ABSTRACT

Why do college students persist with their education, especially when facing challenges? We answer this question by exploring the complexities surrounding college student retention, using the organizational research lenses of job embeddedness, normative pressures, and the unfolding model of turnover. We first developed a college embeddedness scale and adapted a measure of normative pressures on college persistence. Then, we surveyed 287 first-year students from a broad range of racial and ethnic groups to understand their re-enrollment intentions and behavior. We found a positive relationship between re-enrollment intentions and normative pressures. Additionally, both college embeddedness and normative pressures predicted actual re-enrollment. Next, we examined how these forces interact with critical events (shocks) that prompt students to contemplate leaving, finding that college embeddedness and normative pressures mitigated the impact of shocks on re-enrollment intentions. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed, including the utility of job embeddedness theory for identifying heretofore neglected forces underlying college student retention.

摘要

大学生为什么要坚持学业，尤其是在面临挑战的时候？我们通过探索围绕大学生保留的复杂性，使用工作嵌入性、规范压力和正在展开的离职模型等组织研究镜头来回答这个问题。我们首先开发了一个大学嵌入量表，并调整了对大学坚持的规范压力的衡量标准。然后，我们调查了来自广泛种族和族裔群体的 287 名一年级学生，以了解他们重新入学的意图和行为。我们发现再入学意愿与规范压力之间存在正相关关系。此外，大学嵌入性和规范压力都预测了实际的重新入学。下一个，我们研究了这些力量如何与促使学生考虑离开的关键事件（冲击）相互作用，发现大学嵌入性和规范压力减轻了冲击对重新入学意向的影响。讨论了理论和实践意义，包括工作嵌入理论在识别迄今为止被忽视的大学生保留背后的力量方面的效用。