Jonas Forsman

A New Approach to Modelling Student Retention through an Application of Complexity Thinking.

Complexity thinking is relatively new to education research and has rarely been used to examine complex issues in physics and engineering education. Issues in higher education such as student retention have been approached from a multiplicity of perspectives and are recognized as complex. The complex system of student retention modelling in higher education was examined to provide an illustrative account of the application of complexity thinking in educational research. Exemplar data was collected from undergraduate physics and related engineering students studying at a Swedish university. The analysis shows how complexity thinking may open up new ways of viewing and analysing complex educational issues in higher education in terms of nested, interdependent and interconnected systems. Whilst not intended to present new findings, the article does illustrate a possible representation of the system of items related to student retention and how to identify such influential items.

Considering Student Retention as a Complex System: A Possible Way forward for Enhancing Student Retention.

This study uses multilayer minimum spanning tree analysis to develop a model for student retention from a complex system perspective, using data obtained from first-year engineering students at a large well-regarded institution in the European Union. The results show that the elements of the system of student retention are related to one another through a network of links and that some of these links were found to be strongly persistent across different scales (group sizes). The links were also seen to group together in different clusters of strongly related elements. Links between elements across a wide range of these clusters would have system-wide influence. It was found that there were no elements that are both persistent and have system-wide effects. This complex system view of student retention explains why actions to enhance student retention aimed at single elements in the system have had such limited impact. This study therefore points to the need for a more system-wide approach to enhancing student retention.

Correction: Sandbox University: Estimating Influence of Institutional Action

A reference is omitted from the figure caption for Fig 2. Please see the complete, correct Fig 2 caption here. Fig 2 Convergence of MMST creation. The reference is: Forsman J, Van den Bogaard M, Linder C, Fraser D (accepted for publication 2014). Considering student retention as a complex system: a possible way forward for enhancing student retention. European Journal of Engineering Education.