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Educational subculture and droppingout in higher education: a longitudinalcase studyC. Venuleoa, P. Mossia & S. Salvatorea
a Department of History, Society and Human Studies, University ofSalento, Lecce, ItalyPublished online: 30 Jun 2014.
To cite this article: C. Venuleo, P. Mossi & S. Salvatore (2014): Educational subculture anddropping out in higher education: a longitudinal case study, Studies in Higher Education, DOI:10.1080/03075079.2014.927847
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2014.927847
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Educational subculture and dropping out in higher education: alongitudinal case study
C. Venuleo*, P. Mossi and S. Salvatore
Department of History, Society and Human Studies, University of Salento, Lecce, Italy
The paper tests longitudinally the hypothesis that educational subcultures in termsof which students interpret their role and their educational setting affect theprobability of dropping out of higher education. A logistic regression model wasperformed to predict drop out at the beginning of the second academic year forthe 823 freshmen of a three-year bachelor degree in psychology at an Italianuniversity. The model uses both measures of students’ educational subcultureand incoming levels of knowledge and skills. The probability of dropping outwas used as dependent variable. Results show that the probability of droppingout is significantly associated with students’ educational subculture – but notwith their incoming level of knowledge and skills. Our results suggest the needto recognize the meaning as a legitimate variable of research and of interventionin the field of educational success.
Keywords: educational subcultures; student demand; academic context; dropout;longitudinal case study
Introduction
The issue of retention and levels of performance of students is of increasing importancefor college administrators (Fike and Fike 2008) and motivates a large number of studiesaimed at investigating the way cognitive skills (e.g. verbal reasoning and numericalreasoning, Ridgell and Lounsbury 2004; working memory, Johnstone and El-Banna1989; processing speed and spatial ability, Rohde and Thompson 2007) and personalitytraits (e.g. self efficacy, Brown, Lent, and Larkin 1989; locus of control, Zika andChamberlain 1987; anxiety, Mellanby and Zimdars 2011; learning style and achieve-ment motivation, Busato et al. 2000) are related to academic success.
However, as underlined by Mouw and Khanna (1993), the capacity of any of thecognitive ability or personality variables typically used to predict college success hasproved to be disappointingly low.
Discordant results also emerge from studies concerning the impact of factors con-cerning the familial context (e.g. parenting style) or micro-social environment (e.g.achievement level of classmate) on educational success. To give an example, althougha series of studies have found that authorative parenting affects academic success (interalia Steinberg, Elmen, and Mounts 1989), Leung and Kwan (1998) pointed out thatdirect effects of parenting on academic outcomes are weak or not significant.
© 2014 Society for Research into Higher Education
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
Studies in Higher Education, 2014http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2014.927847
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It is beyond the scope of this article to offer a comprehensive analysis of the factorswhich might explain the discordant and disappointing results at a theoretical and meth-odological level. We cite evidence here only to illustrate a key point. The worksreviewed above share the assumption that variables used as predictors (be they cogni-tive, personality or familial and micro-social dimensions) affect educational success inan invariant way, independently from the socio-cultural and personal cultural meaningin terms of which they are interpreted by subjects.
As Molden and Dweck (2006) observe, much of psychology typically depicts allpeople as choosing goals and developing in similar ways, with everyone proceedingalong a common path.
We suggest that what impacts educational success are the personal and socio-cul-tural meanings (Valsiner 2007) in terms of which actors of the training setting interpretindividual and contextual characteristics. And given that meanings vary within andacross educational settings, the effects of such characteristics vary as well. For instance,a mnemonic learning style could relate positively with academic success in an edu-cational culture that valorises content-based knowledge, negatively otherwise.
Meanings in training setting
The role of the culture
Cross-cultural and anthropological studies show that education takes on different mean-ings in different cultural contexts (Taylor and Wang 2000) and provide many clues ofhow ideas about education guide the way its aim is defined, what has to be considered a‘good’ student, and the idea itself of educational success (inter alia Sue and Okazaki1990). More generally, contemporary literature in the educational field has shown anincreasing attention to the effect of the learner’s socio-cultural background on success-ful student achievement and affect outcomes (Allen-Collinson and Brown 2011;Cobern 1993; Solomon 1987). Several authors (inter alia Cobern and Aikenhead1998; Costa 1995; Phelan, Davidson, and Cao 1991; Valadez 2008) have suggestedthat meanings and understandings derived from students’ family, peer, and schoolworlds, combine to affect students’ engagement with school and learning.
Our work is grounded on this acknowledgment. According to a semiotic, culturalstandpoint on education and learning (Cole 1996; Pontecorvo 1990), it focuses onthe impact, on high educational success, of the meanings used by students to interprettheir role and their social and training context.
We do not consider such meanings as exclusively individual constructions. Rather,we assume an integrated view, focusing on the way people, the situated setting ofactivity (in this case the training setting) and culture (Valsiner 2012) recursively interactwith each other (Linell 2009; Salvatore 2012; as it concerns the educational field, seeCandela 2005; Venuleo et al. 2008; Venuleo and Mossi 2012).
According to many conceptualizations of the socio-symbolic processes, we think ofculture as a symbolic universe shared by a certain social group; it is a net of intercon-nected meaning, grounding the way of perceiving and experiencing a social environ-ment, and enabling individuals to orientate themselves in their material and socialworld (Geertz 1973; Triandis 1996; Valsiner 2000).
According to this general view, sharing a culture does not mean that all the actorshave to think the same contents and to behave consensually. On the contrary, culture isunderstood as a symbolic field underlying the (dis)similarities in the subject’s values,
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statements, attitudes and behaviour. Thus, intra-group differences in the way of feeling,thinking and behaving can be seen as different positions within a shared symbolic uni-verse, namely different interpretations of the common participation in a cultural system.It is worth noting that the definition of culture provided above brings together theshared character of socio-symbolic processes and the variability of the ways offeeling/thinking/behaving that characterize collective life. Specific subgroups, ident-ified by elements such as race, language, gender, social class, economic and educationallevel, occupation, religion, and so on, can be differentiated in terms of their subculture(Jegede and Aikenhead 1999; Triandis 1996).
All subcultures are grounded on the same symbolic universe but they elaborate ormake a certain set of meanings provided by the wider culture more accessible while de-emphasizing others (Cobern and Aikenhead 1998).
