Overview
This article provides an overview of the Student Retention, Student Persistence, and Course Completion Dashboard widgets.
- These dashboard widgets reflect actual (as opposed to predicted) student performance at your institution, allowing you to track overall performance or performance for specific student populations.
- These widgets update every night, however any new data points will not appear until the academic term ends.
- For more information about understanding the predicted performance see here.
Definitions
Student Persistence
Student Persistence measures the percentage of students who enroll in another term within 6 months OR earned a credential.
Student Retention
Student Retention looks only at new, full-time Fall students and measures the percentage that enroll in the next Fall term OR graduate.
- A new student (as opposed to a returning student) is defined as a person who is enrolled in a term but has not taken any coursework at the institution prior to the enrolled term.
- A full-time student is dependent on an institution’s definition, however this is typically represented by a student taking 12 or more credit hours in a term.
Course Completion
Course Completion measures the percentage of courses that have been successfully completed at an institution for a given term.
- Successfully completed, aka passing grades for a course section, represent transcript course records that start with (‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’, ‘P’, ‘S’) or if the quality points earned divided by credits attempted is above a 2.0.
- D grades are not included in the course completion widget.
Student Population
A Student Population represents a type of sub-population that a student belongs to.
- Student Population group types include Post Secondary students, Post Baccalaureate students, High School students, Continuing Education students, Non-Traditional Post Secondary students, and Special Credit students.
Dashboard Widgets
Student Retention Widget
Student Persistence Widget
Course Completion Widget
FAQ
Q: What does the green indicator mean on the chart?
A: The terms shown with green are ones that your institution has been with Student Success & Engagement.
Q: Why is my Retention Rate for my most recent term so low?
A: This is common, and it is due to students not registering for the next Fall term yet.
For example, in the screenshot below, Fall 21 Retention is low when Fall 2022 is a future term, and not all students from Fall 2021 who will enroll in Fall 2022 have already registered for a class in Fall 2022. As students enroll in Fall 2022, the Fall 2021 Retention will increase as students represented in the Fall 2021 cohort register for Fall 2022 courses.