CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.0 Study Background
When it comes to producing their start-ups, countless entrepreneurs are so concentrated on obtaining new clients and clients that they flounder to efficiently address the demand to retain those they by now have. This is counterproductively pondering that its distant easier (about 50% easier according to Marketing Metrics) to vend to continuing clients than to brand new prospects. All combative and new out of the gate, start-up entrepreneurs frequently find it extra thrilling to focus on client supplement, but flouting client attrition might in the end spell their downfall. In the spirit of Ben Franklins age-old idiom that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
For those who sense that client retention plays a minor act in helping a firm produce a healthy bottom line, here are some insufficient statistics you could be interested in. According to Bain and Co., a 5% rise in client retention can raise a companys profitability by 75%. Moreover, if those numbers do not amaze you, Gartner Cluster statistics notify us that 80% of your companys upcoming revenue will come from just 20% of your continuing customers. Yet not vended on client retention? One final statistic endowed by Lee Resource Inc. ought to give you plenty to contemplate about: Enticing new clients will price your firm 5 periods extra than keeping and continuing customer. The education sector plays a huge role in developing the human capital (Othman & Mohamad, 2014). Moreover, indiscriminate innovative thinking and intellectual capabilities could be the attainable milestone.
Despite the fact that the practices of the perceived factors impelling student retention are often linked conceptually, their experiential assembly has yet to stand carefully documented and scientifically synthesized. The principal tenacity of this study is to make available such documentation and synthesis. Although a direct, causal connection lies between the factors and the retention, itself is yet to be recognized, a stout case can be made that student retention factors that exerts a significant impact on student retention through its positive association with arbitration of variables that are strongly interrelated in line with student perseverance namely: (1) student experience with the college, (2) satisfaction, (3) perceived organizational commitment, (4) financial factors and (5) faculty and students interactions.
As Wyckoff (1999) notes, To establish a high degree of commitment to the academic advising process, university and college administrators must become cognizant not only of the educational value of advising but of the role advising plays in the retention of students (p. 3). The high indication muddled in this document may perhaps stand as per a locus tabloid to influence advanced administrators of the influence of effectiveness of the various factors contributing to student retention and institutional revenue. It may also be used in institutions as a body of studyto motivate and validate the marketing techniques, and in orientation programsto inspire and energize new advisors.
The script originates with a confab of why all the above listed factors in relation to student retention becomes worthy of immediate attention among Klang Valley Universities, concluding with chains of recommended systemic approaches in lieu of improving the quality of the factors of retention.
1.1 -Problem Statement
As student retention stays crucial to its positioning, much more researches have been carried out on selective, residential and even traditional campuses. Not much of such researches are based on internationally recognized computerized campuses like that of Klang Valley University much of such researches lays on either community colleges or even local universities. A real campus like those of Klang Valley with both locals and internationals on a four-year campus predicts different outcomes related to diverse environments.
In this context, I am predetermined to be comparing responses with on some other factors of influencing student retention such as the perceived organizational commitment, students experience with the institution and last but not least their satisfaction on those universitys undertakings among the students of September 2015 intake up to February 2018 intake. Preferably, the responses would lay a ground for the assessment of student retention in a four-year degree institution.
Nowadays, in order to gain and retain an overriding spot in the marketplace, it holds cracking a hard nut due to the massive blowout of products and services and the aggressive competition on one side and increasing (internal and external) customers demand on the other side. Moreover, speedy transitions of information age and entrance of new economies places customer as a treasured asset and collaborate positively with (internal and external )customers as he/she is a crucial on the business mind-set which create competitive advantage in the external environment and enhance organizational commitment in the internal environment, in such a way that all the assets and technologies of an organization ought to combine with internal and external customers in order to have a sustainable competitive advantage and organizational commitment.
Centrally to the purpose of branding is the facilitation of the customer choice process. Due to the complexity of possessing to select a product amongst thousands of comparable offerings, customers will instinctively endeavor to elucidate their choice procedure by selecting brands that have gratified them in the past. Assael (1993) supports this concept by stating that consumers, especially in situations of low-involvement, heavily rely on previous consuming experiences when attempting to select a product to satisfy their present needs. Notably, it could be finished that agreeable past experiences is exceedingly conducive to customers associating benefits to a brand. One can finish that a central purpose of branding, is its skill to negate the demand for a customer to pursue out data after a demand or a desire has been understood, but rather, lead him to a brand that has been fulfilling in the past.The service area is truly alongside an comprehensive continuum and covers commercial, transportation, welfare, condition and telecommunication institutions that experience speedy advancement in the competitive marketplaces and has extra link alongside clients both inside and externally. Education services as one of the antique business hobbies have a huge marketplace allocate in carrying countless levels of services qualitatively and quantitatively to assorted levels of external clients (individual and companies).Students needs education services is hyper inflating extra than ever and people anticipate extra and faster services from institutions. Maintaining both the present external and inner clients as well as appealing new patrons.