The educational subcultures
According to the conceptual frame provided above, students (and teachers) interpret thetraining setting they are part of on the basis of a specific subculture – namely a definedsystem of meanings negotiated and shared in that context.
Such negotiated and shared meanings can be conceived of as educational subcul-tures (Guidi and Salvatore 2013), namely specific ways of interpreting the educationalcontext embraced by a psychosocial group taking part to that context. In the frame of agiven symbolic universe, providing semiotic resources (e.g. values, beliefs, metaphors,norms, linguistic and action codes), and because of the specific characteristics of thetraining setting (its aim, rules, organization, tradition), a certain geography of edu-cational subcultures tends to develop – with some of them assuming a dominant pos-ition, others a marginal one. We believe that educational subcultures play a majorrole in increasing (or decreasing) the probability of educational success. The edu-cational subculture frames the students’ individual systems of meaning, guiding andconstraining their way of feeling, interpreting and performing.
Imagine an undergraduate student interpreting his experience in terms of one of twovery different educational subcultures:
(1) Subculture A, seeing study as useless because of a social world where develop-ment is impossible and the university as an uncomfortable place where oppor-tunism and conformism are the ‘rules of the game’.
(2) Subculture B, seeing the university as a trustworthy community which rewardsstudents’ effort and competence in terms of opportunity of future professionalsuccess.
Now, our imagined student can be expected to interpret the same training setting in twoquite different ways if he adheres to the educational subculture A or B – and thesedifferences would spread to practically any aspects of his participation in the trainingsetting: his expectations, the time and quality of the way of attending classes, the learn-ing strategies and modality of using knowledge and skills, the attitude towards col-leagues and teachers, and so forth – including the basic choice of continuing tostudy or dropping out.
It is worth highlighting two major points in relation to the example given above.First, at least in the brief to medium period (Mossi and Salvatore 2011), thelinkage between the student and the educational subculture he belongs to is quite
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stable – namely, any student assumes one educational subculture as its dominant,prototypical way of feeling and thinking. Even if the educational subculture is asocial dimension, it can be studied at the individual level, in terms of the kinds ofcultural meanings held by any one student.1 Second, educational subcultures havedifferent capacities of feeding student success. Generally speaking, this capacityreflects the consistency between the beliefs, feelings and actions motivated by theeducational subculture and the role demands made on the student by the trainingsetting (cf. Cobern and Aikenhead 1998; Ulriksen 2009).2 Some educational subcul-tures encourage behaviours and attitudes functional to the training tasks, rules andgoals – e.g. high commitment on study, a critical attitude – others do not. Inciden-tally, this means that the capacity of an educational subculture of supporting edu-cational success depends on the goals and the ‘rules of the game’ characterizingthe specific training setting.
Consequently, the analysis of the impact of the educational subcultures has to bemade locally, in terms of a specific training setting; its generalization to further settingshas to be treated with caution, requiring a deep understanding of the differences at stake(Salvatore and Valsiner 2010).
Aim of the study and hypotheses
The current study sets out to analyse the educational subcultures active in an under-graduate psychology programme, and to judge longitudinally their impact on edu-cational success, more specifically on the probability of students dropping out.
The effect on drop out of educational subcultures is compared with other individualvariables, concerning socio-demographic, cognitive and role characteristics (age,school career, cognitive skills).
Our hypotheses are that:
(a) Educational subcultures active in the student population have various effectson the probability of students dropping out.
(b) Students belonging to educational subcultures consistent with the role demandsof the training setting will show a lower dropout rate than students adhering toeducational subcultures inconsistent with such demands.
(c) This differential effect is higher than that concerning both individual character-istics (age) and level of incoming competences and knowledge.
Method
Sample
The study involves 823 students of the three-year undergraduate psychology pro-gramme at the University of Salento (situated in a middle-sized town in South-eastern Italy), who matriculated in the 2007–08 academic year. Of the 823 studentsthen freshmen, 656 enrolled in the second year of the undergraduate programme.
Gender, age and high school final qualification3 mark of students at the beginning oftheir programme and of the students enrolled at the second year are reported respect-ively in the Table 1, Table 2 and Table 3.
Significant differences were not found when students enrolled in second year werecompared to those at the beginning of their programme.
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The representation of the educational subcultures. Preliminary methodologicalconsiderations
Based on a recent joint psychodynamic and semiotic research tradition (Guidi andSalvatore 2013; Mossi and Salvatore 2011; Salvatore and Venuleo 2008), we considerthe culture as a hierarchical, integrated system of meanings. Indeed, any culture is madeup of a peculiar interweaving of generalized meanings encompassing the whole experi-ence of the training setting.
The generalized meanings work as a basic system of global assumptions guidingand constraining the way of interpreting the discrete objects of the role’s experience.In this sense, any culture pushes the student to homogenize his meaning-makingwithin and among levels (feelings, thinking, attitudes, judgments) and content(event, rules, tasks, goals, colleagues, teachers) of experience. Take a student whodeeply believes that the training setting is a matter of resistance against the violentpower of the academic institution and teachers. This assumption is an example ofgeneralized meaning: it does not concern a specific aspect; rather, it encompasses allthe experience as a whole. Moreover, this assumption is not merely an abstractjudgment – it is a way of living the training setting, of being predisposed to act andreact in a certain way.
Any generalized meanings can be conceived as a polarity of an oppositional dimen-sion, which we name dimension of sense – e.g. pleasant versus unpleasant; trustworthyversus untrustworthy; familiar versus unfamiliar (Mossi and Salvatore 2011; Venuleoand Guidi 2011; Venuleo 2013).
This mode of representing generalized meaning is grounded on the recognition ofthe basic bivalence of meaning (Salvatore 2012) – namely the fact that meaning is adichotomic structure: any affirmation of a quality is at the same time the negation ofthe opposite quality.4
Table 1. Gender of students at the two longitudinal stages.
Gender Enrolled in the first year Enrolled in the second year
Men 13.1% 11.6%Women 86.9% 88.4%
Table 2. Age of students at the two longitudinal stages.
Age Enrolled in the first year Enrolled in the second year
18–24 73.9% 78.1%25–40 17.5% 14.9%> 40 8.6% 7%
Table 3. High school final qualification mark of students at the two longitudinal stages.
