Attrition

Chapter 1

THE PROBLEM AND ITS SCOPE

Introduction

        The school is an institution of learning to which it caters to the educational needs of the people.  It is a center of learning activities and development of one’s potentialities.  It is a social system which is composed of pupils or students, teachers, school administrators, supervisors and community.  These people in school are interacting with one another and the organizational climate is conditioned by relationship of interaction between and among the administration, teachers, pupils, parents and the community as a whole (Fideles, 1999).  Inclusive to this interaction are factors that may affect the attrition and/or retentions of the student in school and one of which is socio-economic factor.

Attrition can be described as the reduction of numbers of students as a result from sudden stopping in pursuing the bachelor’s degree for hotel and restaurant management program or shifting to another bachelor’s degree program while retention can be described as the persistency of an individual to pursue or accomplish the bachelor’s degree program of the degree in hotel and restaurant management.  The causal effects of socio-economic factors in its relationship to the aforementioned conditions vary significantly with respect to the socio-economic conditions/factors of the student.

        According to Tinto (1990), college persistence and achievement are affected by three (3) particular factors that account the entire spectrum of the student outcome.  These particular factors are cognitive, social and institutional factors.  Among the three, it is institutional factor that has both direct and indirect impact on persistency and achievements of college students in his pursue for a bachelor’s degree.  It is important to note that institutional factor embraces the financial support and aid of the student.  In other words financial support lends heavily on financial capability of the student or the financial aspect that is reciprocal to the expenditures that arises in his pursue for a collegiate degree.  Other factors that are considered within the spectrum of the institutional factors are ethnical background and religious belief.  These form part and parcel of the student’s determination for a college diploma as the student progress on his undertaking and persistence to pursue his collegiate program for a collegiate degree.

        In other words, socio-economic factors, a part of institutional factors as mentioned by Tinto, plays pivotal role on his pursue of a collegiate degree of an individual.  His determination and aspiration for a degree will be openly and adversely test by the indicators that arise within his socio-economic spectrum.  These factors will influence the student motivation and achievement as much as parental and peer encouragement.  It has direct impact on the disposition of the student’s interest to pursue collegiate degree.

        The family, also, is an important factor in academic development and achievement which led to collegiate degree.  Many parents placed great emphasis on educational attainment, hard work and good moral value to their children (Tinto: 1991).  The family is the fundamental source of socio-economic stability of a student, hence, even in the milieu of dynamic change to which family’s paramount concern is collegiate diploma to its members still its aim will be strain directly by the factors involving the family’s social and economic attributes.

        There are two attributing aspect that affects mostly in the decision-making of the family.  It is the financial and cultural aspect.  Financial aspect on the socio-economic spectrum of a family connotes the occupation and income of the family in relation to the actual family size that is the actual income minus the actual expenditures.   On the other hand, educational attainment and religion as part of the cultural aspect on a socio-economic spectrum embraces the cultural expectation of a family that sets his status in the society.  These expectations translated to influence and the impact of the same will be weight evenly on the capacity of the family to enable his or her child pursue for a college diploma.

It is on this premise that the researchers would like to determine degree of relationship between socio-economic factors with respect to attrition and/or retention of Hotel and Restaurant Management students of Jose Rizal Memorial State College – Dipolog Campus, Dipolog City as to wither the same directly and/or indirectly related to one another.

Theoretical/Conceptual Framework

In pursuing higher education, a student has to move from one environment to another thereby being affected both indirectly and directly on the things that surrounds him.  In order to understand said situation, the researchers uses Brofenbrenner’s ecological system theory to which this study is anchored. Said theory is anchored on two major microsystems: family and school that are likely to affect the retention and attrition of college students as it slowly progress in his/her collegiate life.  The theory argued that human development is influenced by the interactions of an individual within the family and school microsystem.

Inherent to a sound existence of the student in an environment is the financial stability of the family, educational attainment of one’s parents, job/employment security of one’s parent had bi-directional interaction between the status and the will of the student with respect in pursuing collegiate degree. (Newman B. M. et. al.,2002)

        Socio-economic conditions influence the child academic motivation to finish his studies.  Correlates to which is his achievements, work environment influenced by parents’ values and socialization practices by emphasizing the importance of a college degree and discouraging initiative and thoughts of attrition. (Greenberger & O’Niel,1997)  In addition, family values regarding religiosity and ethnical identity substantially contributed on how children define and cope with stress and the demand of daily life. (Steinberg et. al.,1998)

        Tinto (1990) viewed attrition and retention as a longitudinal process.  He asserted that students enter institutions of higher education with variety of characteristics and predispositions.  Within the institutional environment, students follows academic and social track (socio-economic) to develop important attributes that affect their retention and/or attrition to the said educational institution.

        Further, Tinto (1991) remark that “the consequences of this massive and continuing exodus from higher education are not trivial, either for the individuals who leave or for their institutions”.  In other words, the pursue to complete higher education most often depends primarily on the sociological attributes of the student.  These attributes weigh heavier as compared to other attributes.