Can Student "Hardiness" Serve as an Indicator of Likely Persistence to Graduation? Baseline Results from a Longitudinal Study(*).

Prologue: Reflections on a Baby Boomer Vignette

Although college educated baby boomers may not collectively realize it, anecdotal evidence suggests that they shared a common experience just before their first day of classes--one so vivid that many of them still remember it to this day. During the sixties, freshmen (as they were then called) dutifully assembled in large halls on hundreds of campuses across America to hear dour officials tell them the same thing: "Look to your left ... ," they intoned. While boomer readers of this piece are already filling in the rest of the phrase, your authors help other generations' readers by informing them that, after then being instructed to look to their right, the officials told the new arrivals how many of the trio would not make it to graduation. The officials didn't seem to care then about the high attrition rate. There were countless thousand of others at that time clamoring to get admitted and fill any vacant slots. This laissez-faire, sink-or-swim mentality of higher education administrators was rationalized then as a positive character builder ... at least for those who survived (as in "persisted," a verb that didn't seem to have such jargon application in those days).

How times have changed! Now, some of these boomer persisters have themselves been higher education administrators for decades. Their own desires to humanize the nature of the greeting they have been offering their new students were reinforced by the harsh squeeze on their tuition-driven operating budgets. These fiscal hardships were created by fewer registrants in an era of the "baby-busters-go-to-college" coupled with declining federal support of higher education. Those students who do persist have become precious sources of annual tuition revenue in an environment where few can easily be replaced. Intervention programs such as first-year seminars and learning communities suddenly abound nationwide to enhance retention. Many undergraduates, however, would persist regardless. Thus, by failing to target only those at risk, these costly, labor intensive programs create inefficient drains on the very tight operating budgets they are meant to relieve.

Introduction

Early identification of students who have a high potential to drop out of college has become a key concern of faculty and administrators involved with improving retention. Creative intervention programs may prove ineffective if they are begun in a delayed, untimely fashion or do not reach students who are "at-risk" of dropping out. One challenge, therefore, for higher education administrators is to identify a mechanism that provides an early identification of vulnerable students.

A pilot longitudinal study at Ithaca College, using a 30 item, multiple choice questionnaire (Bartone, 1991), found a positive correlation between student "hardiness" and persistence to graduation (Lifton, & Flanagan, 1995). The sample, however, was small and homogeneous in nature--189 mostly white students all majoring in business disciplines. Further research was needed to determine if the approach is reliable in other settings.

A multi-phased, longitudinal "National Hardiness-Retention Study" was undertaken to explore whether the findings in the pilot research could be confirmed. It involved repeating the pilot study first in an undergraduate sample drawn from two campuses and then, again, in an even more demanding six-campus project, nationwide.

This article forms the baseline study of the initial two-campus iteration. Our intent here is to alert the academic community of educators and administrators, through Academic Exchange Quarterly, about the study's thrust. We hope the credibility gained by publishing the baseline here will enhance the likelihood that follow-up reports of the longitudinal results of both iterations as well as the six-campus baseline study will be published widely in a variety of venues.

To begin, the principal investigator in the pilot research joined with colleagues at Widener University and Mississippi Valley State University, an Historically Black College or University (HBCU), to replicate the study with a larger, more diverse student population on these two campuses. Four hundred eighty (480) full-time, first-time arriving students, somewhat equally distributed between the two campuses, answered the hardiness measurement instrument used in the original study.

As before, these respondents' persistence will be monitored to re-test the hypothesis that "low-hardy" students will be disproportionately higher among t those who drop out. In addition, a six-campus follow-up with a different year's entering class is already being organized to replicate the research again, this time on a national scale. Longitudinal research requires patience. While the data marinades over these students' academic careers, this article will: 1) acquaint its readers with the hardiness construct; 2) discuss the appeal of applying the theory to retention research; and 3) report relevant baseline statistics about the student population sampled in the two campus effort.

Hardiness(1)

A substantial amount of psychological theory has focused on the human tendency to create and thrive during periods of change. Building on these schools of thought, Kobasa (1979) sought to describe a "hardy" person--one who welcomes, and thrives during periods of stress. She defined hardiness as a personality style that can influence ways of thinking, feeling and acting in the world that result in personal growth rather than debilitation--particularly during times of stress. The cornerstone of Kobasa's theory is existential psychology. Existentialism sees the person as living in a constantly changing environment with the never-ending task of using new emotions, thoughts, and actions to grow through life. Hardiness is based on a perceptual framework through which individuals see the world around them. This perceptual schema leads to growth-oriented cognition, emotion, and behavior.

