Tailoring Retention Theories to Meet the Needs of Rural Appalachian Community College Students

Tinto’s Theory of Student Persistence: Social Integration and Academic Integration

The seminal work of Vincent Tinto (1975) has had a heavy influence in framing the large body of existing research on college persistence. At the heart of Tinto’s integration theory is the assertion that students must first feel socially integrated, as though they belong or fit in the college setting, before being able to focus on academic integration, that is, meeting college’s academic challenges. Because Tinto’s research was built primarily on studies of traditional students attending 4-year universities, it has been argued that his integration theory is too broad to account for subcultures of students who wrestle to feel accepted in a world which is, in many ways, foreign to them (Guiffrida, 2006; Tierney, 1992).

Role of Social Class in Social Integration

Students’ feelings of belonging or fitting in at the college they attend (Tinto, 1975) can be strongly affected by social class (Black, 2005; Reay, 1997). Pierre Bourdieu (1986), in his investigation of the role played by France’s public schools in social class reproduction, expanded the definition of social class beyond a mere income bracket. Bourdieu used the term habitus to describe a personalized, unconscious lens through which an individual, or even an institution, views the world. Habitus is shaped in part by the quantity and quality of one’s possession of capitals, a concept that includes a variety of both economic and non-economic criteria that may be inherited from one’s family or developed through other environmental relationships (Bourdieu, 1986). An individual’s knowledge of the rules of the game, provided through their habitus and possession of capitals, facilitates smooth and privileged movement within a particular field, such as an academic setting, allowing the person to feel socially integrated, like a fish in water (Bourdieu, 1987; Maton, 2008).

Bourdieu asserts that schools value and reflect the habitus of mainstream, middle-class society. Middle- and upper-class students, whose social upbringing aligns with that of the middle-class habitus of teachers and administrators, have the advantage of naturally fitting in at school. Students from lower socioeconomic classes, however, tend to struggle with feelings of social inadequacy as they attempt to fit into public school. These students have a greater tendency to self-elect to remove themselves from this uncomfortable environment and, in doing so, choose to remain within their lower social status class (Maton, 2008).

Role of Cognitive Development in Academic Integration

Although Tinto (1975) proposed that a student’s initial focus may be on social integration, his or her attention must also include academic integration, that is, knowledge and application of college-level material as reflected in passing grades. College-level learning involves more than a collection of facts. Colleges have been charged with serving as forums for genuine reflection, integration, and application of learning, involving reflection on one’s own and others’ perspectives, and integrating those viewpoints into informed opinions and learning outcomes (Association of American Colleges, 1991; Baxter Magolda, 1999; Kegan, 1994).

Not all students arrive at college’s doorstep prepared for the cognitive demands required to succeed in the collegiate field. Of the numerous psychosocial development theories that have been proposed (see Chickering, 1969; Erikson, 1968), Robert Kegan’s (1994) theory is especially useful in addressing community college student development. Kegan emphasizes that progression through the different orders of cognitive development occurs at a personalized rate and is not, therefore, necessarily aligned with social class, gender, or other factors dependent on the external environment of one’s childhood. Although Bourdieu contends that some students do not understand the rules of academia when their personal habitus fails to align with that of the dominant culture, Kegan’s psychosocial development theory lends an additional caveat: Even students from middle or higher social standings, whose habitus does mirror that of the college, may not grasp the rules of academia because they have not yet reached the cognitive development order that allows for understanding within a complex academic setting (Hlinka, 2012; Tinberg & Weisberger, 1998). Educators cannot teach their students to think at a level higher than what they are intrinsically capable of at that time in their lives; however, educators can serve as sympathetic coaches who nurture students’ cognitive development by gently prodding and challenging students to analyze things differently (Baxter Magolda, 1999).

Case-Study Site

The site of this study was Hazard Community and Technical College (HCTC), a rural 2-year college located in the central Appalachian region of Kentucky as defined by the ARC. Embedded in the heart of Southeastern Kentucky’s Appalachia, this region was originally settled by families living on large family farms, a way of life which promoted strong family bonds of cooperation and responsibility. In remote, rocky, marginally fertile places such as these, extended family links served as sources of fellowship, encouragement, stability, and employment opportunities (Duncan, 1999; Eller, 2008). Close family ties and the value placed on social networks continue to be valuable forms of emotional and financial support to those living in this region (Hlinka, Mobelini, & Giltner, 2015; Wright, 2012).

