The Impact of New Student Orientation on Student Academic Success and Degree Completion at Chippewa Valley Technical College

Abstract

New student orientation programs are common among higher education institutions. Institutions will say that students who complete new student orientation are shown to do better academically in their classes, integrate better socially into campus life, and will persist to graduation faster than the students who do not complete an orientation program ahead of the first day of class. However, there is a limited amount of research in the literature to prove these statements are true, specifically for the two-year technical college system. Chippewa Valley Technical College (CVTC) in Eau Claire, Wisconsin is one of those institutions that offers an orientation program but has never analyzed the data to determine if it is a benefit to their students. The purpose of this study is to determine if orientation completing students were more successful academically and persisted to graduation than non-orientation completing students at CVTC. This causalcomparative quantitative research study analyzed student GPA, unofficial withdrawal rates, and persistence to graduation rates. The results of this study showed a statistical difference in cumulative grade point average and graduation rates between students who completed orientation and students who did not complete orientation. It was also found that there was no statistical difference in unofficial withdrawal rates for students who completed orientation and students who did not complete orientation.