The purpose of this study was to identify and analyze selected variables that may be associated with persistence of nontraditional and traditional undergraduate students attending a metropolitan university. Specifically, this study identified student, institutional, and environmental variables that may contribute to the understanding of persistence among nontraditional and traditional undergraduate transfer and native students at the University of South Florida, a metropolitan university.
The sample included 1,492 nontraditional and traditional undergraduate transfer and native students who were currently enrolled, graduated, or not currently enrolled as of 1997 from the University of South Florida. A researcher-designed instrument was used to provide specific information about the independent variables being studied. Results from the data analysis suggested that there are differences between nontraditional and traditional undergraduate students attending a metropolitan university.
The findings suggested that eight out of 12 individual student variables and two individual institutional variables were associated with student persistence. When discriminant analysis was conducted with all sets of variables, 10 out of 23 variables were associated with student persistence. The study introduced a new independent variable, management skills, which was associated with persistence of nontraditional students.
Conclusions drawn from the findings include current models of persistence theory are not applicable to nontraditional students, statistically significant differences exist between nontraditional and traditional undergraduate students on selected variables though they are not consistent across student groups, and management skills is an important contributor to the persistence of nontraditional students.
Recommendations for practice included having university administrators investigate enrollment practices of nontraditional students to enhance their opportunities to enroll full-time, consider increasing awareness of and access to child care services in the community and on-campus, and developing longitudinal methods of tracking students through degree attainment.
Recommendations for further research include replicating this study using a larger sample; conducting longitudinal studies to track the academic persistence patterns of students, including those who leave the institution; and analyzing the use of the term "persistence" as a valid term to describe the phenomenon of student attendance patterns.
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