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Ensuring student success has been a ubiquitous and enduring goal of institutions of higher education, making it paramount to identify how this goal can be achieved. The researchers identified social integration, perceived institutional commitment to student success, and academic preparedness as potential predictors of student academic success. A n ordinal regression model was used to test the relationship between the predictor variables and class grade. A sample of students enrolled in a freshmen-level general education, gateway course was surveyed. Perceived commitment of the institution to student welfare and social integration were not statistically significant. However, academic preparedness was found statistically significant in predicting the acute measure of academic success. These findings suggest that, in the quest to ensure student success, sodai integration and commitment should be considered secondary factors to academic preparation.
Introduction
The point where social integration and academic success intersect has fascinated higher education theorists for decades (Astin, 1984; Braxton, Doyle, Hardey III, Jones, & McLendon, 2014; Chapman & Pascarella, 1983; French, 2017; Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991; Tinto, 1975, 1993). As a general rule, student academic success is measured in one of two ways: acute academic performance (e.g. grades, semester course completion) and continuous academic performance (e.g. student persistence, institutional retention) (Bloemer, Day, & Swan, 2017; Connolly, Flynn, Jemmott, Oestreicher, 2017; Severiens, Meeuwisse, & Born, 2015). Rarely has anyone studied whether social integration influences acute academic success, such as class grade. The purpose of the present research is to identify influences for an acute measure of student academic success.
In a previous study, Littlepage and Hepworth (2015) applied theoretical constructs of Braxton's et al. (2014) persistence theory for residential colleges and universities to the dependent variable of acute academic performance. The measure of acute academic performance was the course grade for an introductory to criminal justice course, that serves as both a university elective and gateway course to the criminal justice program; in that study, those variables were found to have no significant impact on class performance. The intention of the present study is to expand on that analysis with additional variables and stronger analytical methods allowed by a much larger sample size. The theoredcal basis for this study comes from two primary sources: Tinto's (1975, 1987) interactionalist theory, expanded upon by...