What is persistence?
The most important factor that determines if someone will complete large projects, for example, such as the final project of an MBA (TFM), which is a project or study carried out by a student, with the supervision of a tutor, where the and the knowledge acquired during the master’s degree is applied, without a doubt it is persistence. What does it actually mean? It is the ability to continue working despite obstacles or challenges along the way. The doctrine and all the related investigations that have addressed the concept and implications of persistence have found that ability or talent are not the most important factors in determining success.
And this is saying a lot, since without a doubt a talented person has all the ballots to always win, in studies and at work. But according to researchers who have called “courage”, or the ability to persist despite setbacks, it is the determining factor for success or a good result in any project that the graduate student has in hand. Of course, this virtue will also be essential in their professional beginnings in a job position in which they are unaware of the functions that must be performed, and which must also strive to be at the level of the other teammates in a very short period of time. Organizations don’t expect too much when it comes to staff training, so the persistence of the candidate becomes a determining factor.
There are important distinctions between persistence and procrastination, although both affect the completion of large projects.
Procrastination is characterized by the following:
– Avoidance of daily tasks.
– Difficulty starting tasks.
– Inability to stay on task once the job has started.
– Relying on deadlines to speed up work.
– Easily distracted by unimportant tasks.
It is evident that, for postgraduate students, the tasks correspond to everything inherent to the work commissioned by the professors, in addition to the net study hours dedicated to each subject.
Persistence is characterized by the following:
– The ability to work (study) for long periods of time despite challenges.
– The resilience to overcome challenges and obstacles.
– The self-control necessary to resist distractions.
– Experience the long-term goal as something meaningful, important and “worthwhile”.
– A commitment to continue working (studying) at any time despite doubts.
– Perceive yourself as “in charge” of work/study regardless of the challenges.
The ability to be persistent is a skill that can be developed with practice.
It is always helpful to know how to identify challenges you may have experienced with persistence in the past and consider ways to strengthen these skills.
Why is persistence important for students?
Persistence is evidenced by a willingness to keep trying in the face of challenge. For students, this persistence can be a driving force in helping them achieve their academic and personal goals. The idea of persistence in the face of adversity is often described as the result of high motivation.
What does persistence mean in higher and postgraduate education?
In higher education, persistence rates show a student’s ability to continue to the next term. Each state and school system will have their own definition of what it means for a student to persist.
Persistence vs. retention: definitions and differences
Some characteristics persistence
Here we are going to see an example of what can be found in many educational systems and business school programs in different countries, although what we are going to describe may seem like gibberish to you, but it is a reality that highlights what it actually means persistence in a graduate student. For example, in the MBA that a postgraduate student is studying who is present and committed on day 1 of the start of the course and is also present on the last day of the course of the cycle of that period 1, being equally active and committed, thinking already in the results that your dedication and effort will bring you in your professional career.
What is Withholding?
As with persistence rates, the definition of retention in university studies will vary from country to country and from system to system. In general, higher education defines retention as one of the following:
– Students are retained from the fall term in year 1 to the spring term in year 4.
This implies that retention rates are one of the most important measures in higher education for two reasons:
– It is much easier and cheaper for a university to retain its current students than to recruit new ones.
– The amount of funding an institution receives depends on its ability to retain students.
What is the difference between persistence and retention?
Where persistence rates measure a student’s ability to continue to the next term, retention rates are campus-wide and show an institution’s ability to retain students. We insist: this is valid for university and postgraduate studies, although without a doubt, the highest rates of non-retention occur in undergraduate studies, because when the candidate decides to undertake his postgraduate studies, other responsibilities come into play, generally work, which requires an additional effort for which you are not willing to waste time, and if you can shorten the cycle of your studies, surely you will.
Students who persist to the end of the term or until graduation have a positive effect on retention rates. But in some circumstances, if a student persists, it doesn’t necessarily benefit retention rates. Persistence for a student could mean transferring from University A to University B. So even though the student continues their education, University A will be affected by retaining it since the student transferred.
Towards the completion of a qualification
Student persistence can be defined as the continued enrollment and progress of students toward completion of a grade.
