Predictors of Student Retention in Private English as Foreign Language (EFL) Schools in Iran

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Date
2010
Authors
Soleimani, Jeila
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Abstract
It is obvious that retention of loyal students as customers of educational institutions is desirable and profitable in business of these institutions. While not everyone will be comfortable using concepts from business to an issue in education, applying the loyal customer retention model to student retention in this paper, gives a unique perspective to the issue of student retention and provides an economic justification for implementing retention programs. This paper develops a model that can be used to determine the key influencers of student retention by integrating both relationship marketing and educational concepts. The student retention and relationships marketing literatures are reviewed in parallels. The core of the relationship marketing approach is that resources are encouraged to strengthen ties with current customers on the proven principle that maintaining existing customers is less costly than isĀ· acquiring the new ones. In order to contextualize the study, English as Foreign Language (EFL) schools of Iran has been selected as the focus of the model. A comprehensive conceptual framework is developed which includes variables such as students' integration with peers, perceived quality of teacher-student interaction, and students' trust in staff, students' institutional commitment, and student retention. All of these are considered to be important antecedents of loyalty, especially in terms of relationship. The findings of the study show that student's integration with peers, trust in staff, and students' institutional commitment have direct positive effect on student retention. On the other hand students' integration with peers, and students' trust in staff show positive direct impact on student's institutional commitment as well. In addition, these variables were mediated by institutional commitment
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Student Retention
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