A Bibliometric Analysis of Student Retention in Higher Education

• In Event: Navigating Access, Retention, and Success: Insights into Student Outcomes

Proposal

Introduction
Higher education enrolment rates have dramatically risen over time, with near-universal access to higher education achieved in many countries of the Global North. The number of tertiary students in higher education has doubled in just two decades reaching up to 235 million today (UNESCO, 2024; World Bank, 2021). Moving from elite to mass higher education (Trow, 1974) or to near universal participation, i.e., high participation systems (Cantwell et al., 2018), higher education institutions face new challenges that arise because of the fast shift in the size and changing student population (Marginson, 2016; Özoğlu et al. 2016). While higher education institutions attempt to improve the education, they provide to their students (Akalu, 2016; Noui, 2020), the diversity of the student population brings both advantages and challenges to the sector (Misra & McMahon, 2006; Shaw, 2009). One of the major concerns encountered due to expansion and diversification is much related to finding ways to successfully retain students (Brown, 2007; Dumas-Hines, 2001).
Although the retention literature is well documented in previous research (Aljohani, 2016; Burke, 2019) it lacks research that brings together all research efforts in the area of student retention. Thus, the purpose of this research is, to sum up all scholarly efforts to show general patterns and the big picture of student retention in higher education by using bibliometric analysis. The following research question is proposed: What are the scholarship patterns on student retention from 1914 to 2022 in terms of authors, keywords, institutions, and publication sources? The five sub-questions are as follows:
1. Which are the most influential works and sources on college student retention?
2. Who are the most cited authors on college student retention?
3. What are the trends and patterns on college student retention?
4. What are the collaboration patterns among higher education institutions in college student retention research?
5. What are the co-citation networks of authors and sources on college student retention?

Methods
In this study, we systematically reviewed the existing research on college student retention. It utilizes a total of 5277 publications indexed either in Scopus or Web of Science from 1914 to 2022. Bibliometrics has been used in a growing number of scientific publications for conducting systematic literature reviews or analysing bibliometric data from sources such as the Web of Science or Scopus (i.e., Linnenluecke et al., 2020). Using bibliometric data, network analysis helps researchers “to examine all publications to identify the various networks, productivity, quality, and citations in a particular research field and evaluate its intellectual development” (Hassanein & Mostafa, 2022, p. 5). We used Bibliometrix for analysing and visualizing the bibliometric data related to student retention literature in higher education studies.
We obtained data from the Scopus and Web of Science databases by searching keywords related to college student retention (student retention, college retention, university retention, higher education retention, college dropout, college drop-out, freshmen retention, university dropout, university drop-out, higher education dropout, higher education drop-out, student attrition, college student attrition, higher education attrition, university attrition, student departure, college departure, university departure, student completion, college completion, university completion, higher education completion, student persistence, college persistence, university persistence, higher education persistence, higher education departure) from all years. We limited our document search to articles or reviews only.
Findings and Discussions
The results show that most of the research on student retention is done in English-speaking countries of the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Canada. The United States produces almost two-thirds of scholarly publications worldwide. The term retention is used commonly with persistence, attrition, engagement, and success. Moreover, the concept of ‘higher education’ as a hub is associated with dropout, completion, and academic performance, as well as newly studied methodologic terms like data mining, machine learning, learning analytics, and logistic regression. Retention is also researched within specific fields (nursing, engineering, and STEM). Special attention is given to community colleges due to higher dropout rates. In our analysis, we also presented the top-cited authors in the field. Our analysis shows that Vincent Tinto is the most cited author of all time followed by Pascarella, Bean, Astin, and others in the retention literature.
In contrast to what we have observed in the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Canada, two major non-Western countries (i.e., China and India) produce less than two percent of scientific publications on student retention. This finding is very important considering that only these two countries are projected to provide more than 60% of the G20 workforce with a qualification in STEM fields by 2030 (OECD, 2015, p. 1). Moreover, China exceeded the number of scientific publications of the US according to Scopus data as of 2016 and India became the third-largest producer of scientific publications in 2017 (National Science Board, 2021). Nonetheless, the US continues to dominate scientific publications in higher education studies, especially in student retention. Additionally, the U.S. is one of the leading countries that put effort from policymakers, universities, and other organizations toward the success of its students (Perna & Thomas, 2008) considering that ethnic and racial diversity continues to increase in the U.S. (Habley et al., 2012). Despite such a focus on diversity, the characteristics of the student population are not in line with the general population of the U.S. (Kuh et al., 2011). Accordingly, policymakers in the US are encouraging higher education institutions to implement strategies to improve student retention and persistence. The U.S. higher education is noteworthy for its early expansion (Douglass, 2005; Gumport et al., 1997; Gür, 2016; Trow, 1974) and its constant and extensive higher education scholarship including research on college student retention. Based on the findings, we predict that higher education systems that have experienced rapid expansion in recent decades may face challenges such as high student dropout rates and require more comprehensive research on retention.

Authors

• Enes Gök, Selçuk University

• Bekir Gür, Hacettepe University

• Mehmet Sukru Bellibas, University of Sharjah

• Murat Öztürk, Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt Üniversitesi