The majority of research on the hardiness construct provides some support for the notion that while hardy individuals perceive as many stressors as non-hardy individuals, they typically respond differently to them. High-hardy individuals attribute greater competence to themselves, appraise situations as having potentially positive outcomes, and engage in problem-solving behavior in order to yield these outcomes (Kobasa, 1979, Kobasa, Maddi & Kahn, 1982, Nowack & Hanson, 1983; Bartone, 1989).

Hardiness is composed of three integrated components: commitment; challenge; and control.

Commitment is a sense of value, meaningfulness, and loyalty towards oneself and one's purpose in life. It is expressed by deeply involving oneself in activities, relationships, and communities that are personally relevant (Kobasa, et al., 1982). Constructs that are similar to commitment, for example Antonovsky's (1979) "sense of coherence," have been posed as mediators of the impact of stress. Behaviorally, commitment has been posited as a consistent tendency to be involved in whatever life offers (Kobassa, Maddi & Kahn, 1982). The specific commitment-related behaviors include developing a broad portfolio of life goals, such as becoming more educated, and regularly reviewing and reflecting upon them. More simply put, commitment is the belief that living life to the fullest is valuable and rewarding.

Challenge fosters a willingness to leave behind the status quo to develop and grow with a new set of circumstances. The basis of the challenge component is the belief that change is normal, often positive, inevitable in life, and should be welcomed. Those who have or develop challenge in their personality style will look upon a confusing series of events, such as the transition to campus life, as a puzzle to be solved rather than a storm to be weathered. Challenge leads to problem-solving and searching for new experiences. From a challenge perspective, opportunity only comes through change (Kobasa, et al., 1981; Kobasa, et al., 1982). The specific challenge related behaviors include developing a broad range of options in response to any new or threatening situation.

Control is a belief in the ability to sway events and influence one's destiny in life. It is very similar to Rotter's "belief in internal control" discussion within the Locus of Control construct (1966). Specific control related behaviors include actively identifying and pursuing the most feasible of the options developed through the challenge behaviors. On the other hand, those low in control believe that their fate is largely beyond their ability to influence and predominantly determined by external forces.

The hardy person is thought to be able to generate and choose among a variety of responses to a stressor. The hardy person can interpret the occurrence of and response to a stressor within the context of one's life, thereby typically reducing its impact. The challenge component (i.e., consistently engaging in and attempting to achieve in various situations) helps the hardy person have a wider inventory of appropriate coping skills to temporarily moderate the impact of a stressor (Kobasa, 1979).

The reported research applications of hardiness are broad and growing. Respondent groups have included executives (Maddi & Kobasa, 1984), army disaster workers (Bartone, 1991), bus drivers (Bartone, 1989), immigrants (Kuo & Tsai, 1986), adolescents (Hannah & Morrissey, 1987), older adults (Magnani, 1990) and nurses (Harris, 1989; Lambert & Lambert, 1987; McCranie, et al., 1987) among others. Dependent variables in hardiness focused studies have included activity levels (Magnani, 1990), burnout (Keane, et al., 1985; Pierce & Molloy, 1990; Rich & Rich, 1987), work performance (Westman, 1990) and measurements of general well being (Lambert, et al., 1989; Manning, et al., 1988). This research now adds first-year students as a respondent group and retention, a subset of the business discipline's focus on turnover, as a variable into the mix.

Hardiness can therefore be seen as the theoretical development of Selye's statement that it is "how you take it" (1976, p. 74) that determines whether a positive or negative outcome results from a stressor. Hardy persons tend to see stressors as changes that provide opportunities for growth towards attaining desired goals. Hardy persons further believe they can control stressful situations. This perspective enables them to thrive in, rather than succumb to, new circumstances.

Methodology

In the first phase of The National Hardiness-Retention Study, 480 full-time first-semester students arriving on two university campuses, 288 (60% of the total) at Widener University and 192 (40% of the total) at Mississippi Valley State University (MVSU) answered the same hardiness questionnaire used in the original Ithaca College pilot study. Widener, located in Chester, Pennsylvania, is a typical small sized university of 2,000+ undergraduates augmented by an almost equal number of part-time students (part-timers were not utilized in this study). MVSU, an Historically Black College or University (HBCU) in Itta Bena, Mississippi, typically approaches 2,000 students in its full time undergraduate population. Obviously, these institutions had very different sets of students.

Widener University, both in the sample and overall, has more men than women, most of whom are white. Mississippi Valley, in contrast, is virtually all African-American in makeup and tipped toward women both in the sample and overall campus population.

