Research in Post-Compulsory Education

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Issues of student retention: an initial study of staff

perceptions

Ken Spours

To cite this article: Ken Spours (1997) Issues of student retention: an initial study
of staff perceptions, Research in Post-Compulsory Education, 2:2, 109-119, DOI:
10.1080/13596749700200012

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 Issues of Student Retention
Research in Post-Compulsory Education, Vol. 2, No. 2, 1997

Issues of Student Retention:

an initial study of staff perceptions
KEN SPOURS
Institute of Education, University of London, United Kingdom

ABSTRACT This article reviews recent research on the issue of student retention in the
further education (FE) sector. It notes that the focus of recent FE-based research has been
largely on student attitudes towards retention issues. The article argues that this is an
important starting point but that staff attitudes need to be considered more closely if
there are to be successful college-based strategies to tackle retention. Using findings
from a small case-study of five FE colleges, the article argues that, in the mid-1990s,
approaches to tackling student retention have often been hindered by colleges’
preoccupation with FEFC funding methodologies. The articles goes on to argue that if
colleges are to create a staff consensus on improving student retention, they have to take
an education-led, rather than a funding-led approach.

A Recent History of Research on Student Retention

In the last two years or so, the issue of student retention in further education
colleges has become one of increasing interest. On the surface the reason is
obvious funding. Colleges receive the bulk of their FEFC funding on the basis
of a student participating in programme of study. In this sense the FEFC funding
mechanism is ‘retention orientated’ because it has increasingly focused colleges
on the problem of ‘student drop-out’ from courses.
There is a great diversity of learners in FE – full-time 16-19-year-olds;
part-time release; adult participants, both full and part-time; those in
evening classes taking recognised qualifications or studying for
leisure. They are all part of the student retention question, but in
particular there is the problem of the retention and achievement of
full-time 16-19-year-olds. This, arguably, is where the retention battle
will be won or lost, and it is this group, and the perceptions of staff
about the issues involved, that forms the main focus of this paper.
Despite the growing importance of student retention, both the literature
and research are relatively limited and recent. The earliest and most well-known

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English landmark was the report Unfinished Business by the Audit
Commission/Ofsted (1993) which highlighted wide variations in successful
course completion rates within and between institutions as well as pointing to
the varying completion record of different national qualifications. This report,
which was reflecting on a period of rapid rises in full-time participation of 16 –
19-year-olds, played an important role in changing the terms of the debate.
Previously it had been thought that drop-out from college courses was not that
serious and was, to a degree, inevitable (Martinez, 1995).
By 1995/96, the issue of retention had climbed the institutional and
national agenda due to effect of National Targets, the FEFC funding mechanism
and the FEFC inspection frameworks. It had also been a period in which
increasing attention has focused on the problems of participation – notably the
National Youth Cohort Study and more recently with the FEFC-organised
Kennedy Committee on ‘Widening Participation’. The publication of research on
retention and successful completion was also gathering pace including studies
from FEDA (Martinez, 1995) and a number of colleges including the Isle of
Wight College (Medway & Pennay, 1994), Stockport College (1995), Lambeth
College (1994), Bournemouth and Poole College of FE, Knowsley College, and
Walsall College of Arts and Technology. A complementary strand of research
was also taking place, this time focused on the problem of non-completion of
mature and adult students in further and higher education (McGivney, 1996).
During 1996, FEDA continued with its research and development work with
the publication of case studies of strategies that appear to work at college level
(Martinez, 1996).
In this recent period, the FEDA research has proved to be the most
detailed and most convincing in shifting college perceptions that student
retention is something that they can positively address, and that student
withdrawal from courses is not just influenced by external factors such as
poverty or family difficulties. This proposition, that it was the responsibility of
colleges to tackle the issue, struck a chord with college management who
realised that they stood to lose a great deal of money if student ‘drop-out’ rates
remained high. Non-completion rates in colleges, in line with the findings of
‘Unfinished Business’ could still be as high as 30-40 %.
The FEDA research initially drew on seven student surveys. These
suggested that the reasons for student withdrawal were complex, multi-causal
and mixture of external issues and those internal to the college. Financial
hardship was cited as an important issue both by students who had withdrawn
and by those who were still on the course. The statistically significant reason
which applied more to withdrawn students was that the ‘college did not care’.
More specifically, withdrawn students had a significantly lower opinion of the
college than current students in terms of the following ‘quality ratings’ –
well-qualified teachers, help with course-work, helpful teachers and help in
getting qualifications (Martinez,1995, p. 13). The research went on to suggest
that withdrawn students did not have uniformly jaundiced views of colleges than
current students but expressed specific dissatisfaction with different aspects of
the college including induction, quality of teaching and tutorial support.

