Changes in Social and Academic Integration in Freshmen of High and Average Ability: Implications for Retention

Abstract

The authors examine the relationship between retention and changes in freshmen's perspectives on social and academic issues. Using data collected from a student questionnaire administered at the beginning and end of thefieshman yea?; the authors found that contact with faculty may play a signtficant role in how freshmen view their college experience but may not be related to retention. Student retention ?nay be only indirectly related to changes in social and academic integration at an institution and may depend more on variables associated with student characteristics and predispositions.Academic advisors are in a unique position to discern the personal and educational changes in students during the first year in college. These changes have been linked to the need to design programs and services for the freshman year experience in order to facilitate certain desirable freshman outcomes. Although first-year students bring certain individual characteristics to college (e.g., family background, high school experiences, race, and academic aptitude) that certainly affect their first-year experience, some models of student change emphasize the role of the institution and the impact of student interaction with the college environment. These models emphasize how students act and think while involved in that environment (Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991). This personenvironment fit has a direct and indirect effect on whether the student persists or drops out.Tinto's theory of student departure (1987) seeks to explain why students voluntarily withdraw from college. Tinto emphasizes that the way freshmen react to their new environment not only depends on their precollege schooling and background but also on their initial intentions about graduating from college and other personal goals. Student integration into the academic and social systems of the institution is viewed as critical to continuing matriculation. Academic integration can be measured by student academic performance and by their level of intellectual development; social integration can be determined by the extent and quality of student interactions with their peer group and the faculty. According to Tinto, the greater the level of social and academic integration, the greater a student's subsequent commitments, both to the institution and to the goal of college graduation.Many research studies have substantiated Tinto's model of student departure (Allen,

Advising High-Ability Business Students

“…Kennedy, Gordon, and Gordon (1995) found that honors students enter college with higher expectations of the faculty than do nonhonors students. Unmet expectations often result in both frustration and annoyance for high ability students (Ender & Wilkie, 2000).…”

“…High achieving students may need assistance in reframing the expectations that they have about the faculty (Kennedy et al, 1995). Students may need to take the initiative to make contact with faculty members and let go of the belief that faculty members will take the first step in initiating dialogue.…”

Virginia Gordon: Pioneering the Concept of Scholar-Practitioner in Academic Advising Through Her Own Scholarship and Practice

“…Her later work, Students Needing Academic Alternative Advising: A National Survey (Gordon & Polson, 1985), Changes in Social and Academic Integration in Freshmen of High and Average Ability: Implications for Retention (Kennedy, Gordon, & Gordon, 1995), and Advising by E-Mail: Some Advisors' Perceptions (Steele & Gordon, 2001), showcased Gordon's ability to incorporate survey design into her scholarship. Her article with Steele and Kennedy (1993) highlights her versatile knowledge of quantitative research by comparing students who entered the Academic Alternatives Program to a cohort group that matched in terms of gender, curriculum academic program, grade-point average, credit hours, and number of quarters enrolled.…”

Critical Reflections of College Sophomores About Preparation and Persistence During Their Freshman Year

“…Similarly, college student retention has been studied at great lengths since the 1970s (Astin, 1975(Astin, , 1984(Astin, , 1993(Astin, , 1996(Astin, , 1997Johnson, 2002;Kennedy, Gordon, & Gordon, 1995;Milem & Berger, 1997;Sanders & Burton, 1996;Tinto, 1975Tinto, , 1987Tinto, , 1993Tinto, , 1997Upcraft, 1989Upcraft, , 1993Ward-Roof, 2003;Wilkie & Redondo, 1996). The American College Testing Program (2001) reported that nearly two thirds of high school graduates now go directly into higher education, and 74.2% of college freshmen are retained after the freshman year.…”