retention 101

1. retention 101 The Educational Policy Institute’s Professional Development Workshop PART II: Building a Personalized Retention Strategy Virginia Beach, VA September 30 – October 2, 2007

2. Motivation/Benefits for this Work • Cost reduction associated with reduced student turnover • Freshman attrition cost $10.9 million in lost revenue (2004 estimate) • Assessment feedback can help students capitalize on strengths • Program that includes training on “strength-based” advising and coaching for faculty and staff • Increased student satisfaction (person-environment fit) • Creates a stronger/long-term bond between the institution and the student/alum

3. Personality: What is it? • Predispositions to behave in certain ways and how others would describe such behavior • Traits or dispositions that may influence people’s careers, life satisfactions and outcomes • Learn to maximize use of adaptive traits; improve, work around, or delegate weaknesses

4. Does Personality Matter? • A growing body of research suggests that personality predicts job performance and job attitudes independently of other individual characteristics • However, the role of personality in academic success (GPA, retention) has remained largely unexplored

5. Student Retention is a KeyInstitutional Performance Factor • Nationally 47.2% of all entering freshmen do not graduate • Suggests a possible mismatch between admission policies and student outcomes • Raises questions as to how colleges meet students’ need to be successful on campus, i.e. graduate.

6. How are Admission Decisions Commonly Made? • Cognitive ability scores (ACT, SAT) • H.S. GPA or class rank • Letters of recommendation • H.S. awards, activities • Essays • Legacy Status • Athletic Skills

7. Why Consider Personality? • ACT tells us what a person “can do” • Personality can tell us what a person “will do” in most situations and over the long run (more in-line with retention issues) HS Rank and ACT, alone, won’t tell you • how to keep current students • how to change your institution to better serve student needs • Each presents only part of the picture

8. Selecting the “Right” Test • Modern Big 5 Personality tests • NEO-PI • Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI) Based on Hogan’s Socioanalytic Theory Getting along Getting ahead Validated on job performance of more than 1,000,000 working adults

9. HPI ‘s 7 Dimensions Adjustment: Relaxed, free from anxiety, depression, & negative emotionality Ambition: Self-confident, leader-like, competitive, energetic Sociability: Enjoys interactions with others Likeability: Tactful, socially sensitive, altruistic Prudence: Conscientious, conforming, dependable Intellectance: Bright, creative, intellectually curious School Success: Enjoys academic activities, values academic achievement for its own sake

10. What is personality assessment? • practical job = predict non-test behavior • measures a person’s “interpersonal style” • statistical relationship: matching groups with observer descriptions • critical “signs” indicate probability, not certainty • descriptive, not explanatory

11. Socioanalytic Theory = social behavior regulated by two broad and usually unconscious motives

12. Socioanalytic Theory Acceptance and recognition by our peers Status and power relative to our peers

13. HPI: features and benefits A business-related assessment of normal personality (strengths/skills) “Bright side” characteristics that are noticed quickly by others Based upon the Five-Factor Model of Personality Validated on more than 200 occupations covering all major industries

14. Foundations for the HPI • reputational aspects of personality • doesn’t measure “traits”, rather, predicts social outcomes (five factor theory) • intuitively understood by non-psychologists

15. 1998-2000 Pilot Study: Understanding the Role of Personality Factors in Student Success College Adjustment An Approach to Finding “At-Risk” Students Among a High Achieving Population

16. Phase I: Initial Validation Research • Job analysis PIC test 120 faculty & 275 UMR students • Correlations with a known, good criteria, SACQ test 127 students taking both SACQ and HPI

17. PIC test Results ----- Student PIC ----- Faculty PIC National Norms

18. HPI & SACQ Correlation Results

19. Evidence Indicated • Faculty and students, alike, exhibited high agreement for the personality traits needed for success at UMR • Stable personality traits predicted aspects of adjustment to college • HPI appropriate for our purposes

20. Phase II: Questions Asked 1. Can personality variables accurately predict actual student success? 2. How do HPI test scores compare with ACT scores and H.S. class rank as predictors? 3. What relationship exists between personality, ACT and H.S. rank ? 4. Can valuable information be gained above and beyond ACT and HS rank?

