Using The College Persistence Questionnaire To Enhance Commitment Among NGCSU Cadets

1. Using The College Persistence Questionnaire To Enhance Commitment Among NGCSU Cadets

2. Back In The Antediluvian Days

3. Why the Increased Emphasis on Retention • Financial and legislative pressures on colleges. • Global economy and automation: Heighten the need for skilled versus semi- and unskilled labor • Schools are becoming more sensitive to students’ needs. • 4. Death of a dream: Failure to graduate often leads to reductions in students’ income and quality of life

4. Some Students Have Special Requirements

5. What Do We Need To Know About Our Students? It Depends Upon Your Responsibilities

6. Working With Individual Students: What Counselors, Advisors and Faculty Need To Know • Which cadets are most at-risk? • What factor(s) are causing a particular cadet to leave the Corps? • We need scale scores and responses to individual items.

7. CPQ Advisor Portal https://www.beckdavidson.com/welcome/welcome.aspx

8. Working With Groups of Students: What Policy-Makers and Instructors Of Persistence-Oriented Courses Need To Know • What factor(s) distinguish students at their schools who will persist and will not persist in their educations? • Are our retention programs effective?

9. Six Revelations On The Path To An Effective Retention Program (Part 1)

10. Six Revelations On The Path To An Effective Retention Program (Part 2)

11. Strategies For Improving Retentioin

12. Rely On Someone’s Professional Expertise Subject matter experts (SMEs) have invaluable experience. Most of us were employed because we are military and/or academic SMEs.

13. Rely On Someone’s Professional Expertise Problems With SMEs: SMEs can make mistakes. Some SMEs may not fully appreciate the consequences of their decisions.

14. Rely On Someone’s Professional Expertise King MacArthur Marshall Problems With SMEs: Even the most expert of SMEs sometimes disagree. How do you determine whose position to support?

15. Look To The Literature For Guidance • In comparison to continuing-generation (CG) students first-generation (FG) students tend to be: • Female 2. Older • Have dependents 4. From a lower SES • FG students also tend to have: • Lower standardized test scores • Poor math, reading and critical thinking skills • Low self-images • Higher attrition rates • Poor grades • Low levels of academic and social integration

16. Problem With Relying On The Literature

17. The Golden Path To Effective Intervention: Attitude Can You Imagine Someone’s Photograph In This Box? Aiming for 100% Retention is an unrealistic and counterproductive goal. Not everyone should be a military officer.

18. The Golden Path To Effective Intervention: Attitude Take the offensive! We have nothing to be defensive about regarding retention. Our mission is to clear a path for others to follow.

19. The Golden Path To Effective Intervention: Empirical Evidence Data Driven Decision Making

20. Goals In Developing the CPQ • Greatest Unmet Need: A better way of determining how students respond to the first 6 or 8 weeks of college • We need an instrument of great breadth that is applicable at many schools and many types of students. • The instrument must provide information pertinent to personnel working with individuals as well as groups of students. • The instrument must identify the factors that most strongly govern retention at a particular school or for a particular individual. • The instrument must not be too long. • Data must be immediately available; we can’t wait. • The instrument must have a mechanism for addressing issues pertinent to a particular school.

21. Development of the CPQ-1: Procedure • Conducted an extensive review of the retention literature, at least 150 studies • Identified at least 85 variables (WOW) that had been associated with retention • Wrote items addressing these 85 variables • Automated the administration and data recording system • Administered the questionnaire to more than 2000 students

22. Simplify, Simplify, Simplify: Why Thoreau Would Like Factor Analysis 1. Reduced 85 variables to 6 factors 2. Scales tend to be more reliable than single items 3. Findings reported in Journal of College Student Retention

23. Reasons For Developing CPQ-2 • Several CPQ-1 scales could benefit from additional items. • Version 1 did not assess financial pressures, the motivation to perform academic work, or the student’s belief that he or she was capable of performing successfully.

24. CPQ Components: Student Background Form The Student Background Form consists of three types of items: • Demographic and Family: (e.g., sex, ethnicity, marital status, parent’s education) • Work and Financial Resources: (e.g., hours working, sources of income) • Reasons For Attending: (e.g., reputation, location, friends)

25. Principal Components Analysis: Participants and Procedure • Two thousand eight hundred and thirty-eight undergraduates from Angelo State University, Appalachian State University, Greenville Technical College, and Troy University-Montgomery served. • 2. Students responded online, most taking less than 40 minutes to complete the 82-item questionnaire.

26. Results • Responses were converted to 5-point “favorability” scores, depending on whether the answer indicated something positive or negative about the student’s college experience. The solution produced ten factors with eigenvalues greater than 1.0. • A principal components analysis was performed on the favorability scores of the 82 items using a direct oblimin rotation. • All items with pattern coefficients of .40 or higher were retained for further analysis.

27. Results Just Keep On Coming 5. A second principal components analysis with a direct oblimin rotation was conducted on the resultant 54 items to ensure that the deletion of questions did not cause substantial changes in the pattern coefficients. 6. The findings of the two analyses were similar. Item deletion did not have a pronounced effect on the coefficients. 7. All correlations between components were less than .32. 8. Alpha levels were in excess of .70 for all factors.

28. CPQ Components: Student Experience Form 1. Institutional Commitment: Loyalty, intention to reenroll, confidence in school choice 2. Degree Commitment: Personal importance, students’ supportive network, value of degree 3. Academic Integration: Positive views of instruction, instructors, and own intellectual growth; awareness of connections between academics and career. 4. Social Integration: Sense of belonging, shared values, and similarity to others; positive involvement behaviors. 5. Collegiate Stress: Feelings of distress, pressure, and sacrifice.