We were able to determine the race/ethnicity background on 82% of the sample. Within these 393 respondents, the majority, 217 (55%) are black with 190 of them enrolled at MVSU. The remaining 18% of students with an unknown racial/ethnic background are all enrolled at Widener University. It is highly likely, therefore, were the background of the remaining 87 known and factored in, that the distribution of the overall sample would have a slight majority of whites within it.

The possibility that a simple tool, a 30-item hardiness questionnaire, could identify students-at-risk would give most empiricists, including the current researchers, pause. Any explanation that focused inordinately on a single, statistically significant funding of a correlation of hardiness with persistence to sophomore year would demean the retention issue in oversimplification.

What such a finding could offer, however, is a tool for the "meantime" while waiting or the time and resources needed to implement more sophisticated multivariate models of comprehensive campus reform aimed at improving persistence (Tinto, 1975; Astin, 1982; Clewell and Ficklen, 1986; Seidman, 1986). Retention administrators might find it worthwhile, in the meantime, to follow one quality of successful private, for-profit companies studied by Peters and Waterman (1982): that is, a "bias for action." For example, if this longitudinal National Hardiness-Retention Study eventually proves compelling, focusing immediate retention efforts exclusively on low-hardy students may prove to be a helpful and cost effective interim measure.

While the longitudinal research outcomes is the first phase; second, campus effort, awaits the necessary passage of time, the remainder of this paper summarizes relevant baseline study findings.

Baseline Findings

The mean hardiness score for the entire sample was 57 with a standard deviation of 7.5. (In comparison, the 180 Ithaca College Business student arrivals averaged 59 with a standard deviation of 7). Despite their different makeup, the difference in scores between the two campus subsets, Widener vs. MVSU, was random at the 0.05 level of significance. Thus, these two institutions attract equally hardy students. Before turning to an elaboration of the initial hardiness results, it is first appropriate to focus the baseline analysis on two traditional variables associated with undergraduate admissions, SAT scores and high school rank in class.

SAT Scores

The mean SAT score for 143 MVSU respondents was 827 when their ACT results were converted to an SAT equivalent. Two hundred and sixty-four Widener respondents averaged 980.

The dramatically lower results at MVSU are likely due in part to the distinct mission of HBCU institutions to reach out to otherwise qualified members of their graduating high school constituency and nurture them through the undergraduate experience. The difference in scores is reinforced by statistically significant correlations with the basic demographic variables of gender and race. White males (the single largest subset at Widener) have the highest average SAT scores, 1005, while black females (the single largest subset at MVSU) have the lowest, 829. Black male and white female average scores fall in between at 842 and 970 respectively.

In summary, if SAT scores are an indicator of undergraduate persistence, then the longitudinal analysis of the data, when conducted, might be expected to show a higher rate of retention to sophomore year at Widener University--particularly among its white males. The nurturing mission of HBCU institutions, however, might negate this expectation resulting in a similar pattern of returning to studies at both campuses regardless of their SAT scores. We hypothesize, however, that low-hardy students still show a correlation with those who don't return regardless of race, gender, and SAT scores, even in the typically more nurturing HBCU environment.

Rank in Class

Curiously, despite dramatically lower mean SAT scores among its arriving students, MVSU respondents more often achieved a higher high school rank in class than their Widener counterparts. More than three-quarters of the MVSU respondents ranked in the top half of their high school class while somewhat less than two-thirds of Widener's new arrivals achieved the same level of success.

Some might point out that Widener's wider regional pull of applicants might span a more competitive range of high schools than MVSU's geographic target. Others, though, would hasten to point out that the HBCU mission to reach out to those in its constituency that are underserved by majority institutions does not mean that they recruit unqualified students.

The data "return to form," so to speak, when correlating high school rank with SAT scores. As might be anticipated, those respondents in the top half average a noteworthily higher SAT score, 958, than those in lower half, 884.

As shown in Table 1, issues of gender and race play an intriguing role. Combining the two variables created four categories: white males (the largest subset at Widener): white females; black males; and black females (the largest subset at MVSU). In this instance, the group that registered the lowest average SAT score, black females, counter-intuitively, given their low mean score, was the only group to have a majority of its members in the top quartile (55%) of high school rank in class. And, while white males as a group had the highest SAT average score, they curiously also had the highest percentage of its cohort in the lowest high school rank quartile and half (19% and 40% respectively).

