Relationship between measures of academic quality and undergraduate student attrition: the case of higher education institutions in the Colombian Caribbean region

Martinez, Anabella; Borjas, Mónica; Herrera, Mariela; Valencia, Jorge

doi:10.1080/07294360.2015.1024622

Cited by 10 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Many studies have examined the relationship between accreditation and student retention and attrition, but the majority either used institutional accreditation or the accreditation of programmes other than engineering (Garcia, 2009; Martínez et al , 2015; Solarte, 2017). The majority of studies associated with student attrition and retention in the GCC have been conducted in the KSA (Aljohani, 2016), but none of these studies examined EPA and its relationship with student attrition.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A study conducted of 19 Colombian HEIs by Martínez et al (2015) analysed the association between three indicators of academic quality and student attrition rates (defined as a “reduction in the overall number of students enrolled at a given institution or programme” (Braxton et al , 2007) and therefore, the inverse of retention rate). They found that the only indicator that revealed a significant positive association with student attrition rates was programme accreditation (PA).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Examining the relationship between the accreditation of engineering programmes and institutional performance

Busaidi

2020

QAE

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Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between engineering programme accreditation (EPA) and institutional performance (IP) using perceptual measures. Two IP dimensions have been explored to test this relationship, namely, graduate employability and student retention and attrition. Design/methodology/approach This quantitative research is based on the perceptions of 211 academic staff holding a range of positions within 15 higher education institutions located in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries (GCC). Linear regression was used to test the relationships in the data. Findings The empirical analyses proved that EPA has a statistically significant positive relationship with the IP dimensions, namely, graduate employability, student retention and attrition. Research limitations/implications A few limitations were encountered while conducting this study. Most of the accredited engineering programmes are located in the United Arab Emirates and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) (nearly 73%). The online survey was the only option available for the researcher to reach some universities rather than using a face-method to collect data. Another limitation is the availability of only five accredited programmes in some countries such as Oman, where the researcher is based, meaning that the researcher had to devote extra time and effort to contact the other five countries by emails, telephone calls and travel to attain a reasonable survey sample size. Practical implications There are many implications of these findings for the universities, employers and economies of the GCC. All GCC countries are concerned about high unemployment rates; for example, the rate of youth unemployment reached 41% in KSA. Adopting EPA for all academic programmes will eliminate the mismatch between the skills graduate students develop while they are studying and those skills required of them when they are practising their job in industry. Although the jobs market is determined by the wider economy, accredited programmes may help graduates to obtain employment because employers are more able to recruit students who graduate from accredited programmes. Universities aim to retain students until graduation and improving student retention and lowering attrition rate brings many direct and indirect benefits to universities, including saving governments’ financial resources. Originality/value This study is the first to examine the relationship between EPA and IP within the six GCC region as a whole.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Examining the relationship between the accreditation of engineering programmes and institutional performance

Busaidi

2020

QAE

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“…Massification of the South African higher education sector (Hornsby & Osman, 2014;Lucket & Sutherland, 2000) mirrors global trends over the last two decades (Bai, 2006;Giannakis & Bullivant, 2016;Kivinen, Hedman & Kaipainen, 2007;Lee, 2016;Pretorius and Xue, 2003;Ru-Jer, 2012;Trow, 2000;Trow, 2006;Yeom, 2016). Add to this increased attrition rates locally and abroad (Andrews & Osman, 2015;Goncalves & Trunk, 2014;Hughes, 2013;Martínez, Borjas, Herrera & Valencia, 2015;Mestan, 2016), the access with success dichotomy (Ngo & Kwon, 2015;Prakhov, 2016), socio-economic challenges faced by students in South Africa and many other countries (Dockery, Seymour & Koshy, 2016), and a variety of mental health concerns prevalent on university campuses worldwide (Hugo, Boshoff, Traut, Zungu-Dirwayi & Stein, 2003;Lund, Kleintjes, Kakuma, Flisher & MHaPP Research Programme Consortium, 2010;Williams, Herman, Stein, Heeringa, Jackson, Moomal & Kessler, 2008), and the scene is set for poor pass rates and serious threats to student success.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Paving the Road to Success: Reflecting critically on year one of an undergraduate student support programme at a large South African university