Mark in their high school finalqualification
Enrolled in the firstyear
Enrolled in the secondyear
< 70/100 35.4% 33.7%71–82 31.9% 32.5%> 83/100 32.7% 33.7%
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Accordingly, a culture can be interpreted (and represented) in terms of basic dimen-sions of sense; an educational subculture as a particular plotting of basic positions onthose dimensions of sense (for instance, a combination of the position ‘trustworthiness’on the dimension of sense ‘trustworthiness–untrustworthiness’ and the position ‘depen-dence’ on the dimension of sense ‘dependence–autonomy’). In turn, each dimension ofsense can be represented in terms of the tension between two generalized meaningsworking as its opposing polarities.
This mode of representing the relationship between culture and educational sub-cultures is grounded on an epistemology which brings to the centre of attention thedynamic interdependence between shared socio-cultural forms of thinking, commu-nicating and acting (what we are referring in terms of culture) and the variabilityof the ways such forms are expressed by different individuals and groups (whatwe refer to as the educational subcultures). Such epistemology can also be recog-nized within social representations theory; Markova (2000) suggests the conceptof themata to indicate culturally shared oppositional antinomies underlyingcommon-sense thinking, and grounding social representations of daily life phenom-ena. Accordingly, social representations can be conceptualized as a specific positionon such specific oppositional antinomies: different representations of a certainphenomena derive from different themata which are, in turn, thematized in differentways (Markova 2003).
It is worth highlighting one further methodological issue. We have divided theanalysis of educational subcultures into three components, each of them associatedwith a basic domain of experience: (a) the broader social environment; (b) the highereducation setting; (c) the professional figure of the psychologist (namely the targetof the training). The dimensions of sense of each component of the educational subcul-ture have been investigated separately by means of a questionnaire aimed at detectingthe generalized meanings concerning that domain of experience. Actually, this choicecould be considered to be in contrast with the view of educational subcultures as gen-eralized meanings concerning the experience as a whole. Nevertheless, we have pre-ferred not to consider the latter view as obvious, and as such a legitimate ground ofour methodological design. In so doing, conditions have been defined to verify towhat extent the assumption of the study fits data.
Instruments
The study was based on data produced by four instruments.Three questionnaires were used to single out the educational subcultures active in
the student population and judge to which educational subculture each studentbelongs. Each questionnaire was devoted to analysing a component of educational sub-cultures – associated with one of the three domains of experience (the social environ-ment; the higher education setting; the professional figure of the psychologist).
These three questionnaires are based on a more general methodology of culturalanalysis of psychosocial contexts (Markers of organizational development method-ology; cf. Carli and Salvatore 2001; Guidi and Salvatore 2013; Mannarini et al.2012; Mossi and Salvatore 2011), aimed at singling out the dimensions of sensecharacterizing the culture of a social group participating in a local context ofactivity.
The Questionnaire on the Interpretation of the Social Environment (QUISE) iscomposed of 48 items, designed to facilitate the expression of perceptions/opinions/
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judgments concerning the micro- and macro-social environment (e.g. evaluation of theplace where the student lives, level of trustworthiness of social structures) and socialidentity (e.g. moral judgments on critical social behaviours). Previous studies (Carliand Salvatore 2001; Mannarini et al. 2012) have shown the satisfying construct validityof QUISE in the Italian context. In order to esteem the reliability of the instrument, anitem analysis on data provided by the current study was performed. The inner consist-ency proved satisfactory (Alfa value = 0.74).
TheQuestionnaire on the Interpretation of Higher Education Context (QUIHEC) iscomposed of 30 items, designed to facilitate the expression of perceptions/opinions/judgments concerning the academic system (e.g. opinions about main functions, pro-blems, strategies of improvement). QUIHEC is an adaptation for the higher educationsetting of a previous version devoted to the high school setting that has showed goodconstruct validity in the Italian context (Mossi and Salvatore 2011). Also in this case,the inner consistency of the instrument (calculated on data of the current study) provedsatisfactory (Alfa value: 0.70).
The Questionnaire on the Image of Psychologist (QUIP) is composed of 83 items,designed to facilitate the expression of perceptions/opinions/judgments concerning thepsychologist as a professional figure (field of intervention, functions, users). Carli andSalvatore (2001) and Mannarini and colleagues (2012) report data supporting theQUIP’s construct validity in this case in the Italian context. The inner consistency ofthe instrument (calculated on data of the current study) was at similar level to the pre-vious instruments (Alfa value: 0.73).
The three questionnaires have been designed to trigger generalized meanings –
rather than, for instance, to prompt circumstantiated reasoning, knowledge, level ofskillfulness. Two features give the questionnaires the power to encourage generalizedevaluations (cf. Mossi and Salvatore 2011).
First, most of the items concern generic objects (e.g. ‘Italian people’, ‘Italy’).Indeed, when a subject is asked to describe a specific object, the features experiencedof the object will supposedly tend to limit the way of interpreting it; in contrast, whenthe object is proposed in terms of a generic class, it is more likely to work like – as itwere – a projective stimulus.
Second, items are associated to response modes that force the respondent to positionhim compared to a contrasting position. This makes the structure of the response iso-morphic to the oppositional structure of the dimensions of sense. The items are orga-nized in one of the two following ways: (a) some items (e.g. the development of theItalian university in the future) are associated with a four-point Likert scale (‘verylow’, ‘rather low’, ‘quite high’, ‘very high’), therefore without intermediate alterna-tives, purposely chosen as a way to ‘force’ the answers towards opposite modes ofresponse; (b) other items are associated to alternative, contrasting choices (e.g. ‘motiv-ation in enrolling at university’ – one choice among the following: ‘to get the degree’;‘to learn’, ‘to be trained for a job’).
It is worth highlighting that the alternative answers provided by the questionnaireare not designed to cover the highest representative meanings associable with theobjects-stimuli concerned, but to work as ‘bait’ for a corresponding connotation ofthe object. To give an example, each response offered to the item ‘according to you,young people want:’ has been defined for the sake of triggering a generalizedmeaning: affiliation (‘to be guided’), counterdependency (‘to provoke’), achievement(to feel skilled), and so forth.