Notably, It has been put forward that the most commonly entrants into the higher education become drop outs in their initial university of select without completing a degree (Tinto, 1993) also, the national abrasion rates of students have been uprising since the early 1980s at two-year besides four-year institutions, both public and private (Postsecondary Education Opportunity, 2002). And it has been noted that the peak or stage of vulnerability for student abrasion still stays en route for be the first year of collegeby the side of all types of higher education institutions, including exceedingly indiscriminate colleges and universities (Learning Slope, 1991). More than half of all students who withdraw from college do so during their first year (Consortium for Student Retention Data Exchange, 1999), resulting in a first-year attrition rate of more than 25% at four-year institutions, and approximately 50% at two-year institutions (ACT, 2001).
The economic repercussions of these disturbing elevation rates of abrasion for registration management were highly foreseen for more than 20 years ago by John Gardner, in the course of the promising stages of the freshman-year experience movement he helped enacted: Higher education must make changes if it is to survive in anything resembling its present form. The student has become a precious product. Institutions must now concern themselves with retaining students so that, if nothing else, budgets can be preserved (Gardner, 1981, p. 79). Vince Tinto, a nationally acknowledged retention scholar, notes in advance that consolidating institutional struggles targeted by the side of amassing student retention may be a much more operative enrolment-management strategy than dedicating extra resources in the increment of student recruitment: As more institutions have come to utilize sophisticated marketing techniques to recruit students, the value of doing so has diminished markedly. Institutions have come to view the retention of students to degree completion as the only reasonable cause of action left to ensure their survival (Tinto, 1987, p. 2).
1.3 -RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
The aim of this research is to figure out the extent to which the listed factors of student retention strategies could be influential among some five Klang Valley International Universities. The proposed hypothesis is my own and it is of its kind. I decided to place it in the Education service institution because I realize that it is an industry where long term tie is needed.
Realizing the effect of various aspects of student retention in an organization or institution;1.3.1 Defining the effect of inter-functional coordination and integration on organizational commitment of employees.1.3.2 Figuring out the positive effects associated with customer experience on student retention.1.3.4 Shaping the effect of a perceived organizational commitment in an organization.1.3.5 Knowing the effect of satisfaction on organizational commitment coupled with student retention.
1.2-Research Question
Research Question
This body of study was proposed to respond to the main problem which is:1.2.1. RQ: What are the effects of customer experience in an organization which permeates retention?
1.2.3. How does a perceived organizational commitment influence in the maintenance of customer relations?
1.2.3. How can satisfaction influence the customer retention?Some secondary questions are.does:
1.2.4. The retention numbers stand important to the university.
1.2.5. The University efficiently communicates with students?
1.2.6. Students leave University massively?
1.2.7. Enrolment and student retention hold positive throughout the university.
The subsequent paces would be discovering the appropriate cluster of people for the survey. For these purposes, I am to construct a shackle emails that will be dispatched via some networking websites like Facebook, Netlog, Skype, and WhatsApp, Tweets, google etc and even the universities website if possible. I selected this particular web as it encompasses people whom are oftentimes on the internet and therefore have admission to the chosen spots and the assorted methods of branding to be utilized.
1.4- IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDYGreatly, obtaining a competitive supremacy of the university moderately to its rivals. Thinking the manipulated content of comparable experience in the state and deficiency in familiarization of the association alongside the students and this call for this study. It is recognized that, retention strategies are vital because they aid craft a affirmative work nature and reinforce an employees promise to the organization. It additionally helps to grasp operative incomings, price competent, uphold presentation and productivity
Retention research suggests that student commitment to educational and career goals is perhaps the strongest factor associated with student persistence to degree completion (Wyckoff, 1999). Consequently, effective utilization of certain technicalities can stand to put forth considerable impact on student retention through its salutary influence on students learning and career planning and decision-making.
Therefore it pays to place great emphasis on the need for student retention strategies as a means of support in the academic planning and decision-making process as stipulated by research findings, which indicate that (a) three of every four students are uncertain or tentative about their career choice at college entry (Titley & Titley, 1980; Frost, 1991), (b) only 8% of new students feel they know a great deal about their intended major (Lemoine, cited in Erickson & Summers, 1991) (c) over half of all students who enter college with a declared major change their mind at least once before they graduate (Foote, 1980; Gordon, 1984), and (d) only one senior out of three will major in the same field they preferred as a freshman (Willingham, 1985). This degree of student uncertainty and propensity for changing educational plans has been reported at all institutional types, including selective private universities (Marchese, 1992), large research universities (What We Know About First-Year Students, 1996; What Do I Want to Be, 1997), and small liberal arts colleges (Alpha Gives Undecided Students a Sense of Identity, 1996).
Besides, such conclusions powerfully propose those students concluding choices about majors and careers do not occur before entering college, but typically materialize during the college experience. Thus, it is not accurate to assume that students who enter college with declared majors are truly decided majors; instead, it is more accurate to conclude that 75% of all students entering college are actually undecided about their academic and career plans, and at least half of all declared majors are prematurely decided majors, who will eventually change their minds.However, student retention has been stipulated as one of the extra intertwined and intricate subjects of present higher education. One of the key elements of inquiries I usually earth considering student retention is, How do we become people to care concerning the issue? besides subsequently probing for the reason why student retention is a vital issue, my thoughts automatically becomes modified en route for the fact that retention can revise every single aspect of higher education. At its core, the retention of college students is a convoluted subject, representing interplay of confidential, established, and societal factors, alongside probable associated detrimental prices and implications to all three audiences (Brunsden, 2000).
