Factors that Influence College Completion Intention of Undergraduate Students
- PDF / 251,145 Bytes
- 11 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 12 Downloads / 265 Views
REGULAR ARTICLE
Factors that Influence College Completion Intention of Undergraduate Students Darrin Thomas
Ó De La Salle University 2013
Abstract Universities are facing challenges in the area of student retention and graduation. A critical question is what schools can do to improve undergraduate students’ intentions to complete college. Dropout intention has been studied, yet the exploration of college completion intention has not been thoroughly examined. Using structural equation modeling, a model was developed to explain college completion intention of undergraduate students. The independent variables were perceived institutional support, academic self-efficacy, institutional commitment, classroom learning environment, and social support. A total of 260 university students participated. The model explains 37 % of the variance in college completion intention. The conclusion reached from the analysis is that the learning environment is a moderately powerful but indirect influence on students’ college completion intention. Furthermore, social support and perceived institutional support contribute to a student’s intention to complete college. Academic self-efficacy plays a smaller yet significant role in student’s college completion intention also. Institutions need to be places that develop positive experiences in the classroom as this is a major catalyst in the student’s intention to complete college. Keywords College completion intention Structural equation modeling Theory of planned behavior Undergraduate students Classroom environment
D. Thomas (&) Asia Pacific International University, PO Box 4, Muak Lek, Saraburi 18180, Thailand e-mail: [email protected]
Introduction Higher education is facing challenges in retention and graduation as documented in the United States (Lotkowski et al. 2004). Prior studies indicate that a person’s intention is a powerful predictor of their behavior (Ajzen 1991). Within education, studies have examined a student’s intention to drop out of college (Bean 1980, 1983; Cabrera et al. 1993; Tinto 1975). However, there has not been as much investigation into factors that influence a student’s intention to complete college. Reforms that ignore what encourages students to have the intention to complete college may be at risk of failure. Students have a diverse perception of their experience in the classroom, support from the institution, confidence to complete academic task, and support they receive socially from peers. The students’ perceptions of these factors could impact their desire to complete college. This study investigates Philippino undergraduate students’ perceptions of the following: intention to complete college, classroom learning environment (LE), academic self-efficacy (SE), institutional support (IS), and social support (SS). This study is timely as recent studies indicate that graduation rates are in decline (Bound et al. 2010). This decline in graduation rates indicates that there may be a decline in many students’ desire to finish school. Exploration
Data Loading...