HCTC, an open-admission, publicly supported, regionally accredited, 2-year institution, is one of 16 community colleges in the Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS). HCTC’s five campuses, in four of its eight assigned service area counties, serve a 2,850 square-mile region with a population of 120,656 (HCTC, 2010; Kentucky River Area Development District, 2010). In fall 2009, full-time student enrollment (FTE = 15 total credit hours) was 2,175. Approximately 94% of these students required financial support to attend college (KCTCS, 2010). In fall 2009, 98.3% of HCTC students were White (HCTC, 2010), reflecting the region’s predominately White ethnic composition (U.S. Census Bureau, 2014). Consequently, racial and ethnic diversity issues were not a focus of this project.

HCTC’s fall 2007 to fall 2008 returning student enrollment figure was 45.32%. This percentage climbed dramatically to 60.95% for the fall 2009 to fall 2010 numbers (HCTC, 2010), exceeding the national average retention rates for public 2-year colleges of 52.2% (National Center for Higher Education Management Systems, 2009) and the system’s fall 2008 target of 56.6% (KCTCS, 2010).

Framing the Study’s Design

Students can best reveal their complex decision-making processes concerning retention at various stages of their community college experience. Unfortunately, especially in rural Appalachia, student voices are often ignored (Eller, 2000), and a tendency to stereotype people from this region persists (Higbee, Arendale, & Lundell, 2005). To address these potential issues from prior research, a transformative, qualitative research method (Creswell, 2009) was selected for this study. A social-constructivist worldview (Creswell, 2009) was adopted to understand and interpret the meaning students have created about themselves, their environment, and their future aspirations. This philosophical construct served as the foundation upon which adult transition theory and decision theory were overlaid, both of which acknowledge the impact of individual perception on decision making (Batha & Carroll, 2007; Schlossberg, Lassale, & Golec, 1990). The student-centered approach of modern student development theory was also incorporated, which emphasizes the nurturing of students’ individual talents to guide them to more complex and independent levels of thinking (Astin, 1993; Higbee et al., 2005; Kegan, 1994). Advocating that students matter (Rendon, 1994; Schlossberg et al., 1990), a student-centered viewpoint was enlisted throughout this project.

Participant Recruitment and Data Collection

A preliminary understanding of the case site was acquired through a review of existing quantitative data sources purposely selected (Creswell, 2009) from national and state databases including program outcomes related to the Quality Enhancement Project, Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE), Community College Faculty Survey of Student Engagement (CCFSSE), National Clearing House data, ACT Profile Report for fall 2009, and KCTCS and HCTC reports on retention and transfer. Demographic profiles of students, faculty, staff, and administrators expanded this understanding of the case site. To gain insights into the existing campus culture, an analysis of the physical layout of campus offices and signage, and of student service offerings, was conducted. A series of group interviews with faculty and with staff and administrators in key positions to interact with traditional transfer-motivated students added rich insights into the attitudes of personnel, services provided to support students, and the overall degree of student-centeredness at HCTC. Four group interviews were held with a total of 11 faculty members; three group interviews were held with a total of 10 administrators and staff members.

Student perspectives were essential in identifying and understanding forces affecting retention. In-depth one-on-one student interviews ¹ were conducted. A semi-structured interview protocol composed of open-ended questions was designed to develop their stories and explore key influences as these students transitioned into the community college and progressed toward transfer. Students interviewed were selected based on enrollment history. The Institutional Research Officer identified high school graduates entering with the 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 cohorts with an academic plan code indicative of a transfer goal and who had attended each semester since initial enrollment. Students earning a spectrum of credit hours and grade point averages (GPAs) were purposely selected to capture stories of students with different experiences at the community college. Student participants included those whose academic records reflected that they were successfully on track to graduate as well as those who had struggled with developmental courses or failed classes.

