In the Netherlands, research on student success has been highly influenced by Tinto’s integration theory. As part of my broader PhD research, I investigate the possible influence of the use of social media by first year students in higher education on student success. In previous studies I measured the best predictive variables of Tinto’s theory, derived from various studies, and conducted factor analysis on them to establish one latent variable. In this paper I focus on the role of the use of social media, in particular Facebook, to eventually adjust the model of Tinto for a better fit for students in contemporary society and the developed world. The use of Facebook is measured by purpose (information, education, social and leisure) and by the use of different pages amongst students. In line with Tinto’s theory the different integration or engagement components are sought. Principal component-analysis is conducted to explore these components between the purposes of using Facebook and different pages. Internal consistency is sought and the reliability is tested by Cronbach’s alpha and Guttman’s lambda-2. Ultimately this paper will provide insight into what kind of influences, the use social media can have upon student success.
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The general problem addressed by this dissertation is the low academic success of students—measured in terms of study progress, dropout, and perceived competence (Braxton et al., 2000; Eccles & Wigfield, 2002; Entwistle & Peterson, 2004; Terenzini & Pascarella, 2005; Tinto, 1993)—in universities of applied sciences in the Netherlands. Study progress refers to the number of credits attained by students at the end of their first year, after the deadline for exams, re-sits, and assignments. Dropout occurs when a student does not continue the same programme in a following year. On a programme level, dropout is the percentage of students in a cohort that leaves during or at the end of the first year and does not continue in the following year (cf. Berger & Lyon, 2005; NVAO, 2012). Students who switch within or between institutions are not regarded dropouts on the institutional or system level, but current designs of accreditation programmes only account for dropouts and study progress on the programme level.
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Tinto’s integration theory has highly influenced research on student success in Europe and America. However, due to the complexity of the theory and the enormous amount of variables, the theory is not suitable for use in regular evaluations in higher education.By including only the best-proven predictive variables, I reduced the amount of variables from Tinto’s theory, avoiding the capitalization of chance and establishing a more easy to use model for teachers and management. The latent variable ‘satisfaction’ was built by using a fraction of the original manifest variables. It was tested, using principal component analysis, in a previous study to prove a good fit of the model. In this paper I focus on the role of background variables (gender, ethnicity, previous education and living situation), to measure their possible influence. A multi-group comparison (X2 difference test) in SPSS AMOS is conducted and path analysis is done to uncover differences on individual paths between the variables.This paper is part of my PhD research, wherein I investigate the possible influence of the use of social media by first year students in higher education.
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