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This research reinforced a conviction that student retention is very much
about a college-wide approach to tackling the issue, and effort should go into
finding good local research and practice and ensuring that is disseminated. This
‘can do’ approach has also been reinforced by the observation that there is a gap
between lecturer and student perceptions of the reasons for student withdrawal
from courses. In the course of the FEDA research, staff focus groups emphasised
largely external causes – financial difficulties, problems with childcare
arrangements, enrolment of students on unsuitable courses and the previous
learning experiences of the student (Martinez, 1995, p. 14). Martinez argues that
this difference of perception between staff and the withdrawn student highlights
the complexity of the issue and that withdrawal seems more likely to take place
when dissatisfaction with the quality of teaching and learning support coincides
with student financial hardship.
The Isle of Wight College study, often thought to be the most
methodologically sophisticated and multi-causal local case-study, pointed to a
similar set of factors at work, but also managed to locate a wider set of
considerations. This particular college study highlighted the fact that
inappropriate advice led to false expectations and in turn to disappointment and
non-completion. It also pointed to the effects of an often negative relationship
between college provision and work and family commitments, and that
one-third of non-completers thought they were on the wrong programme.
Students who dropped out also tended to have more difficulties coping with the
course, with more than half experiencing difficulty with the speed of teaching. It
also suggested that non-successful completion was higher in 1-year courses, and
that there is a need to distinguish between students who progressed to jobs and
training and those who did not build on their time at college. The authors also
pointed to the fact that students explained non-completion as resulting from
rational decisions in response to difficulties they faced, however, and that they
strongly resisted the label of a ‘drop-out’ (Medway & Pennay 1994, p. 38). I
will return to the Isle of Wight study and its multi-causal approach later in the
article and to compare with may own findings in five colleges in the South East
of England.
By the end of 1996, FEDA was suggesting that some colleges are making
a difference by developing active strategies, that there is no panacea and that the
North American research from community colleges, upon which FEDA places
much emphasis, has shown that each college will have its own unique blend of
approaches. FEDA also stressed the fact that ownership of improvement
strategies is important and in particular ownership of change by college
managers. Martinez also predicted that “student retention issues associated with
student achievement issues could well form the cornerstone of a new literature of
college improvement” (Martinez, 1996, p. 37).

Institutional Capability to Promote

Retention, Successful Completion and Progression
During 1996, I initiated a small-scale research project based on five FE colleges
in and around the London area which, in retrospect, can be seen to complement