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The 60-item Questionnaire for the Analysis of the Levels of Competence (QUALC)has been constructed in order to judge the students’ level of competence/knowledge inthe following areas (each of them representing a subscale):
(a) reasoning (10 items);(b) written textual comprehension (10 items);(c) basic English (lexis, syntax and textual comprehension) (15 items);(d) general knowledge (contemporary history, literature, constitutional structure,
current politics) (15 items).
All QUALC items have the format of a question targeting a specific element of com-petence/knowledge associated with four alternative answers, only one of which is right.
For each subscale, the row score is calculated as the frequency of hits. Items havebeen weighted for their difficulty (calculated as the percentage of hits in the sample).The final subscores provide the subjects’ position on the sample of respondents(expressed in percentiles).
Preliminary analysis allows us to claim that QUALC shows satisfying psychometricproperties in terms of shape of the distribution of the scores and subscales’ inner con-sistency. Finally, data on the students’ high school career (their high school qualifica-tion mark) and age was retrieved from university data.
Procedure
Before starting the undergraduate programme, students were asked to answer the fourinstruments. The application were carried out collectively, in a single session takingabout two hours, representing the formal matriculation stage planned for the freshmenof the programme.
Data analysis
Analysis of the educational subcultures
Answers to the QUISE, QUHEC and QUIP have been subjected separately to multiplecorrespondences analysis (MCA). This choice appears coherent with the suggestionthat analysing culture, like analysing other complex phenomena (Batista-Foguetet al. 2000), requires a different approach than studying isolated answers connectedto isolated perceptions, opinions and judgments; it calls for an approach to studyingthe interdependency of all the survey variables. Within this premise, MCA is recog-nized as a useful method for the concise mapping of the relations observed betweenthe set of original variables (survey items). These relations are summed up by alimited number of latent synthetic variables (factorial dimensions) (Blasius and Green-acre 1998; Lebart, Morineau, and Warwick 1984).
Each factorial dimension extracted by the analysis describes the juxtapositionbetween two patterns of co-occurring response modalities across the respondents.
According to the model grounding the analysis, we consider such factors themarkers of a dimension of sense. This is because the response modalities co-occurringon a factorial polarity concern aspects that have no functional or semantic relationship;therefore, their aggregation lends itself to being interpreted as the effect of a generalizedmeaning linking the response modalities beyond their specific content. A similar modelcan be found in studies which make use of multidimensional techniques to analyse
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textual data, with the purpose of identifying patterns of co-occurring words. These pat-terns are regarded as the markers of latent dimension of the discourse (inter alia Land-aeur, Foltz, and Laham 1998; Lebart, Salem, and Berry 1998).
We selected for further analysis the first two factors extracted from each MCA, asthe ones explaining the broader part of the data matrix’s inertia.
In sum, the educational subcultures were described in terms of six factorial dimen-sions – two for each domain of experience investigated by each questionnaire –
considered the marker of the same number of dimensions of sense.More precisely, the six factorial dimensions are:
(1) the two main dimensions of sense (sustaining the educational subculture’sinterpretation) of the social environment, as analysed by the QUISE(QUISE1, QUISE2);
(2) the two main dimensions of sense of the educational setting, as analysed byQUIHEC (QUIHEC1, QUIHEC2);
(3) the two main dimensions of sense of the image of the psychologist, as analyzedby the QUIP (QUIP1, QUIP2).
All six factors (and associated polarities) were labelled according to their interpretationin terms of dimensions of sense.
Measures of the students’ educational subculture
The MCA provides a measure of the degree of association of any respondent with everyfactorial dimension. The more similarity there is between the respondent’s profile ofanswers and the profile characterizing the factorial dimension, the higher the respon-dent’s score is on that factor. This score is expressed in terms of respondent’s position(the coordinate) on the factorial dimension.
Accordingly, the educational subculture the student belongs to has been detected interms of six factorial coordinates – one for each factor/dimension of sense. In the finalanalysis, these coordinates reflect the student’s positioning respective to the oppositionalgeneralized meanings sustaining the educational subcultures identified by the study.
Retention vs. dropping out
The students were segmented into two groups: students retaining study versus studentsdropping out. That distinction was made at the beginning of the second academic year,namely after one year from the application of the three questionnaires for the analysis ofthe educational subcultures.
The prediction of dropping out
A logistic regression model (Hosmer and Lemeshow 2000) was applied in order toesteem the hypothesized effect of the students’ educational subcultures on the differen-tiation between students retaining and dropping out.
Logistic regression predicts the probability of occurrence of an event (its presence:1, its absence: 0) by fitting data to a logistic function. Due to its metric characteristics, itis often used for validating educational selection decisions (cf. Mossi et al. 2012;Sawyer 1996).
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In the current study, the outcome variable is the participation in the programme aftera given amount of time (see below), dichotomized in terms of the contrasting events:retention versus dropping out.
The predictor variables are as follows:
(a) The six factorial coordinates measuring the students’ educational subcultures.(b) The four subscores measuring the students’ level of competence in reasoning,
in written textual comprehension, in basic English and in general knowledge.(c) The high school leaving qualification mark as a marker of the student’s edu-
cational success at high school.(d) Students’ age (measured in terms of year of birth).
The logit function is given by the natural logarithm of the ratio between the prob-ability that the i-th student retains (pi) and the probability that the student dropsout (1-pi).
The regression coefficient (β value) provided by the analysis estimates the strengthof each predictor in influencing the probability of students’ re-enrolling or droppingout – the higher the β absolute value is, the higher the strength of the predictor in influ-encing the probability of the outcome. A positive β value means that the predictorincreases the probability of retention, while a negative regression coefficient meansthat the predictor decreases the probability of that outcome, i.e. it increases the prob-ability of the opposite outcome: dropping out.
In order to esteem the effect of the predictors on the outcome variable, analysisfocused on the outcome variable as measured at the beginning of the second academicyear. Given that the predictors were measured at the beginning of the first academicyear, the analysis corresponds to a temporal distance of one year.
Results
In the following, first the results of the MCAs applied to QUISE, QUIHEC and QUIPare reported (cf. Table 4), then the results of the logistic regression.
