Using The College Persistence Questionnaire To Enhance Commitment Among NGCSU Cadets

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Using The College Persistence Questionnaire To
Enhance Commitment Among NGCSU Cadets
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Back In The Antediluvian Days
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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

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Some Students Have Special Requirements

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

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Working With Individual Students What
Counselors, Advisors and Faculty Need To Know

1. Which cadets are most at-risk?
2. What factor(s) are causing a particular cadet to
   leave the Corps?
3. We need scale scores and responses to individual
   items.

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CPQ Advisor Portal

https//www.beckdavidson.com/welcome/welcome.aspx
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Working With Groups of Students What
Policy-Makers and Instructors Of
Persistence-Oriented Courses Need To Know

1. What factor(s) distinguish students at their
   schools who will persist and will not persist in
   their educations?
2. Are our retention programs effective?

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Six Revelations On The Path To An Effective
Retention Program (Part 1)
Revelation What That Means
1. We have a retention problem. Yes, every school has a retention problem. Some schools have a greater problem than others. Nevertheless, every school includes students that do not graduate who have the capacity to graduate.
2. Someone needs to do something. Retention problems will not just disappear they cannot be ignored except at great cost, they must be addressed. Following this revelation, a policy maker often tasks someone or a group to deal with the retention issue.
3. We need to know what works. You know there is a problem. Now you need to determine what it is and what to do about it. A common practice is for schools to model their initial retention activities after a sister school that claims success or a program reported in the empirical literature.
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Six Revelations On The Path To An Effective
Retention Program (Part 2)
Revelation What That Means
4. We need to know if our activities decrease attrition. Many schools believe that their retention-reducing activities are effective. Few schools, however, could provide a skeptic with information demonstrating that their activities are attenuating attrition or having beneficial effects. Realizing this is a big step forward.
5. We need to focus our resources, time, and energy on those activities that will have the greatest impact on our students. Knowing what affects retention at your school is not enough. We must prioritize. There are more variables that affect persistence decisions than any school can address. Resources are limited so we must concentrate our energies on those variables that most strongly influence retention at our institution.
6. We need to establish an ongoing data collection system to evaluate our progress, augment our strengths, and overcome our weaknesses. Students change, schools change, programs change. An in-place assessment system will allow us to demonstrate our achievements, make steady improvements, and accommodate changes to our educational systems.
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Strategies For Improving Retentioin

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Rely On Someones Professional Expertise
Subject matter experts (SMEs) have invaluable
experience. Most of us were employed because we
are military and/or academic SMEs.
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Rely On Someones Professional Expertise
Problems With SMEs SMEs can make mistakes. Some
SMEs may not fully appreciate the consequences of
their decisions.
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Rely On Someones Professional Expertise
King MacArthur
Marshall Problems With SMEs Even the most
expert of SMEs sometimes disagree. How do you
determine whose position to support?
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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

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Problem With Relying On The Literature
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The Golden Path To Effective Intervention
Attitude
Can You Imagine Someones Photograph In This Box?
Aiming for 100 Retention is an unrealistic and
counterproductive goal. Not everyone should be a
military officer.
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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.
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The Golden Path To Effective Intervention
Empirical Evidence
Data Driven Decision Making
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Goals In Developing the CPQ

1. Greatest Unmet Need A better way of determining
   how students respond to the first 6 or 8 weeks of
   college
2. We need an instrument of great breadth that is
   applicable at many schools and many types of
   students.
3. The instrument must provide information pertinent
   to personnel working with individuals as well as
   groups of students.
4. The instrument must identify the factors that
   most strongly govern retention at a particular
   school or for a particular individual.
5. The instrument must not be too long.
6. Data must be immediately available we cant
   wait.
7. The instrument must have a mechanism for
   addressing issues pertinent to a particular
   school.

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Development of the CPQ-1 Procedure

1. Conducted an extensive review of the retention
   literature, at least 150 studies
2. Identified at least 85 variables (WOW) that had
   been associated with retention
3. Wrote items addressing these 85 variables
4. Automated the administration and data recording
   system
5. Administered the questionnaire to more than 2000
   students

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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
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Reasons For Developing CPQ-2

1. Several CPQ-1 scales could benefit from
   additional items.
2. Version 1 did not assess financial pressures, the
   motivation to perform academic work, or the
   students belief that he or she was capable of
   performing successfully.

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CPQ Components Student Background Form
The Student Background Form consists of three
types of items

1. Demographic and Family (e.g., sex, ethnicity,
   marital status, parents education)
2. Work and Financial Resources (e.g., hours
   working, sources of income)
3. Reasons For Attending (e.g., reputation,
   location, friends)

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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.

