Diversity and retention
As an instructor I feel that different cultures and ages sometimes play a huge role in retention.
Joseph, you raise some good points about fear, but isn't preparing students for their next step part of our job? Each of us have different thresholds of fear paralysis but they have to learn to manage that fear.
Every "drop" has a very personal reason for their action. Hopefully, the school had been engaged in providing support before the final decision was made.
The questions you raise about admissions policies are important ones. If at risk students are admitted it is the responsibility of the institution to provide reasonable support for that student. To admit without a prospect of success morally wrong.
The topic of different cultures and backgrounds applies in so many directions. I have come to learn a larger percentage of students towards the end of the semester, create a rush of emotional stress. Graduating is not always so happy either...the rush of what next comes into question. It's like riding in the plane and you are ready to parachute out but you just don't want to take that leap because of fear. The uncertainty of the unknown. How do you retrain a student to increase their drive to move forward or push through without focusing on their culture or background? The reasons for quitting a program or not searching for a related job to their degree may just be the student can't handle the stress or feel that their level of confidence is not good enough to match up against industry professionals. I think students see and realize the novice level of their new profession and then they back into their shells because of that fear and uncertainty. "I can't compete with 25 years plus of that"
As an instructor for the past 20+ years, I have also experienced where culture and age has been a factor in student persistence. A 17 year old student, who has not completed the basics in school, and thus dropped out, enters a next level education institution to learn a career. Should this young person enter school? Only to drop out because it was the easy way out? Or was it from a lack of understanding, commitment and determination? Thus a "drop" and an increase in attrition.
Yolanda, institutional culture interacts with the problems you identify in the way you help students define the issue, identify solutions and provide guidance in initiating action to solve the problem.
Culture plays somewhat of a concern with retention. But mainly it's what commitments does the student havee outside of school. Are they concern of child care, transportation, paying their rent, balancing their work schedule with school? This is not culture diversity, these are concerns that affect everyone.
Teresa, do you have any examples from your experience where culture and age has been a factor in student persistence?