The detection of educational subcultures
The dimensions of sense of the social environment
The first two factorial dimensions of the QUISE accounted for 80% of the total inertiaexplained. (Here and henceforth, we adopt the roman capitals for labelling the dimen-sions of sense, and the italics for the interpretation of its polarities.)
QUISE1. Valuation of the social environment: Reliability versus Unreliability. Thisdimension opposes two ways of evaluating the social environment.
Reliability. Both macro- and micro-social environments are perceived in a positiveway. Institutions and people are reliable and supportive (e.g. disagreement on state-ments such as ‘What happens in our society is meaningless’; ‘It will be more andmore difficult to find people to trust of’).
Unreliability. Both macro- and micro-social environments are perceived as uncom-fortable and non-supportive. Institutions are inefficient, people unreliable. A feeling ofimpotency, of inability to understand what happens and to address the future is involved(‘Worrying is useless, since you can’t influence what is going to happen’).
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Table 4. Response modes most significantly associated to the two main factorial dimensions ofsocial environment, academic environment and professional identity.
QUISE1. Valuation of the social environment
‘Reliableness’
AGREE ‘It will be more and more difficult to find people to trust of.’ DisagreeAGREE ‘What happens in our society is meaningless.’ Strongly disagreeFOR THE FUTURE OF A YOUNG PERSON ‘Having a few scruples.’ Not at all importantAGREE ‘It is not possible to foresee the future.’ Strongly disagreeITALIANS ARE ‘desperate.’ Not very desperate
‘Unreliableness’
AGREE ‘Almost all politicians are dishonest.’ Strongly agreeAGREE ‘It will be more and more difficult to find people to trust of.’ Strongly agreeITALIANS ARE ‘desperate.’ Very desperateAGREE ‘I don’t think that people move ahead.’ AgreeAGREE ‘Worrying is useless, since you can’t influence what is going to
happen.’Agree
QUISE2. Modality of connoting the experience of the social environmental
‘Reactivity’
ITALIANS ARE ‘deceived.’ Very deceivedAGREE ‘I don’t think that people move ahead.’ Strongly disagreeITALIANS ARE ‘desperate.’ Very desperateAGREE ‘He who has success in life has to thank fate.’ Strongly disagreeAGREE ‘Worrying is useless, since you can’t influence what is going to
happen.’Strongly disagree
‘Moderation’
AGREE ‘Worrying is useless, since you can’t influence what is going tohappen.’
Disagree
AGREE ‘I don’t think that people move ahead.’ DisagreeAGREE ‘Young people can’t succeed by following the “rules of the
game.”’Disagree
AGREE ‘He who has success in life has to thank fate.’ DisagreeAGREE ‘I feel easy in my mind because there is someone looking after
my future.’Disagree
QUIHEC1. Modality of connoting the experience of the higher education setting
‘Moderation’
FACTORS WHICH INFLUENCE THE LEARNING PROCESS ‘Thestudent’s personality.’
Relevant
ASPECTS CONNECTED TO THE TEACHING ‘The teacher’s abilityto listen.’
Relevant
MOTIVATION TO STUDY ‘The relationship with my teachers.’ Not verymotivating
FACTORS WHICH INFLUENCE THE LEARNING PROCESS ‘Thecultural models of the country.’
Not very relevant
ASPECTS CONNECTED TO THE TEACHING ‘The planning abilityof the students.’
Relevant
‘Reactivity’
FACTORS WHICH INFLUENCE THE LEARNING PROCESS ‘Thestudent’s personality.’
Very relevant
(Continued)
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Table 4. (Continued)
QUISE1. Valuation of the social environment
ASPECTS CONNECTED TO THE TEACHING ‘The planning abilityof the students.’
Very relevant
MOTIVATION TO STUDY ‘The relationship with my teachers.’ Very motivatingFACTORS WHICH INFLUENCE THE LEARNING PROCESS
‘Knowledge already attained.’Very relevant
FACTORS WHICH INFLUENCE THE LEARNING PROCESS ‘Thesocial expectations on the value of training.’
Very relevant
QUIHEC2. Valuation of the educational setting
‘Idealization’
PROBLEMS OF THE ITALIAN UNIVERSITY ‘Low quality ofteaching.’
A little
PROBLEMS OF THE ITALIAN UNIVERSITY ‘Separation fromwork.’
A little
PROBLEMS OF THE ITALIAN UNIVERSITY ‘De-motivation ofteachers.’
A little
DEGREE OF DEVELOPMENT OF THE ITALIAN UNIVERSITY Quite highPROBLEMS OF THE ITALIAN UNIVERSITY ‘Poor scientific
production.’A little
‘Devaluation’
PROBLEMS OF THE ITALIAN UNIVERSITY ‘Separation fromwork.’
Very relevant
DEGREE OF DEVELOPMENT OF THE ITALIAN UNIVERSITY Rather lowPROBLEMS OF THE ITALIAN UNIVERSITY ‘Low quality of
teaching.’Very relevant
AGREE ‘Teachers love their job.’ DisagreeAGREE ‘Teachers love the subjects they teach.’ Disagree
QUIP1. Modality of connoting the figure of the psychologist
‘Moderation’
WITHIN LOCAL SERVICE AGENCIES PSYCHOLOGIST USEFULFOR ‘Supporting families.’
Quite useful
WITHIN LOCAL SERVICE AGENCIES PSYCHOLOGIST USEFULFOR ‘Protecting children.’
Quite useful
WITHIN LOCAL SERVICE AGENCIES PSYCHOLOGIST USEFULFOR ‘Empowering the effectiveness of the services.’
A little
IN ORGANIZATION ANDCOMPANIES PSYCHOLOGIST USEFULFOR ‘Market research.’
A little
IN ORGANIZATION ANDCOMPANIES PSYCHOLOGIST USEFULFOR ‘Service effectiveness empowerment.’
A little
‘Reactivity’
IN ORGANIZATIONS AND COMPANIES PSYCHOLOGISTUSEFUL FOR ‘Quality development.’
Very
IN ORGANIZATIONS AND COMPANIES PSYCHOLOGISTUSEFUL FOR ‘Empowering the effectiveness of the services.’
Very
IN LOCAL SERVICE AGENCIES PSYCHOLOGIST USEFUL FOR‘Protecting children.’
Very
IN LOCAL SERVICE AGENCIES PSYCHOLOGIST USEFUL FOR‘Supporting families.’
