Critical factors affecting enrollment, performance, and retention & graduation rates of construction management undergraduate students

Abstract

The shortage of construction manager and skilled construction workers is becoming one of the country's great-unsolved problems as the economic expansion has continued in USA because of various reasons, such as low students' enrollment in the construction management and related programs, poor academic performance of students, and low retention and graduation rates of students in US universities. Therefore, it is essential to identify possible factors that directly and indirectly influence students' enrollment, academic performance, and retention and graduation rates of students. By conducting an extensive literature review, this paper reports various factors that influence students' enrollment, academic performance, retention & graduation rates, and classifies these factors in the relevant clusters, such as university factors (academic & organizational factors), student factors, and family & social factors. In addition, this paper maps those factors in various clusters by applying the affinity grouping technique. Revelation of such factors can provide valuable insights to educators and students. It also helps to educators to formulate effective teaching strategies to achieve maximum outcomes. Moreover, the finding of this research not only contributes to the body of knowledge but also develop a foundation for designing the systematic strategy for effective educational policy in the country and addresses the lack of policy or strategy to resolve the skilled workforce shortage issues.