teren-zini and Pascarella (1978) accounted for only 3.67% of the variancein attrition, Kohen, Nestel, and Karmas (1978) found 7.8%, and Pengand Fetters (1978) reported 9.2%. This study found 4.3% of ex-plained variation in retention status when using pre-enrollment vari-ables only.

Adding student institutional factors to the regression analysis im-proves the explanatory power of the variables. This was true forPascarella and Terenzini (1979), who added social and academic inte-gration of students to raise explanatory power to 37 and 30% formale and female persistence respectively, for Spady (1971), whoadded institutional commitment to explain 37 and 39% respectivelyin male and female persistence, and for Bean (1980), who addedselected organizational determinants to increase the amount of ex-plained variance in attrition to 36% for females and 27% for males.The present study, finding no statistically significant contribution bysex, doubles the explanatory power of student entering characteris-tics by adding entry status, enrollment status, and curricular type.Still, it was able to account for only 8.1% of the variation in reten-tion status.

It appears from this study, as it does from the work of Bean(1980), Pascarella and Terenzini (1979), and Spady (1971), that de-terminants of retention/attrition are not merely shaped by the kinds

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48 A. G. GATES AND D.G. CREAMER

of students enrolled in two-year colleges, but are influenced signifi-cantly by institutional conditions, such as programs, policies, organi-zational patterns, and interactive climate, after student matricula-tion. Terenzini and Pascarella (1978) noted previously that "whathappens to a student after matriculating may be more important . . .than are the attributes the student brings to college" (p. 364), astatement strongly supported by results of this study.

Future research and retention of two-year college students mayneed to explore optional definitions of retention, or factors such aspersonal goal attainment. Certainly, future research needs to considervariables more reflective of student/institution interaction. Someideas include specificity of student goals, student institutional goalcommitment, quality of student effort, social and academic integra-tion, participation in student activities, or use of student services.

IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE

Attrition/retention research hopefully adds either to understandingof theory or models that attempt to explain the phenomena or tounderstanding causal factors that may be used by practitioners toalter existing conditions purposefully. This study added little to ex-tant theory, except to generally support findings and conclusions ofselected other researchers, and to show that the research method,even though especially sensitive and longitudinal in nature, cannotaccount for most of the variance in the retention decision whenstandard entering characteristics dominate the independent variables.It was hoped that adding curricular choice to the model might con-tribute more than it did to explain the retention variance. Despite itsrelatively weak contribution to variance explanation, the additiondid show that retention rates do vary across curricular areas (Gates,1981). Practitioners may find valuable application of this fact, mostnotably in strategic design of retention programs to target effortswhere retention rates are low and to avoid designing gargantuaninstitution-wide, cure-all interventions.

Another implication for practice follows this same general finding,that is, that students in vocational curricular areas tend to persist athigher rates than students in academic areas. This opens for specula-tion, not only why the condition is true, but also whether by inten-tional efforts remedial action might be taken with students and withcurricular requirements in the academic areas. A logical speculationas to the reasons for the difference settles on the probability thatpersistence may be enhanced among students in vocational curricularareas by their generally clearer career goals when compared to their

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STUDENT-INSTITUTIONAL CHARACTERISTICS AND RETENTION STATUS 49

counterparts enrolled in academic areas. Specificity of career re-latedness of vocational programs generally is higher than in academicprograms and may not only attract persons whose goals are clearerand whose commitments are firmer, but may add substantially toprogram holding power due both to obvious relevance of programrequirements and student effort and to a sense of forward progressas work is completed and one's career goal becomes ever moreachievable.

An association of career relatedness in curricular programs andclarity of career goals in students suggests the appropriateness ofdirect action by practitioners to increase levels of both. If students inacademic curricular areas were helped to become increasingly careerconscious and personally contemplative about their future and weresupported in these behaviors by deliberate efforts by faculty to linkstudent and program outcomes, would not the likely effect on persis-tence be the same or similar as for those students whose choice of acurricular area was dictated by predetermined career goals?

Of course, reasons for student persistence may be either a greatdeal more complicated than those suggested (and there certainlyexists ample evidence to support such a view), or a good deal simpler.For example, the sense of achieving a salable skill in students in voca-tional areas may pervade any other causal factor associated with adecision to persist. Evidence to support this view is more tentative.

SUMMARY

Recognizing a strong need to explain high attrition rates in two-yearcolleges, and to expand on previous research on student retention,this study employed a path analysis technique, described in a causalmodel ordering events within the retention cycle, to examine longi-tudinal data from the NLS data source by regressing retention statuson seven pre-enrollment and three student institutional variables.Pre-enrollment variables acounted for 4.3% of the variation in reten-tion status. Adding student institutional variables almost doubled theexplanatory power of the causal model, but only to a total of 8.1%of the variance. Almost 92% of the variation in retention status mustbe explained by factors outside the model.

