Student Resilience and Retention in Higher Education Jacqueline Stevenson, Centre for Research into Higher Education, Leeds Metropolitan University, Leeds, UK Overview: This paper draws on the theoretical concept of resilience and explores why some students who face adversity remain in higher education whilst others do not. Stream: Student Learning, Learner Experiences, Learner Diversity

This presentation was focused on research undertaken at Leeds Met. The interest was on why students who appeared to have high resilience dropped out.  In the UK nationally drop out running at 14% and the students tend to be male, mature, black ethnic minorities and have the lowest entry qualifications.

Some reasons found in the literature and supported by the research were fear of debt and money worries (Furlong & Forsyth 2003), Lack of fit with the programme and group (Quinn 2004, Longden 2004 & Thomas 2002), inequality and material factors.

Resilience is different to coping because it provides an opportunity for growth, is focused on strengths, making meaning from events and adapting. There are usually two factors present that create the risk or threat and these are commonly death of a relative, feeling isolated and away from home and stress. Positive adaptation come from protective external factors such as money, support, resilient traits and cultural and contextual factors.

The research was to explore difficulties and look at internal and external factors and make sense of differences and drop out. The methods used were 20 narrative interviews with students who had dropped out and a further 25 as a comparison with international and home students from diverse backgrounds.

Students who stayed appeared to have resilient traits such as perseverance, internal locus of control, optimism, willingness to draw on support, perspective and a sense of humour.  They had dealt with prior adversity such as poverty, loss of a relative or mental health illness personally or in their family. They were able to draw upon their existing traits when faced with a problem such as failing an assessment, accommodation problems, home sickness and financial worries. Some students withdraw despite previous resilience but this happened when for some reason they could not adapt to their situation.

The institution needed to provide protective processes such as:

• Institutional habitus (Thomas 2002)
• Minimise negative reactions
• Develop self
• High expectations
• Provide opportunities for students to establish and maintain self-esteem
• Services need to reach out to students
• Authentic participation in institutional life
• See potential of self through other biographies
• Real world experiences

This was a really interesting piece of work and linked well to the next session I attended on mentoring.