Very
(Continued)
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QUISE2. Modality of connoting the experience of the social environment: Reactiv-ity versus Moderation. This dimension opposes two ways of perceiving the experienceof the social environment.
Reactivity. Answers adopting the extreme choices on the Likert scales (e.g. ‘verymuch’, ‘not at all’) are aggregated. It is worth noting that even if some answers havea negative valence (e.g. Italians are very ‘deceived’ and ‘desperate’), several of themconvey positive judgments (e.g. strongly disagree on the statement ‘I don’t think thatpeople move ahead’). Due to this, this polarity lends itself to be interpreted not interms of its content, but in terms of the extremism of the response modality, whichseems to reflect a reactive attitude towards experience, regardless its positive or nega-tive quality.
Moderation. Answers adopting intermediate choices on the Likert scales (e.g. ‘quitehigh’, ‘rather low’) are aggregated. As in the opposite polarity, the content of the state-ments is both positive and negative (e.g. on the one hand, the macro-social environmentis perceived as being rather unreliable; on the other hand faith is expressed in people’sopportunity to move forward). Thus, one is led to interpret this polarity as the marker ofa generalized modality of perceiving experience characterized by an attitude of moder-ation, as such reflected in the tendency to modulate judgments and positions towardobjects.
Table 4. (Continued)
QUISE1. Valuation of the social environment
IN ORGANIZATION ANDCOMPANIES PSYCHOLOGIST USEFULFOR ‘Training.’
Very
QUIP2. Valuation of the image of psychologist
‘Valorization’
IN ORGANIZATION ANDCOMPANIES PSYCHOLOGIST USEFULFOR ‘Customer care.’
Quite useful
WITHIN LOCAL SERVICE AGENCIES PSYCHOLOGIST USEFULFOR ‘Empowering the effectiveness of the services.’
Quite useful
IN ORGANIZATIONS AND COMPANIES PSYCHOLOGISTUSEFUL FOR ‘Service effectiveness empowerment.’
Quite useful
WITHIN LOCAL SERVICE AGENCIES PSYCHOLOGIST USEFULFOR ‘Developing civic sense.’
Quite useful
WITHIN LOCAL SERVICE AGENCIES PSYCHOLOGIST USEFULFOR ‘Developing the relationship between administration andcitizenship.’
Quite useful
‘Devaluation’
IN ORGANIZATIONS AND COMPANIES PSYCHOLOGISTUSEFUL FOR ‘Service effectiveness empowerment.’
Not at all
WITHIN LOCAL SERVICE AGENCIES PSYCHOLOGIST USEFULFOR ‘Empower the effectiveness of the services.’
Not at all
IN ORGANIZATIONS AND COMPANIES PSYCHOLOGISTUSEFUL FOR ‘Customer care.’
Not at all
IN ORGANIZATIONS AND COMPANIES PSYCHOLOGISTUSEFUL FOR ‘Market research.’
Not at all
IN ORGANIZATIONS AND COMPANIES PSYCHOLOGISTUSEFUL FOR ‘Quality development.’
Not at all
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The dimensions of sense of the higher education setting
The first two factorial dimensions of the QUIHEC accounted for 61.8% of the totalinertia explained.
QUIHEC1. Modality of connoting the experience of the higher education setting:Moderation versus Reactivity. This dimension proposes, at the level of the experienceof the higher education setting, the same oppositional patterns characterizing the secondfactorial dimension concerning the experience of the social environment. A polarityaggregating a set of intermediate answers on the Likert scales (Moderation), regardlessof their direction, is opposed to a polarity aggregating extreme answers, also regardlessof their direction (Reactivity).
QUIHEC2. Valuation of the educational setting: Idealization versus Devaluation.This dimension opposes two global ways of judging the educational setting.Idealization. A set of connotations and statements homogeneously positive depicts
the academic environment as comfortable and trustworthy place. The Italian universityis capable of developing.
Devaluation. The setting is negatively described. University is considered to beaffected by many problems (e.g. separation from work, low quality of teaching, highdrop-out rate).
The dimensions of sense of the figure of psychologist
The first two factorial dimensions of the QUIP accounted for 62.5% of the total inertiaexplained.
QUIP1. Modality of connoting the figure of the psychologist: Moderation versusReactivity. Similarly to QUISE2 and QUIHEC1, this factorial dimension opposestwo ways of seeing the figure of the psychologist. A polarity aggregating a set of inter-mediate answers on the Likert scales (Moderation) is opposed to a polarity aggregatingextreme answers (Reactivity).
QUIP2. Valuation of the image of psychologist: Valorization versus Devaluation.Similarly to QUISE1 and QUIHEC2, this factorial dimension opposes two evaluationsof the figure of the psychologist. Valorization: this polarity aggregates answersqualifying the psychologist as relevant and useful, especially in this case it addressessystemic phenomena concerning organizations, companies and institutions. Devalua-tion: this polarity aggregates answers describing the psychologist in quite negativeterms – as a useless figure across all the domains of interventions.
Logistic regression model
The parameters of the logistic regression model implemented are reported in theTable 5.
Significant effects were found on one out six factorial dimensions. A significanteffect (β = 0.720; p = .050) of the factorial dimension QUIHEC2 (valuation of the edu-cational setting) was found. The positive score indicates the Devaluation pole (thepolarity indicate by the positive scores of the factorial dimension), is associated witha higher probability of retention. As concerns the other predictors, the only significantresult is the positive effect of student’s age (β: 0.056; p = .000): the probability of reten-tion decreases as age increases.
In order to evaluate the fitness of the model, the Hosmer-Lemeshow test wasapplied. The test shows that the predicted values do not differ significantly compared
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to the observed values (χ2: 13.97; df: 8; sign: 0.083; 80.5% of cases classified cor-rectly). This means that the model is sufficiently reliable.
Discussion
Preliminarily, it is worth noting in all three domains of experience one factorial dimen-sion (e.g. QUISE1, QUIHES2, QUIP2) has been interpreted as a global connotation ofthe domain of experience in positive versus negative terms, and the other (QUISE2,QUIHES1 and QUIP1) as concerning two opposite attitudes of response: Reactivityversus Moderation. This result supports the way the educational subcultures havebeen conceptualized in this paper: a plotting of position on generalized meanings hom-ogenizing the specific objects of experience beyond their semantic peculiarity anddifferences.