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the FEDA perspective but has raised wider concerns. The key issue being
investigated was the capacity of institution to promote student retention,
achievement and progression. This focus on what colleges were doing posed
new questions over and beyond the primacy of student views about reasons for
withdrawal from college courses. The research focus was not on the ‘student
voice’ because this had already been articulated by the FEDA research and a host
of other college-based studies. Rather, the study was to concentrate on how
colleges perceived the issues, what they were doing about them and, crucially,
what was inhibiting progress in this vital area, given both its financial and wider
educational implications.
The study took as its starting point three factors:
x First, it accepted the main findings of the FEDA and individual college
research on student views on withdrawal from courses. The strength of the
FEDA research is the emphasis that it has given to student perceptions of the
issue and how this has led to a ‘action emphasis’ by colleges that it is within
their power to do something about retention.
x Secondly, because of the focus on factors affecting ‘institutional capability’ to
address the problem, it was very important also to listen carefully to both
management and lecturer views because they are the key actors in improving
capability of colleges in this area.
x Thirdly, following some early interviews with staff, it became apparent that
the climate in further education colleges since Incorporation in 1993 was
proving to be a strong contextual factor shaping attitudes and behaviour
towards perceptions of retention issues and strategies. On this issue, the
FEDA research has had little to say.
The study also took a post-16 system perspective and transported it to the
college level. College-based studies have posed ‘retention’ as the major issue
because of the financial importance of the ‘on-programme’ element of the FEFC
funding methodology. Post-16 education and training system research has, on
the other hand, throughout the 1980s and 1990s, developed a wider set of
concerns around issues of participation, achievement and progression (Raffe,
1992; Gray et al, 1993; Spours, 1994). In the context of the plateauing of
participation rates of 16-19-year-olds and of revised national targets (Spours,
1995), it seemed important to assume that the educational, rather than the
funding, logic for retaining students was to help them achieve and progress
rather than to be endlessly ‘warehoused’ in colleges.
The research has three phases of which this paper reports on the first –
the identification of main factors influencing both student retention
and institutional capability. The second phase looks at the components
of an institutional framework of strategies for promoting retention and
successful completion. The third phase will be an investigation into
issues of internal progression within the five colleges. The account of
factors affecting student retention and institutional capacity to address
the issue is based on 50 hours of interviews with both lecturing staff

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and management, and contains messages not only for the colleges
involved, but the wider FE sector and the post-16 system as a whole.

What Staff Said About Student Retention and the

Issues Facing their Colleges: the problem of consensus
The five colleges involved can be regarded as a fairly representative slice of the
FE incorporated sector. They are urban and non-urban, large and medium sized
with histories of low and high average levels of funding. Two could be classified
as being in inner London, two in greater London and one in a green belt town.
The colleges chose to become involved in the project because they wanted to
take further their existing work on retention, to get a clearer view of the issues
and to focus on a range of strategies.
Before discussing staff views about retention and strategies it is worth
reporting two important observations. First, there is evidence emerging in the
five colleges that, overall, course retention rates were worse in 1995/96 than in
previous years despite there being greater awareness amongst staff of the need to
tackle the issue. This points to influence of wider contextual factors, as well as
college-based strategies.
Secondly, beyond the assertion that retention is something that colleges
can and should do something about, there is real problem of staff consensus
which is fundamental in discussing college capability. This has at least three
dimensions. The initial findings of this research project support the FEDA
argument that there is a discrepancy between staff and student views on reasons
for student withdrawal from courses. FEDA, with its emphasis on colleges
taking responsibility, listened to the student voice and, in effect, put the lecturer
voice to one side. Moreover, the emphasis on college capability makes it
important to listen to the lecturer view. However, it is hard to ‘get at the truth’
of the matter because of the lack of symmetry between views of both parties.
Students, despite being ‘rational actors’, may be resistant to admitting
responsibility for their failure to cope with courses. At the same time, college
staff may be defensive about their inability to cope with student demands
because of the external pressures they have faced since incorporation. Staff
constantly referred to the issue being ‘loaded’ and ‘sensitive’.
These comments point to another tension – between college management
and staff. In particular, the issue of ‘retention data’ has become a focus of
disagreement and suspicion. In the five colleges involved in the project, even in
those with reputedly good MIS systems, staff were reluctant to accept the
accuracy of MIS data, both because of technical issues – there are many ways in
which MIS systems can become inaccurate – and, as importantly, because of
what can be termed ‘political’ issues. The political dimension was about the
relationship between data and management power, and the perception that data
was “something that was done to you”. It appeared impossible to separate the
issue of the legitimacy of data from the climate of industrial relations of recent
years, even in those colleges which did not have a protracted dispute over
lecturer contracts.