From the student outlook, involuntary removal because of intellectual wreck or inability to cope alongside the demands of the educational system lowers self-confidence and self-esteem and probable embodies a negative lifelong commercial impact. From the established perspective, attrition is believed a rubbish of university resources, exceptionally in a nature of manipulated commercial and finished resources. Attrition also potentially damages the reputation of an institution, creating long-term implications for attracting new students (Ozga, 1998). (Ozga, 1998). After individuals do not accomplish their maximum possible, this embodies wasted talent not merely for the individual but additionally for area as a polish that does not derive from benefit their progress through more education.
I have discovered that the incidence of the setbacks associated with student retention could be also argued in some other kinds like personal, established, and societal impact. After clarified, the vital flora of student retention makes for a quite irresistible argument.Scope of the Study
This study will go by the students responses from the September 2015 semester students to the February 2018 semester to evaluate the rate at which they still stick to the university and also the why the freshers made their decisions to come to be enrolled in those universities.
This project will facilitate productivity via both online and offline means thereby encompassing students of 5 Klang Valley Universities. The project will be complete by September semester, 2018.The incidence of retention will be accessed based on the key factors listed above thereby connecting the DV and the IVs in order to see the effect.Research Terms
Mediu Al-Madinah International University
1.5 -Limitations of the studyThe project was focused on the students of some five Klang Valley international universities. Even though this study was prudently organized, I am still aware of its limitations and shortcomings.Firstly, the research was conducted in the two intermediate classes, which have lasted for almost 6 months. Even though i am aware that six months is not all that enough for the researcher to observe all of the students issues regarding student retention, there are more room for some upcoming researches. It would be better if it was done in a longer time.
Moreover, the population of the experimental group is small, only 60 in each university and might not represent the majority of the students of the intermediate level.
In addition, since the questionnaire designed to measure the effect of the factors of retention on the students; it seems not to provide enough evidence of the students actual behavior and other acts towards the universities.Concisely, as the author himself gathered the valuations of the pretests and posttests, so it is inevitable that in this study, high degree of subjectivity cannot be found. In fact, it would have been sort of objective if it had been decided by two or three examiners. Research Structure
Chapter One explains the outline of the research. This chapter includes a brief explanation of the research background, and provides rationale for the selection of the research area. Moreover, the first chapter contains explanation of the research aim and objectives, and explains research structure.
Chapter Two constitutes a literature review, and accordingly, contains analysis of models and theoretical frameworks that have been previously introduced to the research area. This chapter contains definitions of main terms. Viewpoints of other authors regarding the research area in general and research problem in particular have been presented in a logical manner in this chapter.
Chapter Three addresses methodology. The chapter explains the research process and addresses the issues of research philosophy. Moreover, methodology chapter contains explanation of research design, and the choice and implementation of data collection methods. Sampling aspect of the study and discussions of ethical considerations are also included in this chapter.
Chapter Four contains presentation of the primary data collected through questionnaires/observation/etc. Presentation of primary data findings have been facilitated through bar charts/pie charts. Brief discussions have been included to explain each chart.
Chapter Five constitutes discussions and analyses. This chapter plays a critical role in the achievement of research aim and objectives. Findings of the literature review have been compared to primary data findings in this chapter. In addition, in-depth discussions have been provided in relation to each individual research objective, and summarizes the level of achievement of research aim and objectives. The chapter comprises acknowledgement of limitations of the study and highlights scope for future studies in the same research area.
Your dissertation has also to contain title page, acknowledgements, abstract, and table of contents at the beginning. Furthermore, you need to add references, bibliography and appendices sections at the end of your dissertation.CHAPTER TWO 2.0-Literature Review
As an outstanding student of Al-Madinah International University, I feel happy, using my university as part of the theme for my project. Mycurrentresponsibilityistofigure out the relationship between the various factors affecting student retention: (1) student experience with the college, (2) satisfaction, (3) perceived organizational commitment, (4) financial factors and (5) faculty and students interactions and their impact to some Klang Valley International universities which comprises of the students and other stakeholders.It would also be extended to newgenerationof consumers by contingency. Consequently, I would be trilled using a visual message for the writing. The outstanding cost effectiveness of concentrating on student retention by way of a registration management strategy is recommendable and insightfully captured by Alexander Astin, who jogs our memory back that, In four-year institutions, any change that deters students from dropping out can affect three classes of students at once, whereas any change in recruiting practices can affect only one class in a given year. From this viewpoint, investing resources to prevent dropping out may be more cost effective than applying the same resources to more vigorous recruitment (1975, p. 2). Fashionable to fact, cost-benefit investigations on student recruitment struggles, which necessary needs a considerable institutional expenditures (e.g., hiring of staff, travel funding, compensations and marketing costs), range between $200-$800 per student (Kramer, 1982). In disparity, certain initiatives of retention premeditated to be able to cope with the issue of student enrolment stand estimate to be 3-5 times more cost-effective than recruitment efforts, i.e., 3-5 already enrolled students can be retained at the college for the same cost incurred to recruit one new student to the college (Noel, Levitz, & Saluri, 1985; Rosenberg & Czepiel, 1983; Tinto, 1975). There is a Canadian university which computed that for the reason of recruitment costs, the college loses $4,230 for each student who is not being able to be maintained to the second year (Okanagan University College cited in Grayson & Grayson, 2003). According to Bean and Hossler (1990), if a student remains with an institution for four years he/she will be able to come out with almost the equivalent income as four new students who show absence after one year. For example, at the University of St. Louis, it is projected that each 1% increase in first-year retention rate generates approximately $500,000 in revenue by the time these first-year students eventually graduate (Nicholl & Sutton, in Grayson & Grasyon, 2003). An additional economic benefit related to student retention make it known that the effective promotion of student perseverance to completion is that graduating students are much less likely to fail on the payment of their student loans than students who drop outdue, in large measure, likely because graduates are more likely to find gainful employment (Seaks, cited in Levitz, 1993).
