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Abstract
The current study extends the research on student persistence in community colleges by investigating factors likely to influence a student's decision to drop out or stay in school. Specifically, this study examined demographic, financial, academic, academic integration, and psychosocial variables and their relationship to student persistence. A sample of 427 community college students completed a 63-item survey assessing psychosocial variables (i.e., self-efficacy and goals) the academic integration variable (i.e., student-faculty interaction), and a number of background variables (i.e., demographic, financial, and academic). In addition, student retention was measured through college enrollment the following semester. Results of the study revealed that age, work hours, and financial aid influenced student persistence, but the effects diminished once multiple variables were entered into the analysis. Among all the variables, cumulative GPA was the strongest predicting variable for student persistence. Students who had higher cumulative GPAs were twice as likely to stay in college. In addition to cumulative GPA, both enrollment units and English proficiency were predicting factors. However, contrary to expectations, none of the academic integration or psychosocial variables was predictors of student persistence. Nonetheless, the study also revealed that almost all of the variables interrelate with one another. Both goals and self-efficacy were significantly correlated with cumulative GPA, which, in turn, predicted student persistence. Faculty-student interaction was also significantly correlated with enrollment units, which, in turn, predicted student persistence. Therefore, the results indicated the importance of investigating multiple factors in the effort to solve the problem of student persistence in community college.
Notes
Note. *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.
Note. CS = course self-efficacy, SS = social self-efficacy, FI = faculty interaction, FC = faculty concern, IND = indecision, DEC = decision.