Interviews were conducted with a total of 13 HCTC students during the spring 2011 semester. Three male and five female students were 2010 high school graduates currently enrolled in their second semester at HCTC. Three male and two female students were 2009 high school graduates currently enrolled in their fourth semester at HCTC. Although HCTC consists of five campuses, only the main campus, in the town of Hazard within Perry County, and the former Lees College campus located in Breathitt County (the second largest campus), offer the science laboratory facilities required to meet the general education requirements of the associate in arts (AA) and associate in science (AS) degrees. Therefore, all interviews were conducted on-site at these two campuses. Five interviews were with students taking classes on the Lees campus; eight interviews were conducted with students attending classes primarily on the main Hazard campus. Prior to conducting the interview, students were required to read and sign an institutional research board–approved consent form and complete a demographic survey. Each interview was designed to be completed in 1 hour.

Data Analysis

Interviews were audiotaped and hand-written notes taken. Audiotapes were transcribed and field notes added in the margins to capture the essence of the researcher’s interpretations and observations. Transcribed notes were read through, first to obtain a general sense of the information and its overall meaning, and then to develop common themes. Transcripts were further reviewed and the data assembled into coded categories. Coded data were interpreted to develop a collection of key themes. Throughout this study, data collection and analysis were iterative processes, with data analysis coinciding with data collection phases, thereby driving the collection of new data until a comprehensive or saturation point was reached (Creswell, 2009).

Three of the mechanisms cited by Lincoln and Guba (1985) for establishing credibility were used in this study. First, triangulation was achieved through the use of multiple data sources and multiple methods of data collection of both qualitative and quantitative natures. Second, at the end of each interview, the investigator reviewed what she had heard the interviewees say, seeking immediate feedback and clarification. Copies of the preliminary propositions were later made available to the respondents, and their reactions were used in the process of developing conclusions to the study. Third, a professional peer volunteered to take field notes during each group interview and to hold a debriefing session with the interviewer at the conclusion of each group interview. Discussions were also held throughout the data collection and analysis process. Multiple perspectives provided greater accuracy, served to identify and reduce potential biases, and allowed for development and testing of next steps to be taken as emerging themes developed. In addition to these three steps, rich, thick descriptions have been used to convey the nuances of findings. Direct quotes have been portrayed when possible to depict the student’s emotions and attitudes (Creswell, 2009). Pseudonyms were assigned to all those interviewed to provide confidentiality.

Community and Family Values of Education Provide Support and Push

Both faculty and students identified social capital, in the form of family support, as the most influential force on student success. In response to the interview question, “Who has influenced you the most to go to college?” every student interviewed identified a family member, whether a parent or an older sibling. Every student interviewed recognized that their parents wished for their child to have a better life than themselves. Jillian’s response to this question is typical: “My parents. Because my dad is a coal miner and my mom, she went to college and just got her accounting degree. And they really wanted me to pursue higher education. They want more for myself.” Jillian, a 2010 high school graduate, also recognized the difficulty a student would face in maintaining the momentum to persist if this external source of encouragement was lacking:

I had a friend that started over here. I had him in a few classes. And then one day I didn’t see him for awhile. And I finally saw him. And he had dropped out of college and was trying to get into the mines. And I was like, “Why did you do that?” And he said, “It was just too expensive.” And he was a boy that really didn’t have anybody to kind of lean on. And it was too expensive for him to kind of stay and pursue something with no one pushing him to do better for himself.

Many of the students attending HCTC are first-generation students. From where are their parents, many of whom are low-education and low-income themselves, obtaining this sense of value of education?

Teachers in the local schools, beginning with the elementary school and continuing into the high school, have also stressed the vital need to earn a college education to obtain a good-paying job, especially for those wanting to stay in the region. Morgan, a 2009 high school graduate, expanded on this concept of push:

A lot of teachers in high school now, they push, I think. [Even down in the elementary school.] They push. That’s where, that’s where you start. They just push, push, push. Elementary school, they push you to go on to high school. High school, they push you to go to college. At the community college, they push you even to go to the four-year.

