Satisfaction with Campus Climate a Key Persistance Indicator

Student satisfaction may be even more important than higher ed administrators already thought. A recent study found that increased student satisfaction, particularly with the campus climate, can increase student persistence. And using satisfaction indicators, the ability to predict retention is almost doubled when compared to more traditional  demographic characteristics and institutional features. It seems that with retention research, it pays for administrators to be open minded about the method.

The study, based on 27,816 students at 65 four-year public and private institutions, measured the extent to which student satisfaction predicted actual retention four to 12 months later (after accounting for demographic characteristics and institutional features). It was released by Noel-Levitz and Laurie Schreiner, chair and professor in the Department of Doctoral Higher Education at Azusa Pacific University (Calif.).

"Knowing students' levels of satisfaction with their college experience adds significantly to our ability to predict whether they return the next year," says Schreiner. The link between student satisfaction and graduation rates has been studies at the institutional level but not at the individual student level, she adds. "With this research study, this link between student satisfaction and retention for individual students has now moved from being an intuitive link to being an empirical one."

Study findings were broken out by class level.

• First-year students: Satisfaction with campus climate is especially crucial for retention. These students are more likely to persist when they are satisfied with their advisor's availability, are impressed with the course content in their major, believe that student fees are used wisely, and feel that the campus is a safe place.

• Sophomores: Campus climate, instructional effectiveness, advising, course content in major, variety of courses offered, feeling that faculty are fair and unbiased in the treatment of students, career services, and having a comfortable place to spend time between classes are the satisfaction areas most predictive of their next-year persistence.

• Juniors: The odds of returning for senior year are improved as satisfaction increases in areas such as advisors knowing graduation requirements, faculty availability outside of class, ability to experience intellectual growth on campus, and having a comfortable place to spend time in between classes (everybody likes a comfortable place to hang out, after all).

• Seniors: Retention shifts from being very connected to student satisfaction factors to instead depending on institutional characteristics and grade point average.

A paper based on the research, as well as slides and audio from a recent web conference on the report, can be found here.