Globally, there is a growing number of graduate students. With the number of postgraduate enrollments increasing, it is estimated that dropout from such programs is 40-50% in most countries of the world. This affects universities and business schools. If figures from the United Nations (UN, 2020) are taken into account, the pandemic has affected almost 1.6 billion students in more than 190 countries on all continents, that is, 94% of students in worldwide, a figure that rises to 99% in low- and middle-income countries.
Not only is there a probability that 23.8 million children and young people from pre-school to post-secondary level could have dropped out of school or not have had access to it in the year 2021, university dropouts in higher education centers also come into play .
University dropout is understood as that phenomenon by which students drop out voluntarily or forced within the educational system. In the Spanish case, in terms of postgraduate studies, the data that is considered from those responsible for business schools, would be in a range of between 15 and 20% for online training and in face-to-face programs, it is estimated that not reaches 5%.
The high dropout rate of graduate students has a great impact on national resources and robs the labor market of highly qualified personnel, resulting in the loss of financial investments and knowledge.
The persistence of students to complete their undergraduate and graduate studies is vital for academic institutions, society and the economy.
Higher education institutions receive funding based on the number of undergraduate and graduate students they produce. The impact of non-completion on undergraduate and graduate programs results in decreased funding and affects resource allocation.
Faced with this drop in the continuity of university studies, this is where the value that postgraduate studies really assume comes in, especially in private spheres, which also facilitate online learning now more than ever as a result of the acceleration of digital transformation. that the pandemic has imposed on society, as there are more options (business school offerings) and more flexibility in study formats (conventional face-to-face and combined forms of online with face-to-face or exclusively the remote format) than somehow In this way, they contain (avoid greater leaks) the rate of failure or abandonment at postgraduate levels, especially when students are studying various MBA specialties.
Furthermore, the effect of student persistence at the social and economic level can be seen in the production of a highly-skilled labor force that is capable of generating advanced and creative ideas to improve the economy and society.
Factors related to students and academic institutions
The persistence of students until completing postgraduate programs is associated with factors related to the two universes that give life to business training: on the one hand, with students; on the other, academic institutions that include, of course, business schools due to the relevance of their programs and the quality of their teaching staff. Undoubtedly, a determining factor for its prestige is the demand from employers, who are looking for professionals with postgraduate training so that they are in a position to occupy positions of responsibility shortly. This is a very marked trend: they enter a position of high responsibility, they are trained and trained, they go on to coordinate and supervise personnel, and in a term of two to three years they are in the position of bosses (middle managers) with enough personnel at their side. post.
Student-Related Factors
Student-related factors include age, time management, time since last race, approaches to learning, and social connections such as peers, family, and employer.
Factors Related to Institutions
Factors related to academic institutions include: the mode of study, ie whether students are enrolled full or part time, faculty support, and academic integration.
From retention to persistence
Three important experiences shape students’ motivation to stay in college and/or graduate school and finish their course successfully, graduating.
For years, our prevailing view of student retention has been shaped by theories that view student retention through the lens of institutional action and ask what institutions can do to retain their students. Students, however, do not seek to be retained. They seek to persist. The two perspectives, while necessarily related, are not the same. Their interests are different.
Persistence as a form of motivation
While the interest of the institution is to increase the proportion of its students who graduate from the institution, the interest of the student is to complete a degree, often without regard to the college or university or business school in which they are enrolled. got. When viewed from the students’ perspective, persistence is just one form of motivation.
Students must be persistent in pursuing their degrees and willing to put in the effort to achieve it, even when faced with the challenges they sometimes encounter. Without motivation and the effort it engenders, persistence is unlikely, apart from institutional action.
Take the student’s perspective
To promote higher school completion, institutions need to take the perspective of students and ask not only how they should act to retain their students, but also how they should act so that more students want to persist to completion. The two questions, while necessarily linked, do not lead to the same kinds of conversations about institutional action. The latter, which is rarely asked, requires institutions to understand how students’ experiences shape their motivation to persist and, in turn, what they can do to improve that motivation. It is clear that in the case of business schools, the permanent adaptation of the curricular components of the programs, a high level of specialization and updating, as well as the incorporation of new trends that are demanded by both employer organizations and the society as a whole, such as the case of inclusion, integration, sustainability, etc., become essential elements for the decision of the postgraduate program and institution finally chosen.
The answer to that question is far from simple.
Many experiences shape students’ motivation to persist, not all of which are within the ability of institutions to easily influence (for example, off-campus events that discourage students from persistence). But of those that are, three stand out as being essential for student motivation:
– The self-efficacy of the students.
