Toward an Understanding of Student Peristence at Lane College: A Test of a Theory of College Student Persistence

Abstract

This study further explores the salience of the theory of student persistence at residential colleges and universities (Braxton, Doyle, Hartley, Hirschy, Jones, & McLendon, 2014) at a small, private, HBCU located in Jackson, Tennessee. 126 first-year students were surveyed using a combination of the College Student Experiences Survey and a subset of questions, related specifically to faculty mentoring relationships, taken from the College Student Experiences Questionnaire. The findings confirm relationships between communal potential and social integration in addition to relationships between institutional integrity and subsequent institutional commitment. Comparing results to a similar study conducted by Baker, Arroyo, Braxton, Gasman & Francis in 2018, questions were raised regarding ideal timeframes for administration of the survey and potential replacement use of factors previously examined as antecedents serving as proxy variables in place of outcome variables when longitudinal study is not feasible.