Abstract:

This study was designed to examine variables that influence student retention, with an emphasis on first-time freshmen who return or do not return to their sophomore year. The dependent variables used in this study were high school grade point average (GPA), first-semester GPA, and American College Testing scores (ACT). The independent variables were gender, residency (in-state, out-of-state, international), and return status of students. In particular, this study focused on finding out if there would be a difference in students’ high school GPA, first-semester GPA, or ACT exam scores based on the influence of gender, residency, and return to sophomore status, or interaction between the aforementioned independent variables.
The subjects in this study consisted of 1,756 students enrolled as first-time freshmen during the Fall 2006 academic year. These first-time freshmen were enrolled in a historically Black open-admissions university in the Southeast region of Texas.
An Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was engaged to test the hypotheses formulated for this study, to assess the data, and to establish the characteristic profile of first-time freshmen students who persisted or did not persist to sophomore status. Since there were multiple factors as well as multiple levels of at least one of the independent variables examined in this study, a three-way ANOVA was the appropriate choice of statistical tests. The researcher also conducted the Levene's test of homogeneity to test the ANOVA assumption that each group of the independent variables had the same variance. Finally, the Scheffe , a Post Hoc comparison test, was used to analyze linear combinations of group means. The .05 level of confidence was used as a criterion for accepting or not accepting the null hypotheses throughout this investigation.
A Causal-Comparative research design, which allowed for an analysis of multiple independent and dependent variables, was used for this study.
The results of this study indicated that a statistically significant difference occurred in students’ first-semester GPA based on return, residency, and the interaction of return and residency. A statistically significant difference in ACT scores was found based on return, residency, and gender. However, statistical significance was not found in high school GPA for any of the independent variables or the interaction of the variables.