Returning to the question posed earlier, asking whether student orinstitutional characteristics contribute most to retention of studentsin two-year colleges, it may be concluded cautiously that institu-tional characteristics, broadly defined, may account for more varia-tion in retention status than do student characteristics. Caution ismentioned for several reasons: (a) variables examined in this study

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50 A. G. GATES AND D. G. CREAMER

were weighted heavily toward student characteristics; only threecould be labeled institutional to any degree; (b) student characteris-tics in this study were well defined; institutional characteristics werenot, leaving most possibilities unexamined; and (c) while this studyshows with some clarity and precision what does not account forvariations in retention status, it shows little about what does. Thisleaves speculation as the principal tool for diagnosis. Still, two-yearcollege practitioners may find some utility in the confirmation thatentering student characteristics alone do not account adequately forattrition statistics.

Two major implications for practice were discussed, one emphasiz-ing strategic focus of any retention plan, and another suggestingefforts to increase career relatedness in academic curricular areas.

REFERENCES

Astin, A. W. Preventing students from dropping out. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass,1975.

Astin, A. W. Four critical years. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1978.Bean, J. P. Dropouts and turnover: The synthesis and test of a causal model of

student attrition. Researcher in Higher Education, 1980,12, 155-187.Cope, R. G., Pailthorp, K. G., & Trapp, D. C. An investigation of entrance char-

acteristics related to types of college dropouts. Washington, D.C.: Office ofEducation Reports, 1971, BR-0-068 (ERIC Document Reproduction ServiceNo. ED 052 749).

DeVecchio, R. C. Characteristics of non-returning community college freshmen.The Journal of College Student Personnel, 1972,13, 429-432.

Eckland, B. K., & Alexander, K. L. The national longitudinal study of the highschool senior class of 1972. In A. C. Kerckhoff (Ed.), Research in sociologyof education and socialization. Greenwich, CT: Jai Press, 1980.

Gates, A. G. The retention status of students enrolled in academic and voca-tional curricula in two-year colleges. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation,Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1981.)

Iffert, R. E. Retention and withdrawal of college students. U.S. Department ofHealth, Education, and Welfare, Bulletin No. 1. Washington, DC: GovernmentPrinting Office, 1958.

Illinois State Board of Higher Education. Admission and retention of students.Report of Master Plan, Phase 3. Springfield, IL, June 1969 (ERIC DocumentReproduction Service No. ED 040 653).

Jaffe, A., & Adams, W. Academic and socioeconomic factors related to entranceand retention at two- and four-year colleges in the late 1960's. Proceeding ofthe American Statistical Association, Social Statistics Section, 1970 (ERICDocument Reproduction Service No. ED 049 679).

Kohen, A. I., Nestel, G., & Karmas, C. Factors affecting individual persistence

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STUDENT-INSTITUTIONAL CHARACTERISTICS AND RETENTION STATUS 51

rates in undergraduate college programs. American Educational ResearchJournal, 1978,15, 233-252.

Medsker, L. L., & Tillery, D. Breaking the access barriers: A profile of the twoyear colleges. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1971.

Monroe, C. R. Profile of the community college. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass,1972.

Pascarella, E. T., & Terenzini, P. T. Interaction effects in Spady's and Tinto'sconceptual models of college dropout. Sociology of Education, 1979, 52,197-210.

Pantages, T. J., & Creedon, C. F. Studies of college attrition 1950-1975. Reviewof Educational Research, 1978,48, 49-101.

Peng, S. S., Ashburn, E. A., & Dunteman, G. H. Withdrawal from institutions ofhigher education: An appraisal with longitudinal data involving diverse insti-tutions (NCES 77-264), Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office,1977.

Peng, S. S., & Fetters, W. B. Variables involved in withdrawal during the firsttwo years of college: Preliminary findings from the national longitudinalstudy of the high school class of 1972. American Educational Research Jour-nal, 1978,15, 361-372.

Peng, S. S., Stafford, C. E., & Talbert, R. J. National longitudinal of the highschool class of 1972. Review and annotation of study reports (NCES, Con-tract No. OEC-0-73-6666), Washington, DC, 1977.

Spady, W. Dropouts from higher education: Toward an empirical model. Inter-change, 1971,2, 38-62.

SummersMll, J. Dropouts from college. In N. Sanford (Ed.), The American col-lege. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1962.

Terenzini, P. T., & Pascarella, E. T. The relation of students' pre-college charac-teristics and freshman year experience to voluntary attrition. Research inHigher Education, 1978,9, 347-366.

Received October 1, 1982Accepted December 1, 1982

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