Identifying Significant Features that Impact URM Student Academic Success and Retention Upmost Using Qualitative Methodologies: Focus Groups

The purpose of this research is to develop a hybrid framework to model first year student academic success and retention for Under Represented Minorities (URM) comprising African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans. This model was built by incorporating quantitative and qualitative results to obtain an adequate understanding of URM student retention and academic success and modeling their performance and retention during freshman year. This paper will focus on highlighting the qualitative (focus groups) part of this research. Focus groups were designed to elicit responses from participants for identifying factors that affect their retention the most and provide more knowledge about their first year experiences, academically and socially. Introduction: Increasing student retention and academic success in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines have been among the goals of higher education institutions for a long time. Significant efforts have been made to predict student retention in higher education and to understand the process of dropping out of college 1-3 by developing theoretical models of student retention using associated factors. Seymour 4 reported that both enrollment and retention rates in STEM disciplines have declined. More specifically, Tinto 5 reported that freshmen year has the highest dropout rate especially in the first six weeks of the first semester. Statistics show that students of color have higher attrition rates compared with other groups, although this trend has been decreasing over the past twenty years 6-8 . These groups tend to enroll in STEM majors in small numbers and leave in higher numbers 9, 10 . The purpose of this research is to develop a hybrid framework to model first year student academic success and retention for URM comprising African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans. This model was built by incorporating quantitative (genetic algorithm) and qualitative (focus groups) results. Obtaining an adequate understanding of URM student retention and academic success and modeling their performance and retention during freshman year, serves institutions by identifying at-risk students in STEM fields. The focus groups participants were former Summer Transition Program (STP) students over a three year period of time, 2008-2010. The STP is a residential four week program for entering URM freshmen targeting fourteen STEM majors including engineering, natural sciences, and mathematical sciences. Focus groups were designed to elicit responses from participants for identifying factors that affect their retention the most and P ge 25711.2 provide more knowledge about their academic and social first year experiences. More details about the STP can be found in 10 . Qualitative Research Design Qualitative research methodologies are effective way in terms of analyzing nonquantitative data or data in the form of text rather than numbers. Researchers defined qualitative research as an “important modes of inquiry for the social sciences and applied fields, such as education, regional planning, health sciences, social work, community development, and management.” 11 . The strength of qualitative research comes from three main points 1) “exploration and discovery” in which it aims to learn about a specific group of people, 2) “context and depth” by providing an insight into people’s behaviors and experiences, 3) “interpretation” where it gives an understanding of the reasoning behind people’s behaviors 12 . Qualitative research includes several strategies for data collection such as observations, content analysis of existing sources, interviews, and focus groups. This study will employ focus groups as a strategy for collecting data to gain insights into the STEM students’ experience at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) and identify participant characteristics that may prevent him/her from continuing in a STEM discipline.