The relationship between personal, social, and institutional factors and the academic outcomes of non-traditional students

This mixed method study used multiple regression and focus-group data to examine the relationship between student characteristics and personal, social, and institutional factors on two measures of academic success for non-traditional students: academic performance and expected time to degree completion. Student characteristics and various factors were assessed separately and then combined to understand the overall relationship among the variables. In general, few personal and institutional factors were predictive of the outcome variables. Social factors were only significant when background characteristics, personal, or institutional factors were included in the regression. Demographic characteristics, hours of employment, academic difficulty, modes of instructional delivery, and academic services were predictive of college GPA. In comparison, hours of employment, work circumstances, and the regular use of advising services predicted time to completion for an Associate's degree, whereas current grades and the availability of academic services predicted time to completion for students seeking a Bachelor's degree.

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Digitization of this thesis was made possible by a generous grant from the Jefferson Trust, 2015.

Thesis originally deposited on 2016-03-14 in version 1.28 of Libra. This thesis was migrated to Libra2 on 2017-03-23 16:35:39.