Most prominently, though, improving student retention not only bring about the institutionally self-serving purpose of promoting economic creditworthiness, it also serves as the more philanthropic, student-centered way of promoting education and development. As Astin (1975) notes: More important from an educational standpoint, changes that help students complete college, represent a real service to them, whereas successful recruiting efforts may simply change students choice of institutions (p. 2).
In deduction, it should always be remembered that student retention is a valuation result, reasonable enough to adjustable to accurate measurement. Besides, retention stands with purpose as a central or preliminary student outcome, aiding as a prerequisite or requirement in lieu of significant calculation of other aftermaths. On behalf of instance, added generally weighed endings of college, such as knowledge acquisition, critical thinking, and attitude change, cannot possibly be perfectly measured as concluding outcomes of the college experience except and up until students have persevered to accomplishment of the college experience. Moreover, Every result valuation data summed up on students who must have been graduated from either a postsecondary institution or high school where substantial statistics shows that other students have withdrawn massively on preceding to degree finishing point (e.g., institutional abrasion rates of 50% or higher) is, in consequence, steering valuation on an misleading sample of students, i.e., It could be that the graduates do not embody the general population of matriculated students.
Metaphorically in the medical realm, if 50% of a schools entering session finalizes their university or institutional experience and exhibits a encouraging results at completion and the college instigates that it is undertaking an effective job with an ideal determination to success, the situation could be presented as same to a pharmaceutical company closing that a newly approved medication was extremely fruitful for the reason that it came out with a optimistic effect for 50% of the patients who accomplished the drug-treatment plan, while gleefully discounting the datum that one-half of the treated patients botched to complete the treatment strategy due to the drugs intolerable side effects and high death rate. Consequently, it may be argued that any institute really fascinated in outcomes valuation be duty-bound to take account of student retention as a prime aftermath measure, in addition to that, the institution should also consider it a habit to create significant understandings of supplementary measured upshots. To sum up, whenever the crucial drive for valuation stands to be the overall institutional upgrading, at that juncture advancement in student retainment ought to be duty-bound to an anticipated result of almost every postsecondary institution keen on the usage of valuation results as a means of transportation for transforming constructive institutional modification. On set to the distressingly high levels of student attrition at many colleges and universities, retention represents a student outcome that can be dramatically improved, not only because there is so much room for improvement, but also because it is has been figured out that speculated by way of much or supplementary by institutional behaviour than by student features (e.g., lack of academic motivation or academic under preparedness). As Tinto (1987) reports: Although the intents and pledge through which folks get into college is of regard, the after scenes of the entrance staples more. Much emphasis is being placed on the day to day occurrences of the individual with others both formally and informally, academically or even socially and the issue of perception or assessment of the character of those dealings that determines decisions broadly as to either remaining or leaving. The aforementioned has made it clear that, most departures stand voluntary. Therefore, Student retention remains by the side of institutional behaviour as a function likewise student behaviour. As stipulated on the Cvent blog that April is International Customer Loyalty Month! It should go without saying that April should not be the only month you give customer loyalty focus. There are huge business benefits to creating loyal customers. However, Customer Loyalty Month should serve as a reminder to review your customer programs and evaluate your KPIs for customer loyalty measurement. Therefore, it imperative for the university adopt change in tis systems as to subject to change and improve upon their customers satisfaction so as to stick on purchasing their service as the customers(students)are the chief when it comes to them staying in the market. As the proverb by Charles Darwin speaks well of it and states that, it is not the strongest of the species that survives, or the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. Therefore, change in the system ought to be made for the betterment of those universities survival in the midst of stiff educational industrial competition.
2.1-Model of the Study
Fig.2.02.2-Creating the Empirical RelationshipsDespite the fact that there is a time-honoured reasonable relationship amid student experience with the college, satisfaction, perceived organizational commitment, financial factors and faculty and students interactions coupled with student retention, besides, their pragmatic construction remains hitherto en route for its analytical establishment. Besides, the yet to be established points stands as sequences of studies proving proves in lieu of an experimental relationship between student experience with the college, satisfaction, perceived organizational commitment, financial factors and faculty and students interactions powerfully stay interconnected with student retention.
2.2.1- Student Experience with the College:
Many a times, it happen that students experience with their universities serving as an adhesive for them not being able to leave the institute. Many universities do have a very kind relations and interactions with their students.
Usually business tends to create very powerful marketing strategies such that it sometimes creates avenues for customers and even makes the customers also create pools of customers. Low and behold, the majority students in Al-Madinah International University especially the final year students go contrary to this thought. As ever stated by Shiv Singh that, the purpose of a business is to create a customer who creates customers. Some observations among the students makes known to us that the relationship of this factors of student experience with the University shows a negative turnout.
