Date of Award
5-10-2018
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Educational Leadership, Ed.D.
First Advisor
Joseph Nichols
Committee Members
Annette Hux; Joan Henley
Call Number
ISBN 9780355861297
Abstract
The purpose of the study was to explore the relationship between student engagement and university graduation rates. Determining methods to engage students and encourage student retention to degree completion is a yearly goal for most universities. Two broad research questions were posed to dissect the connection between student engagement and graduation rates. The questions were designed to better understand the relationship between student engagement opportunities and student demographic information to graduation rates. In addition, the variables were applied to institutions with an enrollment of 5,000 or more students and institutions with an enrollment of less than 5,000 students. The Enriching Educational Experience benchmarks from the 2010 National Survey of Student Engagement results were combined with 2015 graduation rates of higher education institutions. During the year of the survey, 572 higher education institutions participated in the National Survey of Student Engagement. Graduation rates were collected for 144 higher education institutions. The National Survey of Student Engagement randomly selected 10% of the responses of the 144 institutions yielding a data response rate of 25,443 to use for this study. Six factors categorized in the Enriching Educational Experience benchmark were found to have a relationship with graduation rates: completed community service and volunteer work, participation in a learning community, participation in a capstone course, foreign language coursework, completed practicum, internship, clinical experience, or field experience, and participation in co-curricular activities. In addition, five demographic factors were found to have a relationship with graduation rates: Greek affiliation, campus housing, education level of the mother and father, and online verses classroom enrollment.
Rights Management
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Spack, Martha Brown, "Understanding the impact of student engagement on the graduation rates of higher education institution" (2018). Student Theses and Dissertations. 531.
https://arch.astate.edu/all-etd/531