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Results

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

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

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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?
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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.
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Validation StudyParticipants 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.

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Does the CPQ Predict Retention? Identifying
At-Risk Students (Individual Items)
Measures Nagelkerke R2
HSR SAT Ethnicity Sex Age Class Size (df 6) .08
CPQ Background Variables, not usually in student database (df 12) .18
Student Experience Items (df 54) .56
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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.
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CPQ Items Predicting Institutional Commitment
Community College Data Argues For Targeting
Item Business Nursing Arts Sciences
1 Degree Commitment Degree Commitment Academic Integration
2 Degree Commitment Degree Commitment Academic Integration
3 Degree Commitment Degree Commitment Support Services
4 Academic Integration Academic Integration Acad. Conscientiousness
5 Academic Integration Academic Integration Support Services
6 Academic Integration Academic Integration Social Integration
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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.

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How Well Does The CPQ Predict Retention?
Regress retention (return the following Fall
semester) on the following predictor variables
Predictor Variables Nagelkerke R Square
Variables typically in student database (df15). .13
Variables from Background Form not typically in database (df12) .23
CPQ Student Experience Scales .38
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Where We Are Going
Degree Commitment
Academic Integration
Academic Conscientiousness
Social Integration
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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.
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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.
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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.
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What Retention Activities At Your School Do You
Believe Have Been Successful? A Sample
Meeting 11 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.
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Setting The Stage For Tomorrow
Let Me Invite You To List Three Retention
Activities That You Believe Have Been Successful
at NGCSU
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College Persistence Questionnaire Identifies
Factors Influencing Commitment Of Military Cadets
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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

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CPQ Components

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

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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.
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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.

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Commitment To Corps And NGCSU Overlap

• Created Commitment To Corps scale from
  Institution specific items.
• 2. Correlation of Commitment to Corps and
  Institutional Commitment scale was .71.
• 3. Created single scale, Commitment Scale (CS),
  from corps and institutional items.
• 4. Cronbachs alpha of CS was .78.

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Does The CPQ Predict Commitment To The Corps?
Concurrent Validity Regress CS scores on items
from the Student Background and Student
Experience Forms as well as three items from the
Institution Specific Form, excluding items
composing the CS scale. F(68, 513) 6.75, p lt
.001, R .69, R2 .47
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Student Background Form

• Cadets who chose NGCSU because of the following
  factors were more committed than cadets not
  endorsing these attributes.
• Academics
• Overall reputation
• Appealing location

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Student Background Form
Although these correlations were not strong, they
may 1. Aid in recruiting and identifying the
types of prospective students who are likely to
stick. 2. Indicate that cadets with certain
background characteristics may need additional
services once they matriculate.
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Student Experience Form
1. Eight of nine Student Experience scales were
statistically significant, p lt .01,
two-tailed. 2. The most robust correlations with
CS scores were the Academic Integration, Degree
Commitment, and Social Integration scales. This
result provides a guide to those seeking to
augment commitment to the Corps. Improvements in
the qualities underlying these scales will be
particularly effective in enhancing
commitment. 3. A complementary approach is to
develop an intervention for a variable that is
networked with other variables (e.g., advising).
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Where We Are Going
Degree Commitment
Academic Integration
Academic Conscientiousness
Social Integration
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Student Background Form, Student Experience Form,
Institution Specific Form Comparisons

• Student Background Form Questions entered in
  isolation accounted for 16 of the variance.
• 2. Student Experience Form Questions entered in
  isolation accounted for 43 of the variance.
• 3. Institution Specific Items Questions
  assessing attitudes about requiring cadets to
  wear their uniform on campus, their views on PT,
  and whether they exercised in high school
  accounted for 15 of the variance when entered in
  isolation.

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Two Important Takeaways

• The Student Experience Form was a much better
  predictor of commitment than any items on the
  Student Background Form. This finding indicates
  that experiences during the first six to eight
  weeks have a profound impact on commitment.
• It also argues against attempting to determine
  commitment during orientation or at an earlier
  date.

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Limitations And Recommendations

1. This study needs to be followed by an analogous
   investigation in which retention (return for the
   sophomore year) is the outcome measure.
2. The sample size was small for those regressions
   employing individual items as predictors.
   Nevertheless, given the strength of the findings,
   we can be confident of the reliability of the
   outcomes.
3. It is encouraging that Student Experience items
   tend to be better predictors of commitment than
   Student Background items. Student Experience
   items are more subject to change.