29. CPQ Components: Student Experience Form 6. Academic Motivation: Interest and enjoyment in academic tasks; willingness to spend extra time. 7. Scholastic Conscientiousness: Timely performance of academic responsibilities. 8. Academic Efficacy: Confidence in academic skills and outcomes. 9. Financial Strain: Financial worries and difficulties; sense of disadvantage relative to others. 10. Advising Effectiveness: Positive views of advising and school communication processes.

30. Did Anyone Notice?That The Ten Student Experience Scales Of The CPQ Assess Many Of The Variables Composing Institutional Effectiveness

31. CPQ Components: Institution Specific Form • This form addresses questions not covered by the CPQ but are important to the Corps of Cadets. • 1. How confident are you that the Corps of Cadets is right for you? • 2. How do you feel about the Corps’ PT requirement? • 3. How likely is it that you will participate in the Corps next semester? • 4. How do you feel about the policy of requiring cadets to wear a military uniform while on campus?

32. CPQ Components: Institution Specific Form 5. How do you feel about mandatory quarters for beginning Cadets? 6. During your last year in high school, on the average how much time did you spend in exercise or sports? 7. How likely is it that you will complete eight semesters (or equivalent) of military science? 8. How do you feel about the residency policy where you must withdraw from the university for one academic year if you drop out of the Corps of Cadets?

33. How Well Does The Field Predict Retention?ACT Meta-Analysis 13 academic and non-Academic variables explain 17% of the variability of college retention across students.

34. Validation Study:Participants and Procedure • Seven hundred and forty-nine freshmen from three comprehensive universities responded online to the CPQ. • 2. CPQ was administered six to eight weeks into • the first semester of the freshman year. • 3. Most students took less than 40 minutes to complete the questionnaire. • 4. Return for next Fall semester was the criterion variable.

35. Does the CPQ Predict Retention? Identifying At-Risk Students (Individual Items)

36. Using The CPQ To Understand An At-Risk Group: Individual Items Compared to other freshmen Student Support Services students reported that: 1. They had a bigger influence on such matters as course offerings, rule and regulations, and registration procedures. 2. They were more satisfied with the academic advisement they received. 3. They more strongly preferred tasks that make extensive use of their own ideas and allowed expression of their individuality. 4. Fewer of their close friends were at Appalachian State. 5. It was more difficult for their families to handle the cost of college.

37. CPQ Items Predicting Institutional Commitment: Community College Data Argues For Targeting

38. The Importance Of Student Experiences: Participants and Procedure • 701 freshmen from three comprehensive universities. • 2. CPQ was administered six to eight weeks into the first semester of the freshman year. • 3. Most students took less than 40 minutes to complete the questionnaire.

39. How Well Does The CPQ Predict Retention? Regress retention (return the following Fall semester) on the following predictor variables

40. .22 .24 .14 .33 .38 .23 .10 Institutional Commitment .11 .19 .05 -.07 .30 Support Services Satisfaction Where We Are Going Degree Commitment Academic Integration Academic Conscientiousness Social Integration

41. Summary and Implications 1. CPQ is a valid predictor of whether freshmen will return for their sophomore years. 2. CPQ identified why individual students dropped out.

42. Summary and Implications 3. CPQ identified those variables that best distinguished those students who would from those students who would not continue their educations at these three institutions. 4. This information would be very helpful to policy makers deciding what retention programs to develop.

43. What Retention Activities At Your School Do You Believe Have Been Successful? A Sample Mentoring programs have been successful. Small class sizes, instructors taking personal interest in students-increasing engagement. Low student to advisor ratios in many programs. Reaching more students by e-mail rather than US mail. Tutoring The Student Solutions Center has shown some success.

44. What Retention Activities At Your School Do You Believe Have Been Successful? A Sample Meeting 1:1 with students to discuss their method of study, getting them to set up study plans, teaching them to underline or otherwise ID key terms in test questions, eliminating wrong answers by crossing them out, dealing with test anxiety. All efforts have had some impact, however, all could be improved. The Summer Bridge Program. Academic support in freshman dorms has been very beneficial for at-risk or students – We have increased the number of dorm activities to foster the growth of community and sense of home for the students.

45. Setting The Stage For Tomorrow Let Me Invite You To List Three Retention Activities That You Believe Have Been Successful at NGCSU

46. College Persistence Questionnaire Identifies Factors Influencing Commitment Of Military Cadets

47. Goals Of This Investigation • Determine if the CPQ predicts commitment to the Corps • Identify those factors that are most strongly associated with commitment • Offer guidelines for increasing the retention of Cadets at NGCSU • Identify those cadets most at-risk for discontinuing their educations

48. CPQ Components • Student Background Form: Consists of three types of questions: Demographic and Family items (sex, ethnicity, marital status, parent’s education), Work and Financial Resources items (hours working, sources of income), and Reasons for Attending Higher Education items (reputation, location). • Student Experience Form: Ten psychometrically validated scales that assess students’ interactions with the academic and social environments.

49. More About CPQ Components 3. Ten Student Experience Form Scales: Institutional Commitment, Degree Commitment, Academic Integration, Collegiate Stress, Social Integration, Academic Motivation, Scholastic Conscientiousness, Academic Efficacy, Financial Strain, and Advising Effectiveness. 4. Institutional Specific Form: Additional questions pertaining to the Corps of Cadets.

50. Participants and Procedure • 582 Cadets from NGCSU responded in groups online to the CPQ. • 2. CPQ was administered six to eight weeks into the first semester of the freshman year. • 3. Most students took less than 40 minutes to complete the questionnaire.