Relation of Student Persistence in College to Satisfaction with Environmental” Factor

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Abstract
This study investigates the relationship between 2,800 University of Illinois beginning freshman students' attitudes, perceptions and judgments toward selected aspects of their college environment to determine if students who persist toward attainment of a degree express evaluations of their college environment that are different from those who withdraw or drop out. A questionnaire asking students to indicate their degree of satisfaction with selected aspects of the University including ten items which are academic in nature (i.e., teaching ability of instructors) and ten items which are nonacademic (i.e., social environment, study conditions) were analyzed. Seven major factors accounted for approximately one-half of the common variance in students’ evaluations of many facets of student life. The seven factors were social environment, scholastic habits, faculty, advisement, financial, study arrangements, and counseling. Eight semesters after entry the students could be classified in one of three status groups, dropped, withdrawn or persisted. The factor scores on the seven factors served as dependent variables in a 2 × 3 (sex × status group) factorial design. A two-way multivariate analysis of variance was not possible since males and females were not distributed proportionately among the status groups. Therefore, a one-way multivariate analysis of variance was performed for males and females separately. For each sex group the one-way multivariate analysis for the three status groups resulted in a significant F ratio. Discriminant analysis was used to explore the differences among the groups. Students’ evaluation of selected aspects of their college environment are not independent of status (Persisted, Withdrawn or Dropped) eight semesters after initial entry or of sex. Both male and female students who were dropped or who withdrew expressed varying evaluations of selected academic and nonacademic aspects of their environments. The findings of the study indicate that students' evaluations of environmental factors are important in forecasting future status.

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