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The Problem of Retaining Students Beyond the Intro Course

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 May 2020

Patrick R. Cotter  and
Victor H. Gibean Jr.
Patrick R. Cotter
Affiliation:
University of Alabama
Victor H. Gibean Jr.
Affiliation:
University of Alabama
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Extract

As recently reported in The chronicle of Higher Education (January 7, 1980), enrollment in colleges and universities is expected to decline about 4 percent during the 1980s. This decline in student enrollment, which may exceed 40 percent in some states, will be one of the major problems facing higher education during this decade.

Currently the bulk of political science enrollment of most colleges and universities is in introductory courses. These courses are primarily composed of students majoring in other disciplines who are taking an introductory political science course (usually the introductory course in American Politics) to fulfill a degree requirement. Most of these “service” students take no additional political science courses. As a result, the “continuation scores” — the number of additional political science courses taken — of most introductory course students are very low.

Type
Research Article
Information
News for Teachers of Political Science , Volume 34 , Summer 1982 , pp. 4 - 24
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1982

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References

Notes

1 Political science majors are deleted from the analysis. About 74 percent of the students studied enroll in only one political science course. Consequently, the continuation score measure is dichotomized in the analysis into those taking only one course and those taking two or or more political science courses.

2 The continuation scores of students taking introductory courses later in the period under study are lower than those of earlier students. It is not now possible to determine if the lower continuation scores are due to recent students having had less of an opportunity to take additional courses, or if the lower scores are due to other factors. As a result of this problem, we have tried to be cautious in reporting the results of the data analysis. In particular, we have tried to report only those results which have consistently appeared throughout the period under study

3 Students in smaller colleges such as Engineering or Home Economics are excluded from this part of the analysis because very few of these students take introductory political science classes

4 The low continuation scores of Commerce and Business Administration students is not due to the students’ degree programs. Commerce and Business Administration students can potentially take up to 7 political science courses and still satisfy their college degree requirements

5 See Langton and Jennings (1968) for a discussionof the influence of redundant course material in high school civics classes