PART II: Building a Personalized Retention Strategy

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PART II Building a Personalized Retention
Strategy
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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

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Personality What is it?

• Predispositions to behave in certain ways and how
  others would describe such behavior
• Traits or dispositions that may influence
  peoples careers, life satisfactions and outcomes
• Learn to maximize use of adaptive traits
  improve, work around, or delegate weaknesses

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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

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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.

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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

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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, wont tell you
• how to keep current students
• how to change your institution to better
• serve student needs
• Each presents only part of the picture

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Selecting the Right Test

• Modern Big 5 Personality tests
• NEO-PI
• Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI)
• Based on Hogans Socioanalytic Theory
• Getting along
• Getting ahead
• Validated on job performance of more than
  1,000,000 working adults

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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
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What is personality assessment?

• practical job predict non-test behavior
• measures a persons interpersonal style
• statistical relationship matching groups with
  observer descriptions
• critical signs indicate probability, not
  certainty
• descriptive, not explanatory

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Socioanalytic Theory social behavior regulated
by two broad and usually unconscious motives
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Socioanalytic Theory
Acceptance and recognition by our peers
Status and power relative to our peers
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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
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Foundations for the HPI

• reputational aspects of personality
• doesnt measure traits, rather, predicts social
  outcomes (five factor theory)
• intuitively understood by non-psychologists

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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

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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

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PIC test Results
----- Student PIC ----- Faculty PIC
National Norms
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HPI SACQ Correlation Results
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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

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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?

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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

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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 universitys admission policies were doing
  good job of selecting students that fit with UMR

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---Incoming Freshmen ---Upper Level
Undergraduates ---Faculty
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Correlations with Retention

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

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4 year Cumulative GPA

• H.S. Rank .50
• ACT Math .29
• ACT English .25
• ACT Science .13
• ACT Reading .13
• HPI Sociab. -.20
• HPI Prudence .21

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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)

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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

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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

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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
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Leadership Education A Unifying Theme for UMR

• UMR The Leadership-Based Campus
• Educating Todays 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.

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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 dont care to focus on their
  weaknesses

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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

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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

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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).

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• QUESTIONS COMMENTS

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PART II Building a Personalized Retention
Strategy