| dc.description.abstract | Pacific College of Health and Science is a for-profit integrative health care school offering traditional and holistic medicine degrees. From 2016 to 2021, an average of 82% of Doctor of Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine (DACM) students persisted to their second year. The purpose of this dissertation in practice is to determine individual attributes, pre-Pacific College schooling factors, goal and institutional factors, and academic variables that indicate a student may dropout. Tinto’s (1975) academic and social integration retention model, Bean and Metzner’s (1985) nontraditional student retention model, and Ovink and Veazey’s (2011) psychological-social barriers theory helped inform the Pacific College student dropout conceptual framework. Students who were older; male; lived farther from campus; identified as Black, Indigenous, or Hispanic; had not earned a previous degree or had earned a master’s or doctorate degree; and those who applied and enrolled closer to the term start date were more likely to dropout. On average, students who were not retained enrolled in one less credit and completed four less credits in their first term than retained students. | |
