Purpose: The main purpose of this study is to evaluate the extent of dropout students and identify the relationship between risk factors of dropout and the survival time of students. Design/methodology/approach: The Kaplan-Meier estimator (KM), also known as the product-limit technique, is a nonparametric model function that is commonly used in…

This paper sought to examine psychological grit, defined as passion and perseverance for long-term goals, and its efficacy in determining postgraduate retention among historically disadvantaged students enrolled at the University of South Africa (UNISA). The Grit-S scale was used to gauge the level of grit among the participants (n = 594) followed…

The purpose of this quantitative, ex post facto study was to evaluate if and to what extent the time spent on online orientation experiences is predictive of the persistence and academic achievement of first-session, post-traditional, online students. Post-traditional students withdraw from their first year of university studies at a higher rate…

Lack of student persistence and retention is significantly hurting the US in producing the required number of qualified graduates, especially in STEM fields. Although many factors contribute to students falling off track, one of the controllable factors is the identification of at-risk students followed by early intervention. Predicting the…

Student dropout is a major concern in studies investigating higher education retention strategies. However, studies investigating the optimal time to identify students who are at risk of withdrawal and the type of data to be used are scarce. Our study consists of a withdrawal prediction analysis based on classification trees using both…

Background/Context: There is a misalignment in contemporary society between the assumption that all high school graduates can and should attend college and the lack of funding and support to make that happen. This is especially apparent at community colleges that enroll disproportionally low-income students, who deal with a variety of obstacles…

This study explored the relationship of cognitive and noncognitive variables within academically underachieving high school students. The research on academic achievement variables is plentiful in the literature among high performing populations. Past studies reveal that a multitude of factors effect academic achievement in high school students.…

This work proposes a dropout prediction approach that is able to self-adjust their outcomes at any moment of a degree program timeline. To that end, a rule-based classification technique was used to identify courses, grade thresholds and other attributes that have a high influence on the dropout behavior. This approach, which is generic so that it…

We present an educational data analytics case study aimed at the early detection of potential dropout in Computer Engineering studies in Cuba. We have employed institutional data of 456 students and performed several experiments for predicting their permanency into three (promotion, repetition, and dropout) or two classes (promoting, not…

This study examined graduation and persistence among social and behavioral science students at a regional comprehensive university. Hazard analyses identified predictors of student trajectories, times at which predictors were more or less impactful, and interactions between predictors such that particular risk factors were more detrimental for…

Within the Sudanese context, education retention and completion are major challenges that have not been seriously and sufficiently addressed. In order to understand in more depth how and why children drop out of primary school in Sudan, six empirical studies were planned as part of an EU-funded national programme focused on primary education and…

The purpose of this investigation was to develop an ultra-short questionnaire that reliably predicted re-enrollment. Two binary stepwise logistic regressions were performed using re-enrollment status as the criterion. The first regression, conducted with a subsample of 4619 undergraduates, reduced 32 items drawn from the College Persistence…

This article presents research on persistence among at-risk students using network analysis following multiple linear regression (MLR). Data on a population of enrolled undergraduate students at an urban-serving university over several years (P = 35,239) is tested using multiple linear regression. Variables interacting at different dimensions of…

Distance education students have less access to classmates as a social resource and may, therefore, rely more on family members for support. However, first-generation students, or students who are the first in their family to attend university, may lack the academic resources that family members can provide. Overall, first-generation students in…

Across the Higher Education (HE) sector student feedback is used to feed into university processes and guide decision making. In this study, data gathered allowed the authors to investigate a hitherto neglected, but important, cohort of successful students -- those who succeeded when all the odds were stacked against them. The identified group of…