Reducing Attrition Rate of First-year Undergraduate Students : An Implementation of RMUTP Pre-University Program

Abstract

Pre-university Program is one of strategies to prepare first-year students to ready for regular class in the university. The objective of the pre university program is to lay foundation for all newcomers as well as fill necessary knowledge and skills. Rajamangala University of Technology Phra Nakhon initialized the pre-university program in 2014. At that time, all faculties were mandated to set this program with 3 subjects: mathematics, English language, and faculty’s specific career course. The intention of that pre-university program was to reduce dropout rate. However, the dropout rate that year was still high with 875 students either withdraws from the university or retired. Therefore, this research was set to examine RMUTP’s pre-university program and assess satisfaction of students toward the pre-university program. Using a mixed methodology, qualitative and quantitative data were collected from 468 first year students in 13 departments within 5 faculties: Science and Technology, Architecture and design, Home Economic Technology, Business Administration and Art, have their pre-university program. Findings show that dropout rate is not related to the pre-university program since these faculties dropout rate was still high. In addition, 71.24 percent of participants have high satisfaction with the preuniversity program. Findings from qualitative data also align with the quantitative analysis. Most participants express that the program was useful and necessary. The enrolment in such a program can influence students’ grade points. The sample group also suggested teaching subjects to be matched with the subject study in Semester 1.