Mr. Woods, a faculty member at the Hazard campus, summarized the external and internal forces at work in this promotion of a college education in the region:

I think there is probably a home atmosphere that promotes their learning. Which means that they probably have parents who may have gone to school here or may have gone to college and know the value thereof and have passed that on to, to, students . . . If you know, for instance, that you have support at home and that you have someone, um, gently nudging, pushing, prodding, motivating, then that means that you probably stay on task a little bit more . . . I think that there is also in those students who persist an inner self-discipline, that says I am going to stay in this area and the way to stay in this area is to get a degree. And probably that degree means health field and getting into health field, limited admission programs, is pretty tough . . . So, I think for many students, they see themselves as job oriented and see a job at the end of this program. And it may well be that that job will mean success for them and for their larger family as well.

Mr. Wood emphasized the desire of many students to remain in the region, close to home, and the ensuing need to select a career that would allow them to obtain a good job in the area.

These interviews reveal that, in a region where education has not always been valued, the community is promoting higher education as a means of obtaining a good-paying job that is not reliant on physically demanding work and provides the opportunity to remain in the area. Parents are inspired to provide that essential push to go to college, a motivating force these students view as essential to enrollment and persistence.

Possession of the Cultural Capital to Overcome the Pull of Family Obligations

Family can be a powerful, emotional force. Many of the young people interviewed expressed family responsibility as a strong, deep-rooted, cherished value. Morgan responded to the interview question, “Give me an example of an important value to your family” in this way:

Just sticking together no matter what. Sticking together. I’m not really sure what the word for that would be. Just sticking together. Just a matter of, like a situation with someone divorced, having children, anything. We just always stay together . . . Like even though there is a situation going on, it’s still our family.

Although students recognized the importance of family encouragement to attend college, their large extended families could also erect barriers to college success. As faculty member Ms. Lewis pointed out, even though people in this region realize that “education will open doors . . . it doesn’t mean they know how to do education.” From Bourdieu’s (1977) perspective, parents often do not possess the cultural capital to understand the rules of the academic game well enough to help their children play, and win, at the game. Indeed, faculty members recognized a conflict of priorities as a major hurdle for many students at HCTC. Ms. Kelly, a faculty member on the Lees campus, was the first person interviewed to link student success with the ability to keep personal problems from overshadowing college success:

These are the kinds of kids to whom disaster happens to time after time after time. And, I mean, Grandma dies. And some kids, their emotional maturity is such that that just throws them, they’re just out of school. And other kids, their mother will die and they are out three days and they’re back. So I think emotional stability has something to do with the level of maturity and the more mature they are. And that doesn’t really have to do with age as much as it has to do with just how fast they have matured.

An overwhelming theme portrayed by the faculty members is the successful students’ motivation to attend class and place that above the pull of family and friends. The humorous banter among faculty members of the Hazard campus engaged in a group interview further expanded on this theme:

Moving into the interviews with HCTC students, the presence or absence of confirmation of this emerging theme was sought. Do students have difficulty knowing when academic responsibilities should take precedence over family obligations? Morgan realized the powerful pull of family obligations:

Just if someone got sick in the family it would all depend on all of us . . . Everyone has their certain job they have to do and if something else gets in the way of that, well, it’ll just have to. One or the other has to be chosen. There’s no way to go here and go there at the same time. You can’t do both. It’s just a kind of pull. [And if it came down to studying for your math final versus visiting someone?] Yeah. You’re going to visit. Yeah.

Harmony also confirmed the faculty members’ perceptions while emphasizing the complex nature of this paradigm:

You know, my mom dropped out of college because her mom had cancer. Yeah, families. We kind of have this attitude down here: “We take care of our own.” When my uncle became disabled, he went numb from the legs down when he was at work one day, he couldn’t feel anything. They took him to [Regional Hospital] and there was a full, like the artery coming through here, was completely blocked. No blood. So they thought he was going to lose his legs. They flew him up to Lexington and the wonderful doctors at St. Joseph’s actually saved both his legs. And I had to miss like a week of school because of that. And I take care of him now.

A dilemma was revealed through these interviews. Although families push their children to attend college, they often do not understand the dedication needed to be a successful college student. Students are torn between devoting focused time on their studies and providing physical and emotional support often demanded by an extended family.