– The sense of belonging.
– The perceived value of the curriculum.
Self-efficacy
Self-efficacy refers to a person’s belief in their ability to succeed at a particular task or in a specific situation. It is a manifestation of how past experiences shape how individuals come to perceive themselves and their ability to have some degree of control over their environment.
Self-efficacy is learned, not inherited
It is malleable, it is not fixed. It is not generalizable in the sense that it applies to all tasks and situations, but it can vary depending on the particular task or situation in question. A person may feel capable of succeeding at one task but not at another.
When it comes to graduate students’ belief in their ability to succeed in business school, a strong sense of self-efficacy promotes goal achievement, while a weak sense undermines it. It is a very personal choice, but let’s say that almost essential is the decision to choose the path of effort, which once again leads to a hard presence of persistence.
Whereas people with high self-efficacy will more easily engage in a task, put more effort into it, and persist longer in completing it, even when they encounter difficulties, people with low self-efficacy will tend to become discouraged and withdraw when they encounter difficulties. Although many students, for example an MBA, may be confident in their ability to succeed, many are not, particularly those whose past experiences lead them to question their ability to succeed in their studies, as well as those who experience stereotype threats that label them as less likely to succeed.
But even those who enter college or business school confident in their ability to succeed can face challenges that serve to undermine their sense of self-efficacy. That’s particularly true during the crucial first year at university when students are looking to adjust to the increased demands, but it’s no less true in the first few weeks of taking a master’s degree, be it face-to-face or online for a year-long MBA. What matters for success in that year, however, is not so much that students believe in their ability to succeed, but that they come to believe that they can as a result of their early experiences. Being comfortable in their place and projecting a successful personal result in their minds. This image persists, even to those who had certain doubts at the beginning.
Therefore, while it is important that graduate institutions challenge existing labels that some students are less likely to succeed than others, it is equally important that students are able to get the timely support they need to succeed when they encounter early difficulties. to meet the academic, sometimes social, or other requirements imposed by the postgraduate institution.
To be effective, such support must occur before students’ difficulties undermine their motivation to persist; hence the need for institutions to employ early warning systems which, when correctly implemented, alert faculty and staff to one or more struggling students and activate support where necessary. Intermediate grades will not do. Here the type of support from the institution will clearly differentiate between the university stage and the postgraduate stage. In business schools, belonging to a community of peers who are united by shared projects and joint work, greatly facilitates the response that academic coordinators and/or professors can provide to students individually or in groups.
Sense of belonging
While believing that one can succeed in college or a graduate business school course, persistence to completion is essential to completion, but it alone does not guarantee success.
For that to happen, students must come to see themselves as members of a community of other students, faculty, and staff who value their membership, who matter, and who belong. Hence the term “sense of belonging”. The result is often expressed as a commitment that serves to link the individual to the group or community, even when challenges arise. This is where engagement with other people on campus or in the classroom matters, be it face-to-face or virtual. The existence of a human group is in both forms. But even more important are the students’ perceptions of those commitments and the meaning they derive from them in terms of their belonging.
While the sense of belonging may reflect students’ prior experiences, it is more directly shaped by the general climate that exists among peers and their daily interactions with other students, teachers, school staff, as well as the messages these convey. interactions.
Students who perceive themselves as belonging are more likely to persist because it not only leads to increased motivation, but also a willingness to engage with others in ways that further promote persistence. Conversely, a student’s sense of not belonging, of being out of place, leads to a withdrawal from contact with others that further undermines the motivation to persist.
How much business schools can do
There is much that can be done here. First, the management of business schools must ensure that all postgraduate students see the institution as welcoming and supportive, that the culture is one of inclusion. They can do this not only by talking about issues of exclusion, but also by promoting those forms of activity that require shared academic and social experiences.
In academia, that can take the form of cohort programs and learning communities. Within classrooms, it can mean the use of pedagogies such as problem-based and cooperative learning that require students to learn together as equal partners.
In the social arena, graduate institutions can take steps to provide a diversity of social groups and organizations that allow all students to find at least a smaller community of students with whom they share a common bond.
