"Parents are becoming more involved in retention. It also appears that traditional education is starting to be seen more as a service industry by students—students are paying higher tuitions and are expecting more profound outcomes of their experiences in higher ed with less effort. "
Dr. Adam Troy

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Dr. Adam Troy

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PEOPLE WITH IMPACT INTERVIEW - Dr. Adam Troy, Director of Research
EducationDynamics, Enrollment and Retention Services Division

Dr. Adam B. Troy is the Director of Research within the Enrollment and Retention Services Division of EducationDynamics. He holds an M.S. and Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Miami, and his research has been published in peer-reviewed, academic journals including Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin and Psychological Reports.

Q: How do you decide what to research?
Dr. Adam Troy:

When approaching an empirical question in higher education, I classify possible solutions into three categories—the 3 P’s I call them—predictive, prescriptive and preventative solutions. On the predictive side with retention for example, I am interested in identifying students at high risk for attrition before they even arrive on campus. Identification may be based on questionnaire responses or behavioral indicators, and I develop assessment tools that capture the important variables. Questionnaire items assess satisfaction, financial need, social belonging, or they may address personality issues. Four weeks into the semester we might ask students if they feel like life is chaotic, if they feel like they can manage tasks at hand, or if they feel overwhelmed. Some of these questions are related to personality characteristics while others are related to how well students adjust to a new atmosphere. I add or remove items based on their ability to predict outcomes. Prescriptive approaches take the next step to decide what means of intervention is needed after we’ve identified students at risk for attrition. We know students may have indicated that they have difficulty with writing skills, time management, making friends on campus, and/or mental health issues, so we need to make sure students are getting content that addresses these areas. The content may be delivered in the form of self-help articles, tests, interactive modules, or access to a social community. And finally, preventative approaches test the interventions that are best for all students to reduce the probability that students will become at-risk by providing an outlet to develop a social support network and access to content that helps students adjust to life on campus.

Many assessment tools I develop provide the institutions with benchmarks of success. Currently, for example, I am developing a learning outcomes inventory. Toward the end of the school year, we might deploy this tool to determine how students feel they’ve improved in relationship to seven global learning outcomes, including autonomy, communication skills, emotional development, and the like. I have also developed surveys for newly enrolled students to evaluate an institution relative to other institutions at which they considered enrolling. Another tool I developed provides feedback to students who are considering an online education. The possibilities are limitless.

Q: Is there an aspect of higher ed that you feel is under-researched?
Dr. Adam Troy:

The majority of important issues in higher ed are under-researched, particularly those involving student interventions. Many schools are doing great research and developing their own models for retention, but the communication across schools is often limited to conferences. In my research I try not only to replicate current findings with regard to student interventions, but also develop completely new approaches to common problems. For example, one of my projects involves developing a roommate-matching algorithm. Traditionally, institutions have observed that roommate satisfaction, especially in the first semester, is related to attrition, but no studies have ever been conducted to determine which matching characteristics relate to roommate satisfaction. The standard model addresses smoking, drinking and sleeping preferences, mostly based on common, but untested, assumptions. I am developing school specific models of roommate satisfaction and using them to match students. Really exciting work. Learning outcomes assessment is also under-researched despite frequent discussions of learning outcomes in the academic community. I do not believe institutions have a solid understanding of which learning outcomes are truly affected over the course of a semester, year, or four years. Additionally, predictive modeling or assessment is rarely accomplished on the retention side. The moment a student steps on campus, they should be put in a bucket based not only on their academic performance (high school GPA and SAT score), but also based on their personality profile. This allows us to identify students at risk and provides suggestions on how to meet their needs based on their risk profile.

Q: What general trends in retention have you noticed in your research of late?
Dr. Adam Troy:

Parents are becoming more involved in retention. It also appears that traditional education is starting to be seen more as a service industry by students—students are paying higher tuitions and are expecting more profound outcomes of their experiences in higher ed with less effort. Students will take a course and not pay for the course until they see the final grade. Professors often do not know this is occurring, and if students don’t pay the course tuition, their final grade will not appear on their transcript. We’re also going to see fewer high school students applying to college in the coming years based on a shift in population demographics, and colleges will become more competitive over the smaller population of high school students. This might result in changes in how schools tend to select students from their populations—right now, we’re seeing an interesting trend of schools recruiting students based not only on their academic profile, but also their interest in the school as well. Schools may keep an index of how many times students reach out to the school via email, phone, etc., or participate in available engagement programs. Schools are now using that information in their admissions criteria. The goal is to increase yield, but the affect on retention is unclear. The VPs of enrollment and student affairs need to work hand in hand.

Q: How can universities leverage research to improve their student retention initiatives?
Dr. Adam Troy:

In general, institutions need to be more proactive rather than waiting for problems to occur on campus. Administrators need to be tracking indicators of attrition from the beginning and even prior to enrollment, and early warning systems need to be more complex than simply waiting for the first poor test grade to come in or several missed classes. For one of my clients, my enrollment survey of their accepted students indicated that over 50 students had thoughts of transferring to another college—before they even set foot on the campus—information the school would never have been aware of. If schools use these tools or develop their own, there is much potential to be proactive about retention issues.

Dr. Adam Troy, Director of Research EducationDynamics, Enrollment and Retention Services Division
Dr. Adam B. Troy is the Director of Research within the Enrollment and Retention Services Division of EducationDynamics. He holds an M.S. and Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Miami, and his research has been published in peer-reviewed, academic journals including Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin and Psychological Reports. One of his publications in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships is currently listed among the top 10 most frequently read articles in the journal. Dr. Troy’s current projects focus on examining predictors of college student application, enrollment and retention behavior, as well as testing the effectiveness of the EducationDynamics’ enrollment management interventions to inform students in their college selection process. He is a member of the American Psychological Association.

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Additional sections of this journal address student recruiting and student retention. We have also placed all articles with a common theme of online education and distance education programs in a separate portal. New articles will be posted each Monday, please check back by bookmarking this site or placing a link to this Innovative Practices in Communicating with Students portal.