A Study of First-Time Full-Time Freshmen's Attributes and Their Associations with Fall-to-Fall Retention Rates at a Two-Year Public Community College.

<p>The purpose of the study was to investigate the associations between first-time full-time freshmen's attributes and fall-to-fall retention at Northeast State Technical Community College. The 15 attributes included age, first-generation student status, gender, high school classification, race, the student's application date to the institution relative to the start of the semester, the 4 ACT test sub-scores, remedial/developmental course placement, major program of study, financial aid status, first-semester grade point average, and end-of-first-semester credit hour enrollment status. In addition to collecting the variables under study, each first-time full-time freshman's entry term and enrollment status for the subsequent fall semester was ascertained. This information was used to categorize individuals into persister and non-persister classifications for the subsequent fall. The data for this longitudinal study were housed in Northeast State's student records database, Student Information System.</p><p>A preliminary analysis of the data was conducted to ascertain descriptive statistics. Chi Square and independent samples <em>t</em> tests were used to determine if there was an association between each variable and fall-to-fall retention. A multiple linear regression model was used to estimate the effect of the predictor variables upon the criterion variable, fall-to-fall retention. The results indicated that the variables of age, first-generation student status, gender, and race were not significantly related to fall-to-fall retention, while high school classification, application date, the 4 ACT sub-scores, remedial/developmental course placement, major program of study, financial aid award, first-semester grade point average, and end-of-semester credit hour enrollment status were significantly related to fall-to-fall retention. A multiple linear regression model indicated that the greatest influences upon fall-to-fall retention when researching the collective predictor variables were</p><ol><li>first-semester grade point average,</li><li>the number of remedial/developmental courses required,</li><li>the number of hours in which the student was formally enrolled in at the end of the first semester,</li><li>an application date greater than or equal to 61 days prior to the start of the fall semester,</li><li>receipt of financial aid in the form of Pell Grant funds only (negative association),</li><li>associate of applied science student status (negative association), and</li><li>GED graduate (negative association).</li></ol>

Name thesis:degree_name

EdD (Doctor of Education)

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation - unrestricted

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Educational Leadership

Year dc:date.issued

2007

Author dc:creator

• Graybeal, Susan E. French

• Community College
• First-Time Full-Time Freshmen
• Retention
• Persistence
• Educational Sociology
• Social and Behavioral Sciences
• Sociology

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright by the authors.

Repository record dc:identifier

https://dc.etsu.edu/etd/2038

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dc.etsu.edu:etd-3399