By Todd Mordhorst, Office of the Provost
One of the issues that can derail student success is chronic course withdrawal. Students often drop or withdraw from courses without fully understanding the potential consequences of their decision and without faculty knowing a problem existed.
According to a national study by Hobsons (2017), first-year students at public universities who withdraw from attempted courses have a greater likelihood of stopping out within the next year. Students who withdrew from more than 20 percent of their total credit attempts had up to three times greater odds of leaving the university than students who did not withdraw from any courses.
Greg Crouch, a clinical professor in the Department of Chemistry, was one of the first to suggest WSU embark on a course withdrawal tracking project. He teamed up with other faculty, administration and information technology staff to help make it happen.
“It’s pretty easy to understand why a student earns a grade below a C-, but we have never had the opportunity to understand why students drop or withdraw,” Crouch says. “Perhaps if we understood why students dropped or withdrew, we could implement changes to reduce this number.”
In the fall, WSU began tracking drop and withdrawal reasons in myWSU. The most frequently cited reasons for withdrawal after the 30th day of classes were: “feeling overwhelmed by the course load,” “failing” and “feeling depressed/anxious.” This semester, the most common reasons cited for withdrawals and drops are similar and also include: “class not meeting expectations,” “a scheduling conflict with work obligations,” and “mental/emotional health.”
Starting this semester, students now receive a message before confirming their withdrawal directing them to academic and/or wellness resources, as appropriate. The hope is that these resources can help students remain enrolled and succeed in the class. A similar program at Penn State successfully prevented 40 percent of initiated withdrawals.
Starting in January 2018, academic advisers also receive notifications for specific reason codes, and Student Financial Services staff are notified if the student selects financial aid as a reason for dropping a course.
There is still work to be done in this area to prevent students from dropping courses, and to help them overcome challenges early in their careers at WSU. But this first step is providing valuable insights into how we can best support students.
“The project grew to encompass a bigger scope than intended, but I think everyone at WSU would agree a process that might help detect early warning signs of a student’s mental health is critical,” Crouch says.
As a reminder, faculty can use the AWARE network to report concerns about a student’s wellbeing, and plans are in place to implement a notification system for faculty to report concerns about a student’s academic progress.
For more information about the course withdrawal tracking project, or the advising alert project, contact Erica Austin.
