Factors Related To College Attrition: A Validation Of The Tinto Model Of College Withdrawal At Three Class Levels (dropouts).

Abstract

This study explores attrition in a more extended fashion than is typical in the literature by examining attrition beyond the freshman year. The research is based primarily on the model developed by Vincent Tinto in 1975. Tinto argues that the process of dropout from college is a longitudinal process of interaction between the individual and the academic and social systems of the college, which leads to continuous modification of goal and institutional commitments in ways that affect persistence and/or dropout behavior. The general notion is that the higher the degree of integration of the individual into the college system, the greater will be his commitment to the institution and to the goal of graduation. The purpose of this investigation was twofold. The first was to test Tinto's model of attrition, using a sample of sophomore, junior, and senior students from a large, public, prestigious university. The second purpose was to add to another variable to the Tinto model, curricular integration, and to examine its relation to attrition at these levels. A questionnaire was developed and distributed to a randomly selected sample of approximately 2300 currently enrolled sophomore, junior, and senior students (persisters) from a large, midwestern university. The survey was also distributed to all students (approximately 1500) who did not return to the university for the fall term of 1986 after having enrolled in the fall of 1985 and who did not receive a degree (nonpersisters). The major findings were that: (1) the major constructs of the Tinto model contributed significantly to the differentiation between persisters and nonpersisters in a fashion consistent with the Tinto theory; (2) there was some variation in the degree of importance of these variable sets as a function of academic class level, as hypothesized; (3) the measures of social and academic integration consist of several dimensions which relate differently to attrition; (4) the curricular integration variable set proved to be an important contributor to explained variance in persistence/withdrawal behavior at all academic levels, with more curricularly integrated students; and (5) students stated reasons for leaving school differentiated between persisters and nonpersisters equally as well or better than major constructs of the Tinto model.