Student Retention In Florida Community Colleges:ccsse's Retention Index And Florida Accountability Measures

<p>Student retention has become a serious topic in the past several decades (Wild and Ebbers, 2002). Problematic, however, is how retention is defined and measured, as well as a lack of multi-institutional studies that support a theoretical model for improving student retention, particularly in community colleges (Bailey & Alfonso, 2005). The Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE) was launched in 2001. Based on extensive research that pertains to student learning and persistence, CCSSE defined five benchmarks of educational practice. Three of the benchmarks comprise the Retention Index. CCSSE has encouraged additional studies to further validate the relatively new survey instrument. Florida's legislature has a keen interest in the performance of educational institutions which are mandated by statute to participate in system-wide data collection from which accountability measures are drawn, including institutional retention rates. Using institutional level data in simple and multiple linear regressions, this study examined the relationship between the Florida Community Colleges' CCSSE Retention Indices and their retention rate(s) measured by the Florida Accountability Measure. Student level data was also analyzed using a Nested ANOVA to examine mean differences in CCSSE Retention Index scores of students from different racial and gender groups when accounting for the possible influence of institution attended.</p>

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Central Florida

Year

2006

Author dc:creator

• Roman, Marcia

Contributors dc:contributor

• Taylor, Rosemarye

• Retention
• Accountability Measures
• CCSSE
• Community Colleges
• Balanced Design
• Education
• Educational Leadership

Language dc:language

English

Identifier

CFE0001355

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:stars.library.ucf.edu:etd-1827