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Moreover, it is becoming clear that there is far from being a consensus
amongst staff on how to address the retention issue. While many of the people
interviewed knew of the FEDA research, and broadly accepted its authenticity,
they could not always agree how to act. For instance, and an issue to which I
will return later, there were different perspectives as to whether colleges should
become much ‘firmer’ with students, or go on treating them as adults and
recognise that they will ‘come and go’.
While staff did echo the views expressed in the FEDA focus groups about
the effect of external factors, their discussions drifted remorselessly to another
set of issues, which could only be described as “reflections on student
participation and forced college growth”. All staff interviewed were very
concerned about the problem of student commitment both to the college and to
courses. Again this echoes some of the FEDA themes but comes across much
more strongly. There may well be some sentimentality for a bygone era in the
comments that their “students are not what they used to be”, or that colleges
were being treated ‘parking lots’ and that “we now expect that anyone can enter
our courses”. In these comments, lecturers appeared to be reflecting upon
problems that colleges have experienced since incorporation, and issues of
lecturer professionalism. Staff commented on the lack of vocational orientation
in many students, the fact that too many wanted to do A levels but with little
chance of success, and the fact that the college had aggressively marketed its
provision. Retention problems were seen as a down-side of marketing success.
More specifically, staff pointed to increased retention problems of those students
who enrol late on courses, the effects of multiple enrolment on courses, and the
phenomenon of students ‘pecking at courses’ before they made up their mind.
All these factors were not only causing consternation, they were causing
dissension. Staff on A Level and GCSE course often wanted more selection and
lower numbers, but continually felt the pressure to recruit. They often pointed to
the competitive environment and the fact that the college down the road (it was
never them), might relax its entry criteria and take students they had turned
away. Some felt if they argued for more selection that they might be branded as
illiberal and not in favour of the ‘new FE’ with its emphasis on recruitment and
access. Multiple enrolment in courses also managed to cause ‘data dissension’,
with the observation that MIS systems would record a student as being on a
course even if they did not turn up for the first lesson. This provided an
additional reason for staff to challenge MIS data.
The more staff were questioned on the problems of retention the more
apparent became a paradox. Everyone was more aware of the issue of retention
than in the past when ‘weeding out’ students or letting them ‘drift out’ of a
course had been more acceptable. However, the more causes and strategies were
discussed the less firm the consensus appeared to be. A potential area of debate
appears to gravitate around the whole philosophy of FE and how it is different
from schools. Colleges have played heavily on the fact that they offer a new start
for those alienated by school environments, by the offer of an adult atmosphere,
of more individualised and customised courses and helping students to ‘get on’.
However, the paradox emerges in how this philosophy has been realised in the
era of incorporation. Colleges, in tune with the demands of the FEFC funding

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methodology, have placed a great deal of emphasis on initial guidance (Spours &
Lucas, 1996). On the other hand, they have systematically reduced course hours
for full-time vocational courses. One helps retention, the other is perceived to
hinder successful completion. Staff have longer contact hours, but there is a
perception that much of it is taken up with increased bureaucracy of recording
within the funding regime, or in relation to the assessment demands of
GNVQs/NVQs. Colleges have made learning support more individualised and
accessible, but there is also a common perception that many students feel
unsupported. Most of the staff interviewed remarked on how they value group
cohesion in learning and how it seems to make a difference. It is interesting to
note that there has been little of this in the rhetoric about the FE curriculum in
recent years. The problem was summed up by one lecturer who remarked that,
despite working for a good college, he felt more alienated from his job and felt
he had less time for students than in the past.
Most staff agreed about the need for cross-college approaches to tackle
retention, though there were differences of opinion as to how tight or
prescriptive the strategies should be. At one end of the spectrum there was an
argument for a loose framework of objectives which could be creatively adapted
by departments and faculties to meet their own needs. On the other hand, there
was concern that courses had often recruited students who had different
priorities – notably younger and older learners. Older learners, it was interpreted
by some, would appreciate a flexible learning environment. There was a danger,
however, that such a learning regime could be interpreted as a course having
few rules, people coming and going, all of which could undermine cohesion of
courses and the firm boundaries that many staff thought that younger learners
need.
At another level, staff had interesting observations about high and low
retaining courses, but had little in the way of hard data. The perception of the
courses with the best retention rates were those at a higher level with a clear
vocational focus, a close relationship with the labour market (either full or
part-time), some selection, highly structured classes and a high degree of
professional identity by a course team. NNEB and some Engineering and Art &
Design BTEC National Diploma courses were most often cited as evidence. The
lowest retaining full-time courses appeared to be those at lower levels with a
more generic focus, open access and with a multitude of core skill and
assessment problems. GNVQ Intermediate was cited as an archetypal example.
These observations about completion rates in different types of courses and
qualifications are interesting and deserve further research. First, because these
differences appear to exist even though MIS Systems, in the colleges concerned,
have not so far been able to isolate retention data at course level. Secondly, a
study of retention rates in different courses reconnects the debate to the
qualifications issue which ‘Unfinished Business’ also highlighted, but to which
FEDA research has paid little attention. It also becomes an important national
concern when thinking about qualifications design in the wake of the Dearing
Report on Qualifications for 16 – 19 Year Olds (1996) and, in particular, debates
on the future of GNVQs in the light of the Capey Report on GNVQ Assessment
(1996).

