The Third Week Survey

Understanding the Student Retention Forecast from the Beginning

First-year students face a host of difficulties upon entering the unique world of higher

education. Some have never lived alone. Some are first generation college students, to whom this

world is entirely new with its own language and culture. Retaining students is an institutional

priority, and SUU has proactively taken several measures to boost retention of first-year

students. These measures include a strengthening of the Student Affairs division in the school by

adding Parent and Family Services, the Career Center, Withdrawal Support, and the Assistant

Coaches for Excellence and Success (ACES).

The Third Week Survey (TWS) was developed by Dr. Eric Kirby at Southern Utah

University to understand the difficulties mentioned above, and potentially forecast student

persistence (2017). The survey seeks to understand a first-year student’s life holistically. First,

questions about social, emotional, and physical well-being are asked. Then, several questions are

asking about students’ academic life, such as professor office hours and hours spent studying.

Finally, the survey poses questions about the connection to campus through friends and clubs.

This survey is pushed to first-year students through their university portal at the conclusion of

the third week. The results are disseminated to upper-classmen peer mentors (ACES) who

correlate and tailor their outreach to meet the needs of first-year students specified in the TWS.

Why should these forecasts matter to universities? Why should they attempt to retain

students? Why should students persist and complete degrees? Miller and Bell assert that both

institutions and students lose out financially when students depart before they graduate (2016).

Conversely, when the student persists, the student makes more money, and the university

prospers (Miller and Bell, 2016). The data is clear is this regard. What is not so clear, is why
students fail to persist after institutions have labored to retain them. Xu asserts that the

“Departure Puzzle (Braxton and Tinto, 2007)” is highly complex, and varies from institution to

institution (2017).” This study will try to solve Southern Utah University’s “departure puzzle.”

The TWS hopes to understand some of the triggers that force student departure, such as

finances (Xu, 2017), and involvement (Braxton and Tinto, 2017). By assessing these triggers

early on, SUU can utilize the aforementioned resources and provide intentional aid and help

students persist, improving both the student and university’s return on investment.

The TWS was implemented in Fall 2017. To determine whether this is a valid and

reliable tool, statistical analyses must be performed. If criterion validity is established for this

survey, then vital pieces of the departure puzzle can be understood. With feedback from these

analyses, the survey can be modified further to better gauge the components of student

persistence. It is hypothesized that the current TWS will demonstrate strong criterion validity.

Methods

The TWS was completed by first-year students following their third week at SUU. They

could access and complete the survey through their portal, which the typical student accesses

daily. The student clicked on the “Third Week Survey” tab, and selected appropriate responses

from the drop down menus.

Emails were student to first-year students, as well as communication from ACES inviting

students to participate in the survey. Each participant, upon completing the survey was entered

into a drawing for $25 gift cards to the university book store. The sample size was 735 students.

Results

From the data set, a preliminary analysis of 70 responses were analyzed using the

Spearman-Brown correlation. A correlation of r= .288 was found for survey responses and
registering in for the spring semester. An item-criterion analysis was also performed, and the

items with the strongest correlation to persistence related to financial stability and time

management. These items were aggregated into one analysis, and a slightly larger correlation (r=

.295) was found.

The items relating to social and mental well-being were found to have weak correlation to

retention.

In addition to validity, reliability analyses were performed. The Cronbach’s Alpha for the

financial items was .925, while the Alpha for the social/emotional items was .753.

Discussion

The hypothesis that the TWS would demonstrate high criterion validity was not

supported. However, the correlations provided suggested that a further emphasis on financial

well-being and time management is warranted. This research is an interesting part of the

“departure puzzle” suggested by Braxton and Tinto. Most research suggested that communities

have a great impact on retention. Perhaps that research was guilty of a selection bias. Students in

the learning communities shown by the literature may have faced fewer financial and timed

based constraints. More research is needed to understand the connection between financial

stability, time constraints, and learning communities. An excellent place to start might be with

SUU’s jumpstart program, a program that bases first-year classes in an exclusive learning

community of 20-30 students. Random block selection and controlling for extraneous variables

would help isolate what causes students to stay and leave. Answering these questions is of

paramount importance to the institution and student, so that both parties can achieve better

outcomes.
 References

Braxton, J. M., & Tinto V. (2007). Major Theoretical Perspectives on Student Success in

College.

Engstrom, C., & Tinto, V. (2008). Access Without Support is not Opportunity. Change: The

Magazine of Higher Learning, 40(1), 46–50. https://doi.org/10.3200/CHNG.40.1.46-50

Kirby, E. (2017). Third Week Survey.

Miller, N. B., & Bell, B. (2016). Analytics to Action: Predictive Model Outcomes and a

Communication Strategy for Student Persistence. The Journal of Continuing Higher

Education, 64(1), 16–29. https://doi.org/10.1080/07377363.2016.1125218

Xu, Y. J. (2017). Localizing College Retention Efforts: The Distance between Theoretical

Orientation and Institution-Specific Needs. Innovative Higher Education, 42(1), 49–63.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-016-9364-9