The Effect of First Year Experiences on Retention

Dropping out is one of the most challenging issues in higher education institutes because drop-out directly affects lower graduation rates, financial loss, and negative impressions of learning. This study explored the effect of the first year experiences on students’ retention aiming to investigate and sought to find out the influential factors that affect students’ retention rate based on six student perceptions in the first year of college life of 853 freshmen cohort. According to logistic regression analysis, the result showed three major perceptions (classroom climate, academic experience, and collaborative learning experience) of first year experiences, though it was not significant, had relatively high degree of influence over students’ retention. These findings indicate the first year of experiences in academic learning community are very critical requisite for students retention and quality interaction and collaborative working experience are important factor to decrease students’ drop-out. In addition, this result has the potential application to orientation program of new employees for positive experiences in workplace.