The results of the logistic regression models provide evidence supporting ourhypotheses. As concerns the first hypothesis (the effect of educational subcultures onthe probability of students dropping out), analysis has shown how the differenceamong the students’ educational subcultures are associated with differential probabil-ities of dropping out one year after enrolment. More specifically, the meanings associ-ated with the interpretation of the higher education setting have been shown to have aneffect on retention; the meanings sustaining the student’s image of the social environ-ment and of the psychologist (namely the educational goal of the programme) have noeffect. Thus one has to conclude that Educational Subculture affects student successand that this happens as an effect of the way Educational Subcultures ground andguide the meaning of the situated experience of participation in the training setting.Meanings concerning the broader social context and the content/aim of the students’activity (psychology/psychologist), which we had hypothesized would play a role,did not prove to be relevant in affecting the student career.
A first way of interpreting such results could be to limit Educational Cultures to thedomain of experience specifically associated with the engagement with the trainingsetting, considering the other two components as non-specific cultural dimensions.Even if such an interpretation is not inconsistent with the results, our hypothesis isdifferent. As discussed above, we model Educational Subcultures as a whole systemof meanings spreading over both generalized and specific aspects of the student’s
Table 5. Regression coefficients (β) of the predictor variables and relative statistics.
B S.E. Wald df Sig. Exp(B)
Year of birth .056 .011 25.260 1 .000 1.058Mark in high school leaving qualifications .259 .864 .090 1 .764 1.296Logic −.215 .367 .344 1 .558 .807Reading comprehension .174 .351 .245 1 .621 1.190English skill .402 .359 1.254 1 .263 1.495General knowledge .392 .360 1.184 1 .277 1.479UNI_1 .566 .355 2.545 1 .111 1.762UNI_2 .720 .367 3.848 1 .050 2.055CON_1 −.047 .303 .025 1 .875 .954CON_2 .444 .324 1.878 1 .171 1.558PSY_1 .070 .391 .032 1 .859 1.072PSY_2 .182 .463 .154 1 .694 1.199Constant −109.994 21.932 25.153 1 .000 .000
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experience. As reported above, this view is legitimated by the fact that the three culturalcomponents showed a very similar semantic structure. As concerns the lack of effect ofthe component concerning the social environment, this could be due to the fact that,precisely because of its generalized valence, it triggers patterns of behaviour that,even if mirroring the same global cultural meaning, are endowed with quite differentfunctional and educational values, and therefore have a different impact on studentcareers. For instance, an anomic representation of the social environment should encou-rage either a strong commitment to study, recognized as the only chance to have anhappy future, or a devaluation of competence, in favour of a valorisation of belongingto power systems, recognized as the only tool for self-realization. As concerns the lackof effect of the component associated with the representation of the psychologist, thisresult lends itself to be interpreted in the following way. Needless to say, this com-ponent is within the student’s situated domain of experience; yet it is plausible tothink that it has undergone a significant change during the first year of the undergradu-ate programme. The freshmen bring with them naïve ideas about psychology and thepsychologist – the same generic representations that lay people express about psychol-ogy (Kullasepp 2006). Yet, these meanings are a major target of the training settingfrom the very beginning. Consequently, one has to expect that the initial naïve viewof the psychologist makes no impact on the middle-term course of the student’scareer. Incidentally, the lack of effect of the image of the psychologist can beassumed as a marker of the undergraduate programme’s capacity to develop the mean-ings associated to this domain of experience.
As concerns the second hypothesis (the probability of retention as a function of thecompatibility between educational subcultures and role demand), analyses have shownthat, with regards to the dimension of sense (QUHIEC2: Valuation of the educationalsetting) which affects the probability of retention, the students tending to assume thecultural polarity Devaluation are more inclined to retain; the student tending toassume the opposite polarity Idealization are more inclined to drop out. This result isnot obvious, but is at any rate comprehensible, and can be interpreted consistentlywith the first hypothesis of the study. Students associated with the Devaluation polehave very low expectations on the training setting. Therefore, it may be paradoxical,but not meaningless that these students are less inclined to drop out: they have lessto be disillusioned about by the experience of the training setting. A complementaryconsideration can be made about the relationship between Idealization and droppingout. It is consistent with the psychodynamic standpoint which highlights that thiskind of connotation encourages rigid normative expectations about the idealizedobjects which sooner or later will be frustrated (Busch, Rudden, and Shapiro 2004;for this kind of interpretation in the educational field, see Guidi and Salvatore 2013).Finally, findings are substantially consistent with the third hypothesis (the differentialeffect of educational subcultures is higher than that concerning individual factors) too.Indeed, while educational subcultures have been found to have a significant effect onretention, the other predictors do not prove to have effect (in the case of students’level of general cultural knowledge and skills and of the high school final qualificationmark); or to have a lower significant effect (in the case of age) than those of the factor-ial/cultural dimensions. The lack of effect of knowledge, skills and high school finalqualification mark deserves a comment. These findings do not seem to be consistentwith other studies. For instance, the meta-analysis of Lotkowski, Robbins, and Noeth(2004) showed that both secondary school grades and study skills have a positiverelationship with college retention. Methodological and contextual elements may
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explain discordant results. As to high school performance, it is worth noting that inmost cases this parameter is assessed in terms of high school grade point average(HSGPA), while our study used the high school qualification. When a measure ofhigh school performance similar to the one adopted in our study was implemented(James and Chilvers 2001), results showed that this variable was only partially associ-ated with academic success. Indeed, it worked as a predictor of academic success in afive-year undergraduate medical course, but only for previous cohorts; a result thatleads to conclude that even in the same educational context the value of thehigh school qualification and/or its linkage with the academic education may changeover time (see Schneider 2008). More in general, the predictive function of thehigh school outcome can be expected to depend on cultural and educational factors.Indeed, it is likely to reflect the level of educational integration between the highschool system and higher education and this level varies across countries and socio-cultural and institutional contexts. Besides, the predictive capacity of the high schooloutcome may depend on the coherence between the type of knowledge the highschool is oriented to and the kind of majors the academic course focuses on – e.g. itis probable that a high school qualification mark obtained in a high school orientedto scientific knowledge will be more associated with success in a scientific academicprogramme than in a humanities programme. Accordingly, the results of the presentstudy have to be related to the specific educational (a degree course of psychology),cultural (the cultural context of a southern Italian town) and institutional (Italian edu-cation system) context under analysis and do not lend themselves to being directlygeneralized.