Distribution of Combined Gender/Race Categories by High School Rank in Class(*)

                                Black          Black Males
                               Females

Top Quartile                  48 (54.5%)        18 (30.5%)
2nd Quartile                  23 (26.1%)        23 (39.0%)
3rd Quartile                  14 (15.9%)        9 (15.3%)
4th Quartile                   3 (3.4%)         9 (15.3%)
    TOTALS                    88 (100%)        59 (100%)
Top Half                      71 (80.7%)        41 (69.5%)
Bottom Half                   17 (19.3%)        18 (30.5%)

                                White             White
                               Females            Males

Top Quartile                  27 (37.0%)        27 (31.4%)
2nd Quartile                  23 (31.5%)        25 (29.1%)
3rd Quartile                  17 (23.3%)        18 (20.9%)
4th Quartile                   6 (8.2%)         16 (18.6%)
    TOTALS                    73 (100%)         86 1(100%)
Top Half                      50 (68.5%)        52 (60.5%)
Bottom Half                   23 (31.5%)        34 (39.5%)

(*) Statistically significant difference: quartiles at .01 level; halves at .05 level; n=306

Earlier, we speculated, during the discussion of SAT results, that Widener, with its heavier weighting of white males might show better persistence to sophomore year results. This discussion of rank in class would lead to the opposite hypothesis: MVSU with its heavier weighting of black females disproportionately in the top quartile rank, might end up with better persistence to sophomore year. Perhaps the baseline findings on undergraduate hardiness can resolve the contradiction.

Hardiness

In 407 usable cases for correlating hardiness with SAT scores, a two tailed test of significance yielded a correlation coefficient of 0.099, statistically significant at the 0.05 level. Meanwhile, analysis of variance of the respondents' hardiness scores broken down into the top and bottom half ranks in class showed 252 respondents in the top rank having a mean hardiness score of 58 while the 120 students in the lower half averaging 56 (108 cases, not included, involved missing data), significant at the 0.05 level. Thus, high-hardy students in this sample were more likely to show both academic promise through higher SAT scores and academic accomplishment through higher ranks in high school class.

The most striking finding in the baseline analysis, however, is the statistically significant different hardiness scores of the sample's black females. Only their mean hardiness score (59) rises above the average while black men and all whites fall below. Moreover, 23% of black females sampled have high-hardy scores (beyond one standard deviation from the mean) compared to 15% of all others while only 7% of black females score in the low range (again, beyond one standard deviation) compared to 17% of all others.

Conclusions

The sociological analysis of the baseline data presented here has already yielded some interesting results and speculations about the longitudinal retention outcomes in this first, two-campus phase of The National Hardiness-Retention Study.

The demographic breakdown of the student respondents by gender and race into four categories--white males, white females, black males and black females led to some contradictory findings when correlated with the traditional admissions measures of SAT scores and high school rank in class. Despite the correlation of the two admissions measures, white men did disproportionately well in one area, SAT scores, and poorly in the other, rank in class. Any prediction, therefore, that Widener's persistence to graduation rate will be enhanced by the larger number of better SAT scoring white men on its campus would be moderated by their lower achievements in high school rank.

Conversely, despite the correlation of the two admissions measures, black women were disproportionately more likely to have higher high school ranks but lower SAT scores. Any prediction, therefore, that MVSU's persistence to graduation rate will be enhanced by the larger number of better high school ranking black women on its campus would be moderated by their lower SAT scores.

If the National Hardiness-Retention Study's hypothesis proves correct, hardiness may be the variable that resolves the contradiction found in the analysis of SAT scores versus high school rank in class. Given the higher hardiness scores of black women in the student sample, one is tempted to conjecture that the double societal "whammy" of being both black and female may require a more hardy personality just to qualify for college admissions.

Moreover, one might speculate that black females, as a more hardy subset, will prove disproportionately more likely to persist than other subsets in the sample thus giving the advantage to MVSU in the persistence "competition" artificially created here.

Regardless, the current researchers eagerly await the chance to analyze the persistence to sophomore year data. If our hypothesis is correct, then a correlation of retention with hardiness will emerge. If so, further research would be appropriate to test the linkage in even larger samples, justifying the thrust of our emerging six-campus national sample. Should those future iterations also reach the same finding, then testing new arrivals for hardiness may be deemed a simple tool for identifying which first-year students are at-risk. They would then become the most appropriate enrollees in intervention programs aimed at reducing their vulnerability of dropping out.

Footnotes

(*) An earlier version of this paper with a narrower focus was published in the Proceedings of the 1998 "Minority Student Today: Recruitment, Retention and Success" Conference.

(1.) This section is a synthesis taken from Lifton and Flanagan (1993; 1995).

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Donald E. Lifton, Ph.D. is an associate professor of management. Sandra Seay, Ed.D. is the Dean of University College at Mississippi Valley State University. Andrew Bushko, Ed.D is the Dean of University Life.