Recalibrating Our Understanding of Retention

Abstract

In a study exploring how organizational identification impacted college retention and performance outcomes at a university in the United States, we found the mere act of taking the survey emerged as an unexpectedly strong result. Using propensity score matching, we found that those who took the voluntary survey during the first week of school were 6%, 9%, and 11% more likely to retain by the second, third, and fourth semesters, respectively. Participation in a short survey had notable retention predictive power 18 months later. These results provoke a series of questions on retention much more broadly considered and invite us to recalibrate our understanding of mechanisms for improving retention.