Also in the case of knowledge and skills, divergences with other studies may berelated to contextual differences, namely to the role played by the basic competencesin the case of the undergraduate programme in psychology under analysis.
Furthermore, a specific methodological aspect of our case study must be taken intoaccount in the interpretation of results. We checked for student drop-out rate at thebeginning of second year; it is possible that at least partially, our results are specificof this time span – after a longer time, the relationship between retention and highschool qualification, as well as skills and knowledge might have emerged. Otherworks provide evidence supporting such an expectation. For instance, Ishitani andSnider (2006) report basic competence and high school ranks showed significanteffect on academic success only from the two-year follow up, proving not significantat the one-year temporal distance.
The delayed effect of low levels of incoming knowledge, skills and high school per-formance can be explained in terms of a process of accumulation: these factors exposethe student to local, circumscribed critical events (i.e. failures, overload, and so forth)through the programme. Yet, it is only when such critical events are accumulatedbeyond a certain threshold that they turn into a drop out, namely in a manifest effect.
The role of age in affecting retention is consistent with the results of part of the lit-erature, where age was to be found to have a significant relationship with retention.However, discordant results emerging in regard to the direction of this relationship.Some studies (Metzner 1989; Feldman 1993) pointed out a positive relationshipbetween age and retention, and suggest that mature students are likely to have aclearer career orientation and lower integration needs (McInnis, James, and McNaught1995). Other studies, in line with our results that the probability of retention decreasesas age increases, show that school leavers are more likely to persist at university thanmature age students (Clark and Ramsay 1990; Pantages and Creedon 1975). Also in
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this case, contextual factors – e.g. constraints in attending the programme, differentmotivation toward study – could be associated with age and thus play a role in mediat-ing the relationship between age and retention.
Furthermore, it should be noticed that age can be interpreted not only as individualvariables but as a marker of the interaction between subjective and cultural dimensions.Accordingly, we might hypothesize that the effect of age and the effect of educationalsubcultures would be not independent of each other.
Conclusion
Our study is contribution to the line of thought that is striving to underline the role ofculture and students’ expectations on their role and their study environment in pedago-gical adaptation (Zhou et al. 2008; Gu, Schweisfurth, Day 2010) and educationalsuccess (Griffin 2002; Ulriksen 2009). Unlike previous studies which have examinedthis role mainly as regards immigrant students or international students in a foreigncontext, our study paid attention – through the concept of educational subcultures –to the intravariability of culture among students living in their own countries and itsimpact on academic success.
The results of the study favour the hypothesis of a major role of students’ edu-cational subcultures in predicting student re-enrolment or dropping out, in particularthe effect of the component of the educational subculture concerning the interpretationof the training setting.
Moreover our data analysis suggests the lack of direct effect of students’ level ofknowledge (general cultural knowledge), skills (reasoning, reading comprehension,English linguistic competence) and markers of school career (high school final qualifi-cation mark).
Certainly, it still leaves open the question of whether other variables, not investi-gated by our study (e.g. personality traits; features of training setting) might play arole in mediating student retention. Furthermore, one can note that our case studyhas analysed a specific typology of students – attending an undergraduate psychologyprogramme – and was conducted in a single university, located in South-eastern Italy;its generalization to other student samples taking courses in other fields and in othergeographic regions has to be treated with caution. What appears to be generalizableis the relationship between educational subcultures and academic success; nevertheless,the content, the strength and the nature of this relationship is probably context-specific.In different populations, different subcultures might work as a resource/constraint foreducational success. In the final analysis, we highlight the idea that the specific aca-demic context, and the specific training project the degree courses pursue, works asan important factor in defining the educational subcultures which might work as a con-straint in the choice of continuing to study.
Despite these limitations, the findings discussed above deserve attention, forboth their theoretical and methodological implications. At the theoretical level, thestudy highlights the central role of sense-making within a field – higher educationsuccess – which is traditionally associated with individual characteristics and/or struc-tural and functional characteristics (e.g. features of the classroom; teacher–studentratio). Students who share the same training context show a different probability ofdropping out related to their educational subcultures. Therefore, our findings encouragethe hypothesis that educational subcultures work as a factor orienting the way students
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interpret and therefore deal with the structural and functional characteristics of the edu-cational setting.
At the methodological level, the study suggests the need to improve policies on aca-demic quality, paying attention to the recognition and elaboration of the students’ edu-cational subcultures. Post-secondary institutions seek high success for their students,and want to admit students who have a good chance of being successful in college.Our results suggest that the knowledge of the educational subcultures expressed bythe freshmen provides predictive discriminative information on academic success. Edu-cational subcultures might represent a key area in the admission test, as well as in thedesign and development of training programmes designed to foster academic successand to prevent students from dropping out.
Notes1. This point is consistent with the recommendation of many authors who advocate adopting
both a collective and an individual level of analysis in studying cultures (inter alia Cohen2009; Rozin 2003).
2. Cobern and Aikenhead (1998) suggest a similar concept when they state that school successlargely depends on how well a student learns to negotiate the boundaries separating the cul-tural worlds of students’ families, peers, schools and classrooms. The greater the disparitybetween science’s system of meaning and the students’ culturally based system of mean-ings, the less likely the student is to be successful in school science. Consistent with thishypothesis, Ulriksen (2009) suggests that drop-out rates can be viewed as an indicationof how well the encounter between student and university (students and teachers mutualexpectative on their role and study environment) passes off.
3. This is the examination that Italian students take at the end of the five years of secondaryschool, between the ages of 18 and 19.
4. The idea of oppositional structures of signification is also expressed in the psychoanalyticliterature (see, for instance, the good/bad scheme proposed by Klein, 1967), in the huge lit-erature on the semantic differential technique (Osgood, Suci, and Tannenbaum 1957) andwithin social representations theory, maintaining that representations are inscribed withinthemata (Markova 2003), that is, in more general dimensions of meanings having an oppo-sitional structure.
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