Academic Integration: Making the Grades

The level of academic preparation acquired prior to entering college is linked to college success (Kuh et al., 2006). Of the 13 students interviewed, eight placed into at least one developmental course. These interviews revealed that, in addition to a lack of a basic academic foundation, an additional hurdle for many of these students was the difficulty they encountered in making the transition from memorization, a skill that was a highly successful tool in high school, to critical analysis of topics.

The transition from concrete to abstract orders of cognitive development (Kegan, 1994) appeared to be a smooth transition for some students; for others, forging that mental transition was a challenging and painful passage. Daniel was one of several students who shared this cognitive struggle. When Daniel was interviewed, he was in his fourth semester at HCTC, attending the Lees campus. He acknowledged that it took him a year to make the transition from a high school mentality with a reliance on memorization, to a college mentality that allowed for integration, reflection, and application of ideas. In high school, he could memorize quickly and succeed.

You think you’re so smart because you can look at this paper for 10 minutes and pass the test. But you didn’t learn it. You couldn’t talk about it two weeks from then. You couldn’t explain anything about that process. Here you have to learn it. Oh, it’s in every class. Every class. You know, you have to do, like in history for example. You do enough studying in preparation for a test that it stays with you. You remember studying over about it and you don’t forget because you have to put in so much time on a test.

In college, he struggled with his coursework, especially with the developmental math course into which he tested.

In math class, I thought the same way. I was in this high school funk where what I would do was, I would put off assignments and I wouldn’t do them. I would just wait. I’d let them build up and I’d say, “Well, I’ll do them eventually.” You can’t do that. You have to do them the day they are assigned. And you have to get help to understand it. I know that now, but when I first came here I was in that memorization, you know. That was how I thought about everything. My first year here was a rough, rough year. It was running without knowing how to crawl.

It took Daniel a full year of near failure to learn that tough lesson. He finally realized that he had to study every night to keep up. Although instructors and relatives had told him to do this, he had to figure it out on his own. Daniel made the transition from having to memorize to really understanding the material in his words:

Very roughly. Very, very roughly . . . It took me a very long time to get out of high school mode into college mode. At least, I would say my first year up here. That was me moving from, transitioning from, one phase to the next. Because, I mean, your whole life, that’s what you get use to over time. Memorization, memorization, pass, pass, pass, memorization. You have to learn that new process. You can’t expect to just memorize it and go on. Because that process that you might learn, may be what the rest of that class is built upon. So if you do not learn that ground level . . . you cannot move on.

Daniel was very much aware of this maturation process he went through at HCTC.

I think it’s been a great learning experience coming here. I mean, making that change inside me to thinking more maturely, even though I have a lot more to learn. And really making an effort to learn anything instead of just passing.

Daniel recognized the mental transformation he traversed, moving from what he calls the “high school machine” of trying to memorize, to the college mentality of truly understanding the material. This was not an easy transition:

I never thought about quitting. Just because, just cause of always being pushed and always seeing what everybody has gone through. But I will tell you this. I did not know how I was going to do it. I did not know how I was going to do any of this. Because at the time, my thinking wasn’t that I needed to change, it was that I was going to have to try harder to do better at memorization . . . I wasn’t thinking “apply myself.” I was thinking, “How in the world am I going to get a good grade?” I wasn’t trying to learn it. I was trying to do it. That was that high school machine, I guess.

For Daniel, and other students interviewed in this study, attending the local community college offered the opportunity to advance cognitive development under the sympathetic guidance of caring, enthusiastic instructors in classrooms with small, intimate settings. Instructors were able to provide personal attention and guidance, and assign multiple, small assignments that guided students’ learning step-by-step, a process that simultaneously built effective learning strategies and constructed bridges from where the students were to where they needed to be (Baxter Magolda, 1999). While Daniel was a semester behind on graduating, he was on track to graduate and transfer to a 4-year university. The community college setting allowed that time for self-exploration—at one third the cost of a university and within the security of a home setting.

Successful College Programs Mirror Supportive Push of Family and Community

Interviewing students at HCTC provided the opportunity for administrators and campus leaders to pinpoint key practices that needed to be accentuated to improve student retention. This process also identified practices in conflict with student values and was, therefore, in need of revision. Knowledge of students’ perspectives alleviates the tendency to be distracted by issues that administrators may erroneously believe to be of importance, or which the literature identifies as issues at other institutions but which are of little consequence to HCTC students.