It has ever quoted by Zig Ziglar that, Statistics suggest that when customers complain, business owners and managers ought to get excited about it. The complaining customer represents a huge opportunity for more business. To my utter dismay, it sounds different in the university. Many student uttered according to their experience with the university, they have realize that among the most difficult tasks that they are having is making the administration understand their grievances and situations.
2.2.2- SatisfactionCustomer satisfaction is worthless. Customer loyalty is priceless.
~ Jeffrey GitomerScientifically, there exists a deep-rooted pragmatic link concerning students level of gratification en route with their higher educational institutions and their rate of retention (Bean, 1980, 1983; Noel, Levitz, & Saluri, 1985), i.e., college satisfaction is a primary predictor of student persistence (Noel & Levitz, 1995). Moreover, college satisfaction stands as a valuation result that has been assumed as the slightest inclined or confounded by students college-entry featurese.g., academic preparedness, educational aspirations, gender, and socioeconomic status (Astin, 1991).
Cumbersomely, studies happening in the direction of student satisfaction by way of the quality of academic progressions sort it to the public that a framework of unsatisfactory discoveries. Astin (1993) reports the outcomes of a nationwide review fashionably went as advising ranked 25th in the midst of the 27 different categories of kinds of services measured by students, with only 40% of the evaluated students demonstrating whether they persisted one or the other satisfied or very satisfied by means of the quality of educational counselling they got at their university. 2.3-Perceived organizational commitment Much literature has examined the notion of organizational commitment, and many conceptualizations and measures have been proposed and tested (Meyer & Allen, 1991; Mowday, Porter, & Steers, 1982). Meyer and Allen have extensively researched two types of commitment, called affective commitment and continuance commitment (Allen & Meyer, 1990; Meyer & Allen, 1984). Affective commitment is denned as “an affective or emotional attachment to the organization such that the strongly committed individual identifies with, is involved in, and enjoys membership in, the organization” (Allen & Meyer, 1990, p. 2). Continuance commitment is “a tendency to’ engage in consistent lines of activity’ (Becker, 1960, p. 33) based on the individual’s recognition of the ‘costs’ (or lost side bets) associated with discontinuing the activity” (Allen & Meyer, 1990, p. 3). Much evidence has been accrued on the distinctiveness of Meyer and Allen’s (1984) Affective Commitment Scale (ACS) and Continuance Commitment Scale (CCS; Allen & Meyer, 1990; McGee & Ford, 1987; Meyer, Allen, & Gellatly, 1990) and on the differential relationships each has with antecedents and outcomes (Allen & Meyer, 1990; Meyer, Paunonen, Gellatly, Goffin, & Jackson, 1989; Shore & Barksdale, 1991).
Although affective and continuance commitment represent employee commitment to the organization, recent work by Eisenberger, Huntington, Hutchison, and Sowa (1986) has recommended the value of studying the organization’s commitment to the employee. Eisenberger et al. suggested that employees’ perceptions of the organization’s commitment to them, referred to as perceived organizational support (POS), are based on employees’ global beliefs concerning the extent to which the organization values their contributions and cares about their wellbeing. Using a social exchange framework, Eisenberger and his colleagues argued that employees who perceive a high level of organizational support is more likely to feel an obligation to “repay” the organization in terms of affective commitment (Eisenberger et al., 1986) and work-related behaviour (Blau, 1964; Eisenberger, Fasolo, & Davis-LaMastro, 1990; Eisenberger etal., 1986).
Although POS is a commitment concept, it represents a departure from the traditional approach of studying employee commitment to the organization, raising the question of whether employer commitment, or POS, provides a unique and appreciated contribution to the literature. A recent confirmatory factor analysis by Shore and Tetrick (1991) indicated that the ACS, the CCS, and the Survey of Perceived Organizational Support (Eisenberger et al., 1986) are distinct measures. However, before the present study, research has not compared employee commitment with employer commitment (i.e., POS) to determine the potentially unique explanation of behaviour provided by POS relative to the well-established concepts of affective commitment and continuance commitment.
In a recent meta-analysis, Mathieu and Zajac (1990) presented evidence on the links between organizational commitment and a number of critical in-role behaviours, including performance, absence, lateness, and turnover. However, commitment may also be important in explaining behaviours that are not formally rewarded or sanctioned by the organization, referred to as nonrole behaviours. As with in-role behaviours, nonrole behaviours can contribute to or detract from organizational effectiveness (Borman & Motowidlo, in press), so that under- standing how commitment relates to these types of behaviours would be a valuable contribution to the literature. Furthermore, commitment may be particularly important in predicting nonrole behaviours (Scholl, 1981; Wiener, 1982), such as organizational citizenship and impression management. We chose to include these two no role behaviours in our study because the former has been viewed as enhancing organizational functioning (Organ, 1990) whereas the latter has been shown to detract from organizational effectiveness by, for example, resulting in lower job satisfaction (Gandz & Murray, 1980) or creating bias in performance ratings (Wayne & Ferris, 1990).