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Limitations And Recommendations

• Efforts to augment cadet retention should focus
  on increasing Academic Integration, Social
  Integration, and Degree Commitment.
• An alternative strategy is to network these
  variables and commitment by improving Advising
  Effectiveness.
• 6. The CPQ was administered only once in the
  Fall semester. Many cadets drop out after the
  Spring semester. Administering the CPQ in the
  Spring might identify students who were now
  at-risk but were not at-risk in the Fall.
  Furthermore, changes in scales scores could prove
  diagnostic.

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What Does This Tell You About These Cadets?
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Intervention Strategies Transforming Cadets Into
Officers
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Working With Individual Students What
Counselors, Advisors and Faculty Need To Know

1. Which cadets are most at-risk?
2. What factor(s) are causing a particular cadet to
   leave the Corps?
3. We need scale scores and responses to individual
   items.

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Two Measures of Retention
Institutional Commitment Score Advantages
Provides a means of identifying at-risk students
after 6 weeks of college. The Student Experience
variables that are correlated with Institutional
Commitment are subject to change. Disadvantage
Is not perfectly correlated with who actually
returns Returning Sophomores Advantage
Indicates who actually returns. Disadvantage It
is too late to help at-risk students when this
data becomes available.
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Becks List of Invariably Violated Principles

1. The earlier the diagnosis the better the
   prognosis
2. More information generally enhances the
   prediction of at-risk students
3. The more time you have to gather information the
   more useful information you can acquire

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What Do You Need To Do To Reduce Attrition? Not
An Easy Task

• Identify at-risk students within first 6 to 8
  weeks of college
• 2. Determine why a student is at-risk
• 3. Craft a powerful message that addresses that
  students issues
• 4. Quickly alter the direction of that students
  life

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A Tale Of Two Portals
The Student and Advisor Portals were developed
because early users of the CPQ requested an
online system. Student Portal Administers the
CPQ to the student and saves the information
to a database. Advisor Portal Retrieves
information from the database and uses this
information to identify at-risk students and
indicate why that individual is at-risk.

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Advisor Portal Identifying At-Risk Students
The Advisor Portal provides school personnel with
a tool for making one-on-one sessions with
students helpful, effective, and fruitful in
augmenting retention rates. It identifies
individual students who are most at-risk and
supplies an in-depth analysis of the problems
each one is experiencing. Testimonials of
advisors and counselors who have used it are
uniformly and overwhelmingly positive in
describing its value in their sessions with
individual students.
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Working With Groups of Students What
Policy-Makers and Instructors Of
Persistence-Oriented Courses Need To Know

1. What factor(s) distinguish students at their
   schools who will persist and will not persist in
   their educations?
2. Are our retention programs effective?

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Meta Analysis Intervention Effects On College
Performance And Retention

• Robbins, Oh, Le, and Button (2009)
• 2. Examined the effects of interventions
  (academic skill, self-management, socialization,
  and first-year experience) on academic
  performance and retention.

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Results Intervention Effects On College
Performance And Retention

1. Academic skill training (e.g., study habits,
   learning strategies) had the strongest effects on
   academic performance. Self-management skill
   training (e.g., self-regulatory, emotional
   control) had a lesser effect.
2. Self-management training had the strongest effect
   on retention. Socialization interventions also
   showed a significant effect on retention.
3. First-year experience programs had weak to
   negligible effects on academic performance and
   retention.

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Why Do First Year Courses Have Such Modest
Effects On Retention? Interpreting The Data

• They may
• Be ineffective.
• Have very broad goals which are difficult to
  measure.
• Be very diverse. Programs may very different
  goals.
• 4. Have very little structure or guidance as to
  objectives. Instructors may simply do what they
  want to do and the institution may hope that this
  has some benefit.