Participants universally spoke of the value placed on an egalitarian, supportive family and community culture. Campus events that mirrored that aspect of this region’s culture promoted college retention. For example, HCTC students spoke positively of knowing someone on campus by name that they could go to for help. The professor who made a practice of reaching out at the end of every class period, via email or phone call, to students who missed class was portraying an attitude of respect and concern on a very personal and effective basis. This same caring attitude was revealed by an academic advisor who loaned wigs to a student whose mother was undergoing chemotherapy treatments. HCTC has an emergency fund that discretely assists students when an unforeseen personal crisis arises. The University Center of the Mountains is a collaboration between HCTC and regional 4-year universities that provides a means of completing bachelor’s degrees through Interactive Television (ITV) or locally taught courses for those students who cannot, or will not, leave the area. These successful college programs and practices reflect the social capital valued by these students and their community of people who reach out and take care of the needs of others.

Unsuccessful programs and practices were those that failed to meet this psychological need of feeling valued and cared for, lacking what Harmony had described as a “we take care of our own” attitude. For example, the student who felt offended by what he perceived as a demeaning attitude on the part of the tutors at the Academic Resources Center refused to return for much-needed help. The impersonal nature of online course design was universally cited as off-putting by these students.

Misadvising was noted as a major barrier for at least five of the students interviewed. It is important to recognize that the majority of students at HCTC are first-generation students who lack knowledge of the logistics of selecting a sequence of courses that meet the requirements of graduation while preparing for their major at the 4-year university. It did not occur to these students to question the appropriateness of courses in which they were enrolled by their advisor. Jillian, with an American College Testing (ACT) of 17 in English, was placed in Honors English her first semester, a class she failed because, like Daniel, she was ill-equipped for the cognitive demands of a discussion-based course. Justin, a pre-med student, was enrolled in the non-majors biology course and would transfer without the two semesters of organic chemistry or two semesters of physics courses he could have taken at HCTC. Nathan had received no career advice and, preparing to graduate in a few weeks following his interview, was clueless on where or how to transfer or which major to choose. When advising mistakes were realized, students felt betrayed and angry. Their feelings were magnified by the region’s habitus that places importance on trusting authority figures and being confident that others will take care of you. It is imperative that the college recognize this trust placed upon them and respond with effective, accurate services provided in a welcoming, caring, and egalitarian atmosphere.

Arming Students With the Tools to Balance Family and Academic Responsibilities

HCTC faculty and administrators recognized that, although HCTC students’ families provided the verbal push of encouragement, these same family members often lacked the cultural capital to appreciate the dedication required to succeed at college. Finding the balance between conflicting obligations is a very real dilemma for many of these students. How can HCTC personnel arm students with the skills to overcome, when appropriate, those commanding forces pulling them away from attending class and devoting study time outside class to master the content?

Several faculty members spoke of conversations with students in which they attempted to convey that it is possible to be a good son or daughter and a good student at the same time. Many of these conversations took place in the classroom, sometimes as a planned, formal presentation and at other times informally during group work or within a lab setting. During a faculty group interview, Ms. Lewis shared her experiences on guiding students to help their families understand the importance of making education a top priority:

The term victim mentality was a startling choice of words; yet, it was not meant by this professor as condescending or offensive. Rather, this strong phrase reflected this faculty member’s interpretation of this powerful conflict of values between following the unspoken rules for academic success and the regional emphasis on respect and family obligations.

Initiating open, thoughtful, purposeful discussions before these problems arise can forewarn students that conflicts may occur and provide an arsenal of coping tools. Especially in Appalachian culture, storytelling is a powerful method to convey successful problem-solving experiences of others (Goodman, 2010). Sharing the life experiences of fellow students who have successfully dealt with ailing parents, child care issues, full-time jobs, long commutes, and other obligations can provide realistic role models for managing time and delegating duties to family members and friends.