2.4. Financial factors
Moreover, this lesson of student income has to do with the critical issue of equity. It can be stated as follows: Though access to higher education for low-income students has increased and gaps in access between high- and low-income students decreased the gap between well-to-do and poor students in -year degree completion remains. Indeed it appears to have increased somewhat over time (NCES, 2005, Table 5-B, p. 24).5
That this is the case is reflected in a number of different, but related, events.
First, there has been a noticeable shift in patterns of attendance of low-income students in two- and four-year institutions. In 1973-74, the first year of the Pell Grant program, 62.4% of Pell Grant recipients were enrolled in four-year colleges and universities. By 2001-02 the share of Pell Grant recipients enrolled in four-year colleges and universities had shrunk to 44.9%, a decline of 28%. Understandably, some, if not a large measure of differential participation can be attributed to well-documented differences in levels of academic preparation of low- and high-income students and the impact of recent policies that have restricted the access to four-year institutions for students who have substantial academic needs.But even among students with similar levels of academic resources, low socioeconomic students are less likely to attend four-year institutions than are students from high socioeconomic backgrounds (Cabrera, Burkum, & La Nasa, 2005, pp. 159-160, Figures 7.1 and 7.2) and, in attending four-year institutions, less likely to attend the most selective colleges and universities (Carnevale & Rose, 2003; Bowen, Kurzweil, & Tobin, 2005).There is, in fact, less socioeconomic diversity than racial and ethnic diversity at the most selective colleges and universities (Bowen, Kurzweil, & Tobin, 2005, p. 69, Table 1.1).
Economic stratification of participation can also be observed in forms of participation that lead some students to attend full-time while others attend part-time and/or work while attending college. Not surprisingly, students from low-income families are considerably less likely to attend college full-time than are students from higher income families and more likely to work full-time while attending college (NCES 1999, Table 1.3).
Why does such economic stratification of participation matter? It matters because where and how one goes to college influences the likelihood of college completion. Data from a recently completed six-year national longitudinal study of students who began college in 1995/96 bear testimony to this fact. Whereas over 56% of high-income students earn a Bachelors degree within six years, only 25% of low-income students do (NCES, 2003, p. 57, Table 2.0C). Even among those who began higher education in similar types of institutions, income matters. Among those beginning in a two-year college, only 8% of low-income students earn a Bachelors degree within six years while nearly 25% of high-income students do (NCES 2003, Table 2.1C). Similar, but not as dramatic differences in likelihood of completion also exist among four-year college entrants (NCES 2003-151, Table 2.2C).Understandably, some of these differences can be attributed to differences in academic preparation and to the fact that low-income students are considerably less likely to attend elite institutions where graduates rates are quite high (Carnevale & Rose, 2003, p. 69, Table 2.1). But even within elite institutions, income matters. For instance among students attending the top tier of institutions, presumably among the most talented and motivated students in higher education, students from the lowest socioeconomic quartile are less likely to graduate (76%) than students from the highest quartile (90%) (Carnevale & Rose, 2003, p. 14).The facts are unavoidable. Though access to higher education has increased, greater equality in attainment of four-year college degrees has not followed suit. For too many low-income students access to higher education has become a revolving door, the promise of a Bachelors degree unfulfilled.Here is another area of research that must be addressed in the future, namely that which sheds light on the persistence of low-income students. We need to know more about the nature of their experiences in both two- and four-year institutions, the ways those experiences influence persistence, and more importantly the sorts of institutional and state actions that enhance their success in higher education.
This is not to say that there is no such work. There is (e.g., Choy & Bobbitt, 2000; Gandara, 1995; Gladieux & Swail, 1999; Paulsen & St. John, 2002).But much of the research co-mingles issues of race, education generational status, and income in ways that make it difficult to disentangle the independent effects of income. Though much of the research on students of colour, for instance, is in fact research on low-income students, the two issues are not one and the same. Take as an example the well-known study The Shape of the River by Bowel and Bok (1998). Though much has been made of its analysis of the impact of affirmative action on the experiences of students of colour among selective universities, the study proves not to be a study of low-income students (Rudenstine, 2001; Sowell, 1999). Only a small percentage of students of colour who were able to gain entry to the elite institutions in the study were from low-income backgrounds.
Given that low-income students are disproportionately academically underprepared, we also need to connect the research on developmental educationinappropriately referred by some as remedial educationto that on the retention of low-income students. In particular, we must shed more light on the critical linkage between institutional actions to enhance the education of academically under-prepared low-income students to that of their persistence and subsequent program completion. In this regard, research currently being conducted at Syracuse University on the adaptation of learning communities to the needs of academically under-prepared low-income students serves to reinforce a growing recognition that our ability to address the needs of these students requires that we do more than simply tinker at the margins of our educational practice.Among other things it requires a collaborative effort of faculty and student affairs professionals to change their pedagogical and curricular practices in ways that enable students to experience learning together within a context of contextualized academic and social support (Tinto, 1999).Finally, since so many low-income students begin in two-year colleges, we also need to conduct more research on the transfer of low-income students between two- and four-year colleges such as that by Cabrera, Burkum, and La Nasa (2005).This, it must be pointed out, is not simply a matter of articulation. Though articulation agreements are helpful, they do not help more low-income student transfer. What we need, but do not yet have, is a body of research that tells of the nature of institutional practices that enable more low-income students to transfer to and, in turn, succeed in four-year colleges and universities2.1.5- Faculty and Students Interactions (Actions and Reactions)Notably, the culture of academic departments in colleges and universities has been identified as a critical issue for students success in earning degree. Danso 2013.
