("Reasons Students Vary in Persistence")

Colleges face increasing pressure from legislators and financial aid sources to retain students and ensure their timely progress toward a goal or degree. Unfortunately, retention remains something of a mystery to most colleges. A great deal of time and resources are spent on attempts to increase retention, but these initiatives are often not suggested by institution-specific research. To focus resources where they will do the most good, colleges need information to help them direct retention efforts to areas which will have the greatest impact on student success and persistence at their campus.

The crucial question a college needs to answer is, what differentiates students who leave my institution from those who stay? The same basic conditions affect almost everyone, so what are the few crucial things a college can do to convert the "leavers" into "stayers"? Institutions need a profile of students who are at risk for attrition, as well as an analysis of the college’s strengths and weaknesses in terms of retention of all students. An "attrition profile" of students who leave the college can be compared with characteristics of current students to identify those who are "vulnerable" for specific reasons, to help the institution target interventions specifically toward these groups.

The Education Research Division at Harris Interactive developed the R.S.V.P. Student Retention Survey to assess student retention as defined by students’ stated educational goals. We believe that this unique approach to measuring retention represents a significant improvement over other currently available instruments.

Areas of Assessment

Specific areas of the college experience are assessed by the Harris Interactive R.S.V.P. Survey. These areas include:

• Professors and Courses
• Academic Atmosphere
• Campus Life
• Residence Life
• Student Services
• Extracurricular Activities
• Buildings and Facilities
• Computers
• Other Student Life Issues

Use the Internet

The Harris Interactive R.S.V.P. survey is administered entirely over the Internet. Online administration eliminates the need for in-class or other special administration arrangements. Students receive an email invitation, sent to their campus email address, which contains the survey URL and a unique password. The survey itself resides on one of Harris Interactive’s servers. These measures control access to the survey while maintaining students’ privacy and confidentiality.

Advantages of Internet survey administration include:

• anytime, anyplace delivery—this is what students expect nowadays
• eliminates the problem of selecting a representative sample of classes in which to administer the survey (for example, to include part-time and evening student samples)
• little incremental cost for surveying more students, so a college can actually aim for 100% student participation
• a larger sample of students allows better modeling, including modeling of subgroups if they are adequately represented
• allows quick tracking of responses, to enable quick recruitment efforts for under-represented or non-responding groups
• possibility for modular delivery and easier customization

The survey is typically available online for about two weeks. Reminder invitations are sent out approximately one week following the first invitation mailing. The survey will yield the most useful results when administered during the latter half of a semester or quarter, after midterms but before final exams.

Your Role

Because all data collection is handled over the Internet, administering the Harris Interactive R.S.V.P. survey requires only a small investment of time by the institution’s staff. For best results when administering the R.S.V.P., an institution will need to provide the following:

• An electronic file of students’ campus email addresses, in Excel or ASCII text format, delivered to Harris Interactive before the survey commences. (If your institution does not have a campus email account for every student, it is still possible to administer the R.S.V.P.—it will simply require greater focus on points 2 and 3 below.)
  
• Campus publicity to create student awareness of the survey—We can help you with ideas.
  
• Incentives to help encourage student participation, such as bookstore credits, fast-food coupons, movie or event tickets, campus merchandise, or perhaps a lottery for big-ticket items such as CD players, a computer, or a prized campus parking spot. We also have many creative ideas for incentives.

Survey Options Available

Standard Administration

For the Standard Administration, the standard version of the survey will be administered at your institution at a time convenient for you and your students. After all survey data have been collected and prepared for analysis, your institution will receive from Harris Interactive:

• a set of data tables regarding your students’ goals, student satisfaction with key aspects of your college, and students' propensity to re-enroll at your college
• statistically-derived models (where sample sizes are adequate) showing the key factors contributing to positive and negative student goal shifts
• a prioritized list of factors which the college could address in order to enhance student success and retention, as well as a list of areas where the college seems to be performing well in terms of supporting and enhancing student goals
• a complete printout of responses to three open-ended survey questions
• an electronic file of survey data, if requested

Custom Administration

In a Custom Administration, the Harris Interactive R.S.V.P. survey is customized for the particular needs of your campus. The survey will be administered at any time that is convenient for your institution and your students. The online survey itself will include your college’s logo and your institution’s name embedded in the questions throughout the survey. It can also include up to 15 local questions, as well as customized wording on standard questions.

At the conclusion of a Custom Administration of the R.S.V.P. Survey, your institution will receive, in addition to all the deliverables described for the Standard Administration above:

• An overall report of the survey findings, both graphical and narrative in nature, approximately 50-60 pages long, which would contain Harris Interactive’s conclusions regarding the implications of the study for your institution, as well as a short executive summary of findings
• An in-person presentation of study results to faculty and staff, plus individual consultation to assist in understanding, interpreting, and applying the survey findings

Group Administration

By working together in a Group Administration, a group of two to four colleges can realize even greater cost savings over a Standard Administration. The standard version of the Harris Interactive R.S.V.P. survey is administered simultaneously at an agreed-upon time at all participating colleges. At the conclusion of the survey, each participating college will receive results specific to their students:

• a data table listing survey results regarding their students’ goals, satisfaction with key aspects of their college, and propensity to re-enroll
• statistically-derived models (where sample sizes are adequate) showing the key factors contributing to positive and negative student goal shifts at their institution
• a prioritized list of factors which each college can address in order to enhance student success and retention, as well as a list of areas where the college seems to be performing well in terms of supporting and enhancing their students’ goals
• a complete printout of their students’ responses to three open-ended survey questions
• an electronic file containing survey data from all participating colleges, if requested

A Group Administration allows the fixed costs for administering the survey to be divided up between all participating colleges, resulting in significant savings. To realize these savings, however, two requirements must be met:

• The total number of colleges who agree to work together on a Group Administration may not exceed four.
• A single individual must be designated as the contact person to handle all aspects of implementing the survey for all participating schools, including providing Harris Interactive with a single integrated sample file containing all student email addresses with a field identifying the specific institution.

Costs may be divided up in whatever way seems equitable among the institutions participating in a group administration.