Strategies for Enhancing Retention of Information Technology Students

In this paper, we describe the challenge of retaining students enrolled in an Information Technology undergraduate degree program and the various interventions initiated to improve the result. The success of students in information technology programs can be measured by their graduation rates and outcomes. However, a major challenge for some students is often the first programming course. In this study, we evaluate the effectiveness of our efforts to address this challenge and discuss plans for future improvement. We broadly define our interventions into two categories: curricular and student engagement related. Efforts to decrease the cost of textbooks, POGIL inspired instruction, media-based instruction and a non-majors course are examples of curricular interventions that were adopted. Student engagement strategies such as programming boot camps and peer led instruction are also discussed. Retention data is also presented which indicates that the preparedness of student is not indicative of student retention and that other factors may be influencing retention.