This lesson of institutional act can be broadly stated as Follows: It is important to comprehend the reasons behind students turnover, likewise knowing the proceeding measures that can be put in place in order to pave way for their retention and successfulness.Generally, leaving does not stand as the mirror image of staying. Knowing why students leave does not necessarily predicts to us, at least not directly, why students persist. More importantly it does not tell institutions, at least not directly, what they can do to improve students retention and successfulness. In the world of action, what matters are not our theories to stand on, but how consistent they are in helping to address institutional practical issues of persistence?Inappropriately, recent theories of student leaving are not well-suited to that task.
This is the case for several reasons not the least of which is that current theories of student leaving typically utilize abstractions and variables that are, on one hand, often difficult to operationalize and translate into forms of institutional practice and, on the other, focus on matters that are not directly under the immediate ability of institutions to influence. Take for instance the concept of academic and social integration.
While it may be useful to theorists to know that academic and social integration matter, that theoretical insight does not tell practitioners, at least not directly, what they would do to achieve academic and/or social integration in their particular setting. Though the early work of Pace (1980), Astin (1984, 1993), and more recently Kuh (1999, 2003) has done much to operationalize the concept of academic and social integration in ways that can be reasonably measured and in turn used for institutional assessment, it does not yet tell institutions how they can enhance integration or what is now referred to as engagement. And while it is true that recent studies, for instance by Tinto and Russo (1994), Tinto (1997),
Zhao and Kuh (2004), and Whitt et al. (2005) have looked into practices that enhance engagement, there is a great deal more to do.In a similar fashion, though it is enlightening to know, for example, that student high school experiences and family context influence persistence in college, such knowledge is less useful to institutional officials because they often have little immediate control over student prior experiences or private lives. This is not to say that such information cannot be useful at least in an indirect way. Knowing about the role of family context may help institutions more effectively configure their support programs for differing student situations and populations. But it does not tell the institution either how to effectively tap into issues of family context or whether such actions, relative to other possible actions, are more likely to yield the outcome of increased persistence that it desires.What is needed and what is not yet available is a model of institutional action that provides guidelines for the development of effective policies and programs that institutions can reasonably employ to enhance the persistence of all their students.
Such a model would have to describe in a coherent, interrelated manner, how different institutional actions impact student persistence in varying ways and degrees in both two- and four-year settings. To be useful a model of institutional action would also have to be multi-layered in that it would have to connect specific programs and practices for students to institutional actions that provide support for the faculty and staff directing those programs and practices.In other words, it would have to delineate the organizational context within which effective practices and programs arise and endure. The development of such a model would require, among other things, not only more research on effective practice but also more research on the impact of organizational policies on those practices and in turn on student retention. Though the research of Braxton and Brier (1989) and Berger (2001) is a move in the right direction, it is only a first step.Two areas, among many, that are ripe for exploration are the effects of classroom practice upon student learning and persistence and the impact of institutional investment in faculty and staff development programs on those outcomes. As for the former, though some research has looked into the impact of classroom practice (e.g., Nora, Cabrera, Hagedorn, & Pascarella, 1996; Tinto, 1997; Braxton, Bray, & Berger, 2000; Braxton, Milem, & Sullivan, 2000; and Umbach & Wawrzynski, 2005), there is clearly much more to be done in this area especially as regards the use of varying curricular, pedagogical, grading, and assessment practices.
Here the growing body of research on the impact of learning communities on student retention stands out as having provided solid evidence of practices that enhance student retention (e.g., Tinto, 1997; Taylor with Moore, MacGregor, & Lindblad, 2004; Zhao & Kuh, 2004).
Regarding faculty and staff development, it is increasingly clear that faculty actions, especially in the classroom, are critical to institutional efforts to increase student retention, but it is also clear that the faculty of our universities and colleges are, as a matter of practice, the only faculty from kindergarten through universities who are literally not trained to teach their students. Yet we know little about the ways in which investments in differing types of faculty development programs impact rates of student retention. Though we have begun to link faculty pedagogy to student retention and therefore by inference to the importance of faculty development, that linkage has yet to be fully explored and tested.3In this regard the work of Braxton (2001), Braxton and McClendon (2001), Braxton, Hirschy, and McClendon (2004), and Seidman (2005) is noteworthy for it represents the first serious attempt to translate into recommendations for action what we know from the extensive body of research on student retention.It can reasonably be argued that the best time to address the issue of faculty development is during doctoral study. For those who anticipate an academic career, it seems reasonable to expect that part of their program be directed toward the acquisition of pedagogical and assessment skills appropriate to the task of teaching. Though some such programs now exist (e.g., Syracuse Universitys Future Professorate Program), they are not yet fully developed or widespread.So too have we yet to test the efficacy of institutional practices that differentially allocate faculty and resources to different segments of the institution.