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What Works In Student Retention? Student And
Institutional Characteristics
Item Mean
Level of student preparation for college-level work 3.90
Adequacy of personal financial resources 3.90
Student study skills 3.80
Amount of financial aid available to students 3.65
Level of student motivation to succeed 3.64
Level of student commitment to earning a degree 3.56
Level of job demands on students 3.52
Student low socio-economic status 3.49
Student educational aspirations and goals 3.36
Student personal coping skills 3.34
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What Works In Student Retention? Retention
Activities
Item Mean
Academic advising center 3.98
Increased number of academic advisors 3.98
Advising interventions with selected populations 3.93
Comprehensive learning assistance center/lab 3.92
Supplemental instruction 3.91
Programs for first-generation students 3.90
Required on-campus housing for freshmen 3.86
Reading center/lab 3.86
Tutoring 3.84
Summer bridge program 3.83
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What Activities Differentiate Schools With High
Versus Low Retention Rates?
Item Top Bottom
Increased number of academic advisors 43 30
Advising with selected populations 96 82
Supplemental instruction 75 64
Summer bridge program 75 49
Program for honors students 91 73
Integration advising and first-year programs 72 48
Training for non-faculty academic advisors 84 67
Faculty mentoring 74 45
Living/learning communities (residential) 87 60
Staff mentoring 57 31
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What Are The Three Most Important Retention
Activities?
Item Selected
Freshman seminar/university 101 (credit) 24
Supplemental instruction 16
Tutoring 15
Living/learning communities (residential) 14
Advising with selected populations 14
Placement in courses based on test scores 13
Academic advising center 12
Summer orientation 11
Early warning system 10
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Which Attrition-Reducing Activities Should We Use?
That depends upon 1. What variables
differentiate cadets who become military officers
from those who dropout.
2. What the empirical literature indicates
about the effectiveness of various
attrition-reducing practices. 3. What resources
and personnel we can direct towards retention.
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How Do We Know If Our Actions Are Hitting The
Mark?
That Brings Us To Measurement Issues
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Your Main Outcome Measures
1. Grades 2.
Institutional Commitment 3. Sophomore Retention
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Your Palette Of Measures
There must be a logical relationship between your
objectives and your measures. Your available
indices include
Measures Measures
Retention Academic Integration
Graduation Rates Financial Strain
GPA Social Integration
Institutional Commitment Degree Commitment
High School Rank, Standardized Tests Collegiate Stress
Background (e.g., sex, parental education) Academic Motivation
Work and Finances (e.g., hours working) Scholastic Conscientiousness
Reasons To Attend (e.g., friends, location) Academic Efficacy
Institution Specific Items Advising Effectiveness
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Activities With Multiple Objectives
Activities
Training for non-faculty academic advisors
Faculty mentoring
Staff mentoring
Freshman seminar/university 101 (credit)
Early warning system
Measures These activities are very generally
stated. Therefore, they should have very diverse
effects. If successful, a broad range of indices
will be impacted. The measures taken should
depend upon the particular objectives of the
activities.
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Some Attributes, Activities And Their Measures
Activities Measures
Financial resources Financial Strain
Motivation to succeed Academic Integration, Academic Motivation, Scholastic Conscientiousness
Commitment to earning a degree Degree Commitment, Academic Integration
Job demands Work and Finances Section, Financial Strain
Educational aspirations Degree Commitment, Academic Integration
Coping skills Collegiate Stress, Scholastic Conscientiousness, Academic Efficacy
Preparation for college-level work High School Rank, Standardized Tests, Multiple Student Experience Scales
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Assessing At-Risk Or Special Populations
Activities
Students of low socio-economic status
Advising interventions with selected student populations
Programs for first-generation students
Programs for honors students
Programs for minority students
Measures These activities attempt to address
problems common to at-risk or special
populations. Measures on the Student Background
Form (e.g., parents education, ethnicity) and
student database could help identify these
groups. The goals of these programs vary
considerably, therefore, the measures used to
assess their effectiveness varies accordingly.
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Academic Enhancement Activities
Activities
Student study skills
Comprehensive learning assistance center/lab
Supplemental instruction
Reading center/lab
Tutoring
Placement of students in courses based on test scores
Program for honors students
Measures Academic Integration, Academic
Efficacy, Academic Motivation, Scholastic
Conscientiousness, Collegiate Stress.
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Social Integration Activities
Activities
Required on-campus housing for freshmen
Living/learning communities (residential)
Program for international students
Summer bridge program
Integration of advising with first-year transition programs
Summer orientation programs
Measures A major objective of these activities
appears to be to enhance the extent that students
identify with and feel part of the academic
community. Other objectives of these programs
should be measured, in addition to the Social
Integration scale of the CPQ.
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Advising Activities
Activities
Academic advising center
Increased number of academic advisors
Advising interventions with selected student populations
Measures Advising is critical because it
networks with so many other variables. The
Advising Effectiveness scale of the CPQ should be
used to assess these endeavors. Other variables,
depending on the goals of the program should also
be measured..
87
What Is A Reasonable Assessment Strategy?

1. Gather attrition-related information from your
   Institutional Research Office.
2. Administer the CPQ to obtain Student Background
   and Experience variables.
3. Combine the Institutional Research and CPQ
   variables into a dataset.
4. Determine who returns the following Fall
   semester.
5. Annually prepare Institutional Commitment and
   Retention reports.
6. Examine data across years to anticipate trends.

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• For Your Attention.
• Do Not Be A Stranger.
• This Is A beginning,
• Not An Ending!