21. Method • Participants and Procedure • 520 (of 712) freshmen entering in Fall 1998 term completed the HPI • After 4 years, student ACT scores, high school class rank expressed as a percentile, and UMR cumulative GPA were matched with freshman HPI scores NOTE: HPI Data was also collected from volunteering new students in 1999 & 2000

22. Before going to what happened over a four year period notice • The freshman class closely resembled what students and faculty PIC results had indicated were the most important characteristics for success • The university’s admission policies were doing good job of selecting students that fit with UMR

23. ---Incoming Freshmen ---Upper Level Undergraduates ---Faculty

24. Correlations with Retention • Cumulative GPA .53 • HS percentile .28 • ACT Math .13 • ACT English .13 • HPI Sociability -.13 • HPI Prudence .14

25. H.S. % Rank .50 ACT Math .29 ACT English .25 ACT Science .13 ACT Reading .13 HPI Sociab. -.20 HPI Prudence .21 4 year Cumulative GPA

26. Conclusions • Best subscales of HPI predicted success as well as the best subscales of ACT • Suggests more to college success than just academic ability • Sociability (negative relationship) • Prudence (reliability, thoroughness, and responsibility)

27. Phase III: What we are doing now and where we hope to go • Use assessment to help guide university retention practices and policies • Use assessment to help students succeed • Create a relevant student communication program with a clear outcomes theme

28. UMR Enrollment: Recent Successes • Both student enrollment and retention rates have increased over past three years. Current levels: • 87% freshman return rate • 64% graduation rate • Objective: Raise both rates to next level • 90% freshman return rate • 70% graduation rate over 6 year period

29. Primary Fears of Freshmen • Flunking out of college • Not making friends Successful Students/Graduates Recommendations for New Students • Go to Class • Learn to Study • Ask for Help 54% Plan to be Leaders

30. Leadership Education: A Unifying Theme for UMR • UMR: The Leadership-Based Campus • “Educating Today’s Leaders for Tomorrow” • Leadership: Habits, attitudes, talents, ways of seeing the world, and ways of interacting with people, things, and ideas that enable one to do something particularly well.

31. Features of a Leadership-Based Campus • Principal Axiom: Capitalize on students’ strengths rather than their weaknesses • Identify student strengths, leadership skills • Teach methods for capitalizing on strengths and skills • Help faculty teach to strengths and skills • Train faculty and student mentors to do strength-based advising and coaching • Teaching to strengths increases motivation, likelihood of success, persistence • Most people don’t care to focus on their weaknesses

32. Assessment: A New Strategy • HPI: Potential uses • Develop a profile of and communicate with successful and “at-risk” UMR students • Acquire a electronic communication system that can target appropriate support messages and information to students based on their personality strengths. Engage students with content focused on increasing retention. • The system will regularly send appropriate messages to the pre-selected freshmen groups, addressing issues that affect first-year students as they adjust to campus and their new surroundings. Communications will focus on keeping freshmen informed about resources available to them on campus and hopefully spark constructive conversations about their UMR experience with advisors, student support staff and their families. • By also using an online surveying tool, UMR will try to better monitor the important student issues that lead to students withdrawing. The surveys may also better identify strong students who may be considering dropping out. This type of engagement data will provide UMR advisors and student support staff with unprecedented insight concerning previously ignored “at-risk” students. • Help currently enrolled students take advantage of their strengths • Leadership development • Participation in programs and activities • Examine longitudinal trends in student profiles to facilitate long-term planning

33. Follow-up Activities • Empirically-based evaluation of specific UMR student development programs and activities • Examination of campus environment to enhance fit with student needs and values • Develop profiles of successful graduates/alumni • Continue with fine-tuning of communication program: “Success Chain”

35. Success Chain • Goal: Develop a first semester communication flow of information specifically designed to assist students based on their personality type. • Time the information to coincide with the relevant activities during the academic semester (i.e. “living with roommates” after move-in, “time management skills” after the first week of classes, etc).

36. QUESTIONS & COMMENTS

37. retention 101 The Educational Policy Institute’s Professional Development Workshop PART II: Building a Personalized Retention Strategy Virginia Beach, VA September 30 – October 2, 2007