Measuring Engagement Networks Toward a Dynamic Network Model of Student Persistence

• In Event: Different Factors Impacting Student Success

Abstract

Though higher education scholars have long known that undergraduate student engagement is associated with student persistence, we have yet to fully unravel how it comes to impact persistence. We argue that this is in part due to the individualistic, static ways that engagement is measured, even while scholars recognize it as a relational and multi-dimensional concept. We draw on existing postsecondary engagement and persistence research and fit it to the social network paradigm, which is well suited to conceptualizing and measuring relational, multidimensional, and dynamic phenomena. We offer a network analytic perspective on engagement and build a network model of persistence, as a path toward more fully accounting for the agentic and systemic social forces that result in college persistence.

Authors

• Rachel Smith, Iowa State University

• Vincent Tinto, Syracuse University