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The problem of staff consensus also focused on how far a college should
respond to outside forces. Once the issue was raised in discussion, there was
widespread concern about the effects of a more casualised youth labour market
and the impact of part-time work on successful completion rates. Again, there is
little research on the issue, but there is a popular perception that it is something
that colleges will have to address. However, again there was little consensus
about the strategies to be deployed. Some, echoing the Isle of Wight study,
argued that colleges should become more flexible to fit around students’ travel
needs – for example, starting classes after 9.30 a.m. so that students could travel
to college using concessionary fares, or by instituting a 4-day week so that
students could work on the other three. Others were simply concerned that
some students did not have enough time to complete the work for their courses.

Developing Institutional Capability to

Address Student Retention: some key issues
The first phase of research on staff perceptions in the five colleges has
highlighted the problem of forging an active agreement on how to see the issue
of retention and strategies. Despite there being heightened awareness of its
importance both financially and educationally, beneath the surface there are
significant educational disagreements exacerbated by both the FEFC funding
methodology and the general processes of incorporation.
The research to date also raises important questions about what is meant
by ‘institutional capability’ in this area. The FEDA research and this ‘five college’
research study point to a number of dimensions for consideration.
FEDA have stressed the development of a ‘research capability’; either being
able to use external consultants or utilising internal data in order more clearly to
understand the specific nature of retention issues within a college (Martinez,
1996, p. 37). FEDA also doubted the use of MIS systems to lead to a detailed
understanding of the nature of problems in a specific college. However, they did
not proceed to connect it to the effects of the FEFC funding mechanism. They
also highlight the need to establish what can be termed ‘project approach’.
Knowsley College, understanding that about £1 million of revenue was at stake,
took decisive action on student retention and initiated no less than 60 related
projects involving all members of staff. Calling on examples from the North
American community colleges, Martinez identifies five main types of successful
strategies (Martinez, 1996, pp. 34-36):
x sorting students into appropriate courses;
x supporting students in their learning, including childcare and financial
assistance;
x connecting students to a college by encouraging more personal responsibility
for learning;
x transforming students by raising their expectations;
x transforming the college by developing its culture.
These five dimensions of strategy can be seen as an attempt to be systematic in
focusing both on the learner and on the institution.