Klerk

Spark

Jones

et al. 2017

JSAA

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Student success, faculty and university throughput, and the need for adequate and appropriate student support remain prevalent issues in the South African and global higher education sectors. Subsequently, the Faculty of Commerce, Law, and Management at a large South African university applied for Teaching and Development Grant funding in order to address these areas of concern. The grant was awarded and initially intended to help students at risk by implementing appropriate interventions to prevent them from dropping out of university or being excluded. However, being labelled as "at risk" was not well received by students and so the grant holders designed a new programme, adopting a decidedly more holistic approach. As such, the Road to Success Programme was born. The first three months saw those involved conceptualise, plan, and develop strategies, material, and interventions that were implemented in January 2015. The vision was to scaffold and support first-year students, particularly those in danger of being academically excluded, through an integrated network of tutorials, workshops, online support, and a series of resources called Toolkits for Success, in an attempt to help students achieve their academic goals. Despite a number of challenges, ranging from funding shortfalls and food security to students' emotional wellbeing and resilience, 2015 proved invaluable in terms of refining strategies, gaining insight, and programme growth. Preliminary data shows an increased pass rate for students who engaged with the RSP, with higher pass rates linked to greater RSP attendance. Consequently, this article serves as a critical reflection of the RSP at the end of its inaugural year and will share data, highlight lessons learned and challenges faced, and discuss how the programme has been taken to scale in 2016.

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“…The past decade has seen the rapid development of research and interventions towards quality assurance (QA) systems in several higher education (HE) contexts, such as in European (Capano 2014;Enders and Westerheijden 2014;Gornitzka and Stensaker 2014;Lucas 2014), Asian (Hou et al 2014;Jarvis 2014;Lo 2014;Wang 2014) and North American settings (Weinrib and Jones 2014). By contrast, in Chile as well as in all Latin American HE contexts, there is much less information about QA systems and their predictors and outcomes, where current research has been mostly focused on institutional accreditation and its correlated variables (Cancino and Schmal 2014;Martínez et al 2015). As such, this paper aims to make a first explorative attempt to investigate the relationship between public policy quality indicators and undergraduate programme accreditation decisions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is Undergraduate Programme Accreditation Influenced by Educational Public Policy Quality Indicators? An Exploratory Study of the Chilean Higher Education Quality Assurance System

et al. 2017

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In Chile, as well as in most of Latin America, public policies for higher education have recently adopted a focus on quality assurance and accreditation systems. Uncertainty, however, still exists in terms of the quality assurance consistency in the current Chilean accreditation system, especially in terms of the relation between public policy quality indicators for higher education and their relation to accreditation outcomes. Therefore, the aim of this study was to make a first explorative attempt to investigate the relationships between these indicators and the results of undergraduate programme accreditation. We hypothesised that public policy quality indicators of first year of study dropout, employment at graduation, and ratio of real to formal graduation time frame would be strongly correlated to undergraduate programme accreditation as well as largely explaining its accreditation-year variance. By means of correlation and multiple regression analyses we found small-sized associations, being first year dropout the only significant predictor of programme accreditation, explaining a 9.4% of its variance. These results raise questions regarding the consistency between the aims of public policy for higher education and the current accreditation system. This study should be of value to policy-makers, managers, and curriculum developers in terms of this initial analysis of the consistency between quality indicators and the accreditation system. Further research is necessary to make a systematic and in-depth assessment of the impact of quality assurance mechanisms to provide better rationale for making important decisions such as when defining the characteristics of the accrediting institutions as well as for establishing effective ways to achieve the proposed public policy objectives.

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Relationship between measures of academic quality and undergraduate student attrition: the case of higher education institutions in the Colombian Caribbean region

Cited by 10 publications

References 16 publications

Examining the relationship between the accreditation of engineering programmes and institutional performance

Examining the relationship between the accreditation of engineering programmes and institutional performance

Paving the Road to Success: Reflecting critically on year one of an undergraduate student support programme at a large South African university

Is Undergraduate Programme Accreditation Influenced by Educational Public Policy Quality Indicators? An Exploratory Study of the Chilean Higher Education Quality Assurance System

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