Promoting the Push of a College Education

The community surrounding HCTC is to be applauded for their efforts to instill a value for a college education into these young people and their families. Every student interviewed noted the essential role of family’s external push to be successful. Every student also identified, by name, someone on campus that was actively supportive of their academic efforts. HCTC students need a cheerleader. These findings are in contrast to those of Martin, Galentino, and Townsend (2014) in their qualitative study at an urban community college in the Southeast. They found characteristics from within, such as clear academic goals and self-motivation, to be of greater importance in the success of underprepared students. To support students, HCTC needs to work on creating a more welcoming, nurturing Tutoring Center culture; provide Success Coaches for personalized mentoring; focus on guiding the selection of solid career goals; and provide quiet study stations across campus.

Resisting the Pull of Family Responsibilities

Hand and Payne (2008), in their analysis of factors affecting academic persistence of first-generation Appalachian students attending a flagship state university in West Virginia, also focused on the student perspective. They interviewed a mix of traditional and non-traditional students. Similar to the findings of this current study, family support was identified as a powerful motivator to attend and persist at the college. However, the responsibility of meeting family obligations was not determined to be a universal hurdle for Appalachian students. Although several of their participants acknowledged the pull of family obligations, this was not viewed as a major barrier for their Appalachian students. Perhaps being physically further away from home establishes a buffer. Perhaps HCTC students, who chose to attend the local community college rather than electing to enroll directly into a 4-year university, are less independent and more vulnerable to the pull of family obligations. One of the limitations of this current study is that only traditional-age students were interviewed; it would be interesting, in future studies, to assess non-traditional students attending HCTC to determine whether family pull retains this powerful ability to derail academic progress. The discrepancy between these two studies emphasizes the value in taking time to talk with one’s own students to gain their perspective so that limited resources can be effectively directed to addressing the greatest hurdles to persistence identified by students on that campus.

Easing the Angst of Cognitive Development

Academic integration has been identified as essential for college persistence (Tinto, 1993). Little attention has been given to academic integration’s dependence on the ability of students to transition into higher levels of cognition required by college-level work (Decker, 2013). For example, Braxton and his research team (2014) cited academic and intellectual development as an important factor in establishing institutional commitment, which they link to academic integration and student persistence. However, they are in agreement with Grites (1979) in focusing on the role of advising as a tool to guide students’ realization of their maximum educational potential. Another focus of the literature on retention is on instigating group work, implementing active-learning, and adopting other practices aimed at building relationships with teachers and peers within the classroom (Moltz, 2008). Pascarella and Terenzini (1991) posited faculty teaching skills as crucial to student persistence, with organization and preparation and instructional clarity identified as factors enhancing student course learning. As this current study revealed, for many students who arrive ill-prepared for college-level work, the often unspoken requirement to apply their learning in reflective, analytical ways is frustrating and overwhelming. Although advising and incorporating well-prepared, engaging, interactive classroom practices are important, this current study emphasizes the additional need to promote the thoughtful development of classroom activities that purposely guide students from basic memorization to deeper levels of analysis and critical thinking about course content. Developing practical, effective pedagogies for promoting this cognitive transition is an area of academic research that warrants further study.

Overlap in Skills Necessary for Social and Academic Integration

Tinto (1993) posited that social integration needs to occur before students can focus on academic integration. However, Bourdieu’s (1977) concepts of habitus and capitals complement the cognitive development theories of Kegan (1994) and Baxter Magolda (1999) by suggesting that many aspects of social and academic integration need to occur simultaneously. For example, Karp and Bork (2012) contended that many students deemed college-ready based on ACT and placement scores do not persist to the point of earning a credential because they are unable to assume the behavioral role of a successful college student. Among these behaviors are developing strategies for completing college work in a loosely structured environment, taking independent and reflective course notes, engaging in appropriate forms of collegiate discourse, and adapting to various instructional styles. Thus, the ability to socially integrate, to feel like a fish in water (Bourdieu, 1977) in the college classroom, requires the ability to process information at deeper levels (Kegan, 1994). Karp and Bork urged college personnel to clearly define the specific skills necessary to be a successful college student to guide their assimilation into the role of a college student; furthermore, recognizing that much of the retention literature assumes students attend residential institutions, they also promote the necessity for colleges to tailor retention efforts to their particular type of college. This current study pushes their argument to the next level—that of tailoring retention efforts to meet the needs of each college’s unique student population.