In this regard it is striking that many institutions, in particular the larger state colleges and universities, continue to assign the least experienced, typically least well paid, faculty to the key first year courses. The use of adjuncts and junior faculty for these typically large classes continues even though research tells us that the first year is the critical year in which decisions to stay or leave are most often made, where the foundations for effective learning are or are not established and where, by extension, the potential returns to institutional investment in student retention and learning are likely to be greatest. This is not to say that adjuncts and junior faculty may not be effective teachers. They may be. But they are generally less experienced and typically less connected to the institution than are senior faculty.
Nevertheless, though we have reason to believe that putting the best first matters, we do not yet have research that provides reliable evidence of the impact of differential forms of institutional investment (e.g., in allocation of faculty and support services) on student retention. Here too there is much to be done.Finally to be useful in the broader political context within which institutions operate, a model of institutional action must recognize what is obvious to institutional officials in the public sector that state policy provides an important context for institutional action.4
As such a model of institutional action must also speak to the influence of state policies and practices on institutional behaviours and in turn on institutional rates of student retention. In doing so, it would bring together conversations about practice and policy for student retention that have previously fore been carried out independently, namely those concerning institutional practice with those of state policy. Here then are other opportunities for research that focus, for instance, on the impact of differing accountability and/or funding systems on institutional retention rates.
Key words: institutional retention rates, funding system, organizational commitment Mediu students.2.1.6-CLOSING THOUGHT
We have travelled a long way since we first began studying the issue of student retention. We have learned much about the complex character of student persistence and have become more sophisticated in our thinking about how to promote persistence for different students and in different settings. But, as the data reveal, it is a journey that has only begun. The really difficult work of shaping institutional practice, in particular for low-income students, has yet to be tackled.
That work requires us to leave our retention fiefdoms and join forces with larger educational movements that seek to restructure the way we go about the task of educating all not just some of our students. It is to that larger educational task that we must now turn, copy their marketing strategies and make it our own as it could lead us very well in a midst of stiff competition.CHAPTER THREE
FRAME WORK
3.0-Subjects or respondents
The high concentrations of the research stayed on the students in second and final year, as they had had enough experience to have a say on the issues of the university. And they considered themselves in place of the objects of the population using sampling methods identified. They were opened to the extraordinary processes, with inclusive questionnaires and interviews, and observations based upon the identified needs of the two classes while the researcher had undergone exclusive criteria in implementing the accepted standards used also in making decisions or judgments about the tests given to the pilot classes. After the researcher had conducted a series of tests to the aforementioned subjects, 50 students varied themselves fashionable to their intellectual aptitudes. The interviews and the questions were all put to order in a week, Monday to Friday.The subjects were selected from Al-Madinah international university (the second and final year students): 20 females and 27 males both in either the second or the final year. In second batch alone, it had 15 females and 12 males as respondents while in first batch alone, it had 5 females and 15 males students. All of them got a total of 47 as subjects of the study by the researcher concerned.
Majority of them were 19-25 years old while a few have ages 25 and 35 of them graduated salutatorians and 8 graduated valedictorians from their elementary years. 47 students as research respondents were under descriptive survey method of study, and they were called pilot students were both the pioneers and the second batch under a convenience sampling method in Al-Madinah International University. 3.1- Area of the research.
The area pertaining to this research has been confined to be based on the experimental relationship between student experience with the college, satisfaction, perceived organizational commitment, financial factors and faculty and students interactions powerfully stay interconnected with student retention.
3.2-Research Setting
This study will take place among the students of Al-Madinah Internal University and their actions and interactions in relation to the various aforementioned factors influencing student retention in an educational institution. It will not go further in the pace of the managers due to how hard it was to get information.
Imminently, the analysis will absolutely be inductive, fashionable and logically by way of an inclusive literary revision, as well as in depth industry review. Also the author will be determined to follow the relations of those aforementioned factors in lieu of student retention, fairly than scrutinizing a pre-conceived hypothesis.
Furthermore, the writer has the choice towards using a deductive method in line that he should examine a predetermined hypothesis. However, it stays in the writers opinion of checking the choice of investigation, by way of focusing too far on the theory and not abundantly on all accompanying influences that could impact the issues of students retention.3.3- Time Interval
It will be conducted within a period of one months or a fortnight3.4- New Statistical Methodology to Be Developed
Which is the better approach? It will go on by distributing some questioners to a sample the students and analysing it based on certain technicalities in accessing a company in line with retention. The mail survey will be designed and implemented according to a more succinct way, proven to result in improved response rates and data quality. The questions will be phrased in the form of statements scored on a 5-point Liker-type scale, where 1 = “strongly disagree”, 3 = “neither disagree nor agree”, and 5 = strongly agree” and many more.
Respondents will be asked to identify their preferences, loyalty and other factors they thought would influence their bank evaluation We will also go a long way in finding out the best strategies to adopt and which of them will best fit the students (customers) in lieu with their retention; finding which is easy to use, when it comes to the fostering of a good relationship and the better model to adopt in gaining a great competitive advantage in the outside world. Affordability is also consideration. Getting the one with the latest technology or strategy and also the one which it will be easy going will be the priority. So we came across the legitimate strategy for that. It is going to be carried out by disseminating of the questionnaire at levels, 14, 11 and 8.It would also be sent online to some others. Occasional check-ups of the processes by contingency will be carried out.
The purpose of this study is to determine the nature and extent of relationships between the constructs identified as factors influencing customer retention. Multiple regressions are used to test the hypothesized relationships among the identified constructs.
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