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The ‘five colleges’ research, on the other hand, points to other, but
nevertheless, complementary dimensions in the English context. First, it is clear
from the lecturer accounts that the issue of retention is closely associated with
the external forces of incorporation and funding methodologies. Those colleges
which based all their data efforts on trying to meet the accountability needs of
the FEFC were less able to see that the best way of understanding retention
issues is to develop an ‘institutional intelligence’ at the level closest to the
student – at the level of the course tutor and course team. All the colleges
concerned had, to one degree or another, become deflected from this by the
need to process data, including the alterations of the format of registers, for the
FEFC. Lecturers’ apprehension about the problems of the bureaucratic uses of
data reflect the findings of other researchers, who have remarked on the
apparent incompatibility of teacher perceptions of quality and colleges’
single-minded pursuit of quantitative performance indicators (Elliott & Crossley,
1994).
It follows, therefore, that one important dimension of capability is to be
able to resist negative external pressures, by being clear about your own internal
educational needs, to be able to mobilise course teams and to develop their own
sense of educational professionalism. This means creating a very different type of
college climate than that which has been promoted by the process of
incorporation. It is ironic that incorporation and the FEFC funding
methodology appear to have succeeded in raising the issue of retention and, at
the same time, to have exerted a negative influence on colleges to being able to
respond creatively and with consensus.
The second dimension is how to create the basis of an active consensus for
the future. Lecturers in all the colleges concerned remarked on more than one
occasion that the interviews that had led to this information was the first time
that they had been able to have an educational discussion on the issue. What
could they have meant by this? It seems that the problem of retention, and the
way in which it has been focused on by management as an aspect of the funding
question has often been interpreted by staff as a bureaucratic response rather
than as an educational one. Once the discussion was allowed to drift onto issues
of participation, achievement and progression, with a focus on types of courses,
qualifications and lecturer professionalism, it was possible to see the possible
lines of a staff consensus.
This brings us to a third dimension, and that is a notion of an institutional
process and system. This is also hinted at in the FEDA work in the 1996
case-studies of ‘strategies that work’. A danger emerging from local research is
colleges chasing too many dislocated objectives at once. The FEDA
college-based work often leads to a very practical but complex series of tasks
risking ‘initiative overload’. One of the main conclusions I have drawn from the
initial phase of work in the five colleges is the need to make the message
educational rather than administrative, keep it simple and make it systematic.
In the case of internal college strategies this has meant focusing on
achievement and progression rather than retention. If students know where they
are going they are more likely to want to stay the course. The experience of
value-added development (Spours & Hodgson, 1996) has suggested that the

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focus on tutorial strategies, which is becoming widely recognised to be an
effective tool in promoting both retention and achievement, has to be seen in a
wider context of colleges in a ‘participation market’. Colleges, in contrast to
schools with relatively ‘captive audiences’, have to recruit students, orientate
them towards appropriate programmes, support their learning and internal
progress within a course, as well as to arrange for progression to higher courses
or transition to the labour market. This points to a highly visible and structured
process – represented by the three-stages of entry, on-programme and
exit/progression stages, which drew widespread support for Funding Learning
(Further Education Funding Council, 1993).
The five college study suggests that institutional capability in respect of
promoting student retention and successful completion has at least three
dimensions. First, being able to develop an internal system and processes to put
in place a clear set of strategies to tackle the issue. Secondly, to be able to forge
an educational culture to create an active consensus on the nature of the
problems and the necessary trust in professional ability to be able to address
these. Thirdly, and possibly most significant, the ability to see beyond the
boundaries of the institution and to understand the wider significance of
national reform processes in terms of funding, qualifications and the labour
market. In this particular case, it is an understanding of the ambiguous effects of
FE incorporation and funding methodology, and the need not only to improve
the capability of one’s own college but to see how this is dependent upon the
wider national reforms in this area.

Issues for Further Research

The first phase of the study has resulted in an additional emphasis on the issue
of retention – listening carefully to lecturers/managers as well as students, It has
also problematised how effective the incorporation model, represented by the
funding mechanism, has been in providing the tools to address the issue of
student retention. Thirdly, it suggests that colleges have to form clear whole
institutional strategy frameworks which place a priority on the mobilisation of
course teams with an emphasis on lecturer professionalism.
The next phase of research will focus on lecturer perceptions of strategies
that work. This, too, parallels the FEDA development work. Already there is
anecdotal evidence that the solutions to these issues lie within colleges, but often
in isolated islands of good practice. All colleges have some high retaining
courses, good tutoring practices and examples of very effective teaching and
learning. What is needed is a framework which brings these together in a
meaningful way and with which lecturers can identify. There is also a need,
highlighted by the existing problems of consensus, to be much clearer about
areas of debate and disagreement to that solutions can be explored. In the
meantime, the central message of the research to date is that if colleges want to
win the battle for student retention they must do two things in particular. First,
to start talking about achievement and progression rather than retention and
secondly, to pay less attention to the FEFC and to focus more on their own
educational mission.

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Correspondence
Ken Spours, Post-16 Education Centre, Institute of Education, University of
London, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1 OAL, United Kingdom.

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