However they promote students’ sense of belonging, institutions need to address it from the very beginning of the student journey, in fact, as soon as they already have a note of the path the candidate is going to choose. As is the case with self-efficacy, developing a sense of belonging facilitates other forms of engagement that enhance student development, learning, and achievement.
Perceived value of the curriculum
Students’ perceptions of the value of their studies also influence their motivation to persist. Although what constitutes value is subject to much debate, the underlying problem is clear: students need to perceive that the material to be learned is of sufficient quality and relevance to justify their time and effort. This situation obviously occurs at all levels of higher education, not just in business schools. When they are convinced that the institution, be it a university or a business school, has made and is making the efforts and investments for the quality of teaching, only then will they be motivated to use that material in a way that promotes learning and, in turn, , the persistence. Those programs or teaching methodologies that are considered irrelevant or of low quality will often have the opposite result.
Different criteria and different subjects
Addressing this issue is challenging, if only because student perceptions of the curriculum vary not only among different students, but also among the different subjects they are asked to learn. But there are steps that institutions can and should take. First, institutions must ensure that students enroll in a field of study appropriate to their needs and interests, that they find the material in those courses challenging enough to justify their effort, and, with academic support, that they are reasonably at your fingertips to master. Second, they need to make sure that the curriculum includes the experiences and stories of the students who are asked to study that curriculum. Third, institutions, specifically faculty, must be explicit in demonstrating how the subjects students are asked to learn can be applied to meaningful situations in ways that are relevant to the issues that concern them. This is particularly important in first-year introductory courses, as they serve as gateways to subsequent courses. Too often, the meaningful connections in those courses are left for students to discover. In the case of postgraduate training, those who are studying a specialization, for example, such as an MBA in finance, will want to have acquired knowledge and experiences transmitted from their professors, which will make them live the business reality, added to agreements that the business school has with certain companies for them to do their internships.
One way to make those connections is to use pedagogies, such as problem- and project-based learning, which require students to apply the material they are learning to solve concrete problems or to complete a class framing project. Another is through contextualization, where students are asked to learn material within the context of another field, as is the case in development education, where basic skills are taught in the context of another area of study. . In this and other similar cases, students are more likely to want to learn basic skills because it helps them learn a topic that interests them. One promotes the learning of the other.
The use of learning communities.
Universities and business schools can also achieve contextualization through the use of learning communities. When implemented correctly, college students co-enroll in two or three courses that are linked through a theme, problem, or project that provides a unifying theme for the community. These multiple course links can provide not only academic and social support, but also promote a way of interdisciplinary learning that is not easily achieved in stand-alone courses. In business schools, they have to simultaneously take subjects such as marketing, HR, finance, as well as a series of contents that fall into the category of soft skills, so the different modules with their theoretical and practical components, to which It adds the collaboration in joint projects with other students of that course, it makes them naturally accustomed to the exchange of information and knowledge, in addition to making this transfer of experiences in which the trainer becomes a moderator on the evolution of learning, regardless of his work as a transmitter of knowledge.
Lest it be forgotten, the goal of persistence is not simply for students to complete their degrees, but to learn powerfully while doing so. Education is the goal of our efforts; persistence is just a vehicle for it to happen.
All this is not to say that students will not persist if they have little sense of belonging or see little value in their studies. Some will, if only because of external pressures to do so (eg, family) or the perceived value of earning their degree from the institution (eg, occupation, income, and status outcomes). But doing it with that thought in mind is an empty accomplishment, since you don’t take advantage of the intrinsic benefits of a high-level business education that business school provides. Therefore, belonging and learning are two sides of the same coin.
Student completion rate improvements
There is no question that many colleges and universities have improved student completion rates. But they can and should do more. Institutions need to expand their college completion conversation beyond simply how they can retain their students to how they can act in ways that make all students want to stay and complete their degrees. While it is undeniable that academic ability is important, student motivation is the key to student persistence and completion. But addressing student motivation requires institutions to do more than just issue another survey questionnaire. Rather, it requires them to understand students’ perceptions of their experience and how campus-wide events influence their perceptions and, in turn, shape their motivation to persist.
As we enter the realm of graduate education, universities and business schools need to listen to all their students, take their voices seriously, and be sensitive to how perceptions of their experiences vary among students of different races, income levels and cultural background.
Only then can they further improve persistence and completion while addressing the continuing inequality in student outcomes that threatens the very fabric of our society.