Linking institutional characteristics, educational strategy, and student retention in colleges and universities.

Abstract

This study examined the relationships among educational strategy, institutional characteristics, and student retention at four-year and comprehensive colleges and universities. Educational strategy was defined as patterns of institutional practices designed to support undergraduate teaching and learning. These practices were aggregated into categories of strategy and compared to freshman-to-sophomore student retention and to the bachelor degree completion rate. Thus, the study investigated the role higher education institutions play through their educational strategy in supporting student retention. The sample consisted of 528 higher education institutions which responded to the Academic Management Practices Survey for the Research Program on the Organizational Context for Teaching and Learning of the National Center for Research to Improve Postsecondary Teaching and Learning. The institutions were asked to indicate whether a practice supporting undergraduate teaching and learning existed at their schools. Categories of educational strategy were built through content analysis of the survey items and through statistical analysis of the responses to the survey. The conceptual framework posited chains linking certain relatively fixed institutional characteristics (institutional type, control, size of undergraduate enrollment, and selectivity) to educational strategy and strategy to student retention. The findings indicated that the first chain operated to some extent. The colleges and universities varied somewhat on their reliance on the different categories of educational strategy. The second chain, the link between educational strategy and student retention, operated minimally for the total sample. Findings demonstrated that the institutional characteristics of selectivity and, to a lesser extent, control accounted for the greatest amount of variance in student retention. However, results indicated that although educational strategy added little to the predictability of retention in the total sample of institutions, it may be that it plays a critical role for those colleges and universities which make a concerted effort to counteract the low retention rates that would follow from their institutional characteristics. For less selective public institutions, engaging in a broad array of practices that support undergraduate teaching and learning may lead to improved freshman-to-sophomore retention rates.