Persist or withdraw: the importance of external factors in students' departure intentions

Abstract

The role of institutional factors in students' intentions to persist with or withdraw from their studies is well established in the literature. More recently, the influence of factors external to the institution has been highlighted as well. This study investigates the relationship between levels of engagement of first-year students undertaking a core business subject at a large university in Australia and their departure intentions. It was found that their propensity to persist was positively associated with their reported involvement and engagement with their studies but negatively associated with certain external factors – time spent on paid work, commuting and caring for others. One important implication of these results is that factors that sit largely outside the ambit of an institution's control may be placing significant, but perhaps unrecognised, constraints on the ability of that institution to improve retention rates.

Keywords:

• business education
• departure intentions
• engagement
• higher education
• retention

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the reviewers for their valuable comments and Professor David, Australian Catholic University, Cindy Taylor, La Trobe University, and Associate Professor Irene Tempone, Swinburne University, Australia, for their input into this research.

Notes

1. Response categories for questions differ. However, all response categories ascertain the frequency of each activity on a four-point likert scale (very little, some, quite a bit, very much–never, sometimes, often, very often). For some questions, respondents are required to record the number of hours per week dedicated to certain activities.

2. A total of 93% of students stated that they had ‘not considered a change’ or ‘had considered a change due to financial reasons’.