Student Retention

The Context of the Organization From an institutional context, my capstone will focus on decreasing attrition among the returning adult learners’ population and increasing retention (student success) rates to increase the graduation rate for the Cosmetology Department. Prior to the early 2000s, the school contracted with a private cosmetic art school to offer the cosmetic art programs; moreover, there was less of a need to track graduates. Prior to 2008, the study site began to see an influx in the number of adult students enrolling in the cosmetic art programs; subsequently, this unexpected surge in enrollment of adult students prompted the opening the Salon and Spa Services Educator Center to house all cosmetic art programs on …show more content…
The outcome of collecting and organizing literature on retention strategies will explain the institutional context of the capstone by serving as the foundation material used in the professional curriculum project for a professional development. It will focus the issue of retention (student success) and strategies that the cosmetology department can implement and design as a retention (student success) program for returning adult learners. Helping to ensure that their needs are being met, helping to increase program completion, and ensuring returning adult learners will have a successful learning experience that can be transferable to other learning environments. Howell and Buck (2012) focused on four variables that influenced adult students’ satisfaction with a business course: relevancy of the subject matter, faculty subject matter competency, faculty classroom management, and student workload. These areas can also be applied in creating a professional development curriculum for instructors in the cosmetology …show more content…
I will conduct a needs assessment using a focus group to gain perspectives of the adult students on how curriculum content and teaching styles could be better suited to their educational needs. Surveys, interviews, observation, and/or questionnaires will be the medium used to gather data about retention (student success) barriers faced by this group in departments other than cosmetology. The data will be utilized to develop a professional curriculum for faculty and staff via a professional development; moreover, it can be extended to faculty in various departments to be used along with their other materials pertaining to adult retention.

How the Project Goes