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In a validation of the Tin to and Spady models of college attrition, this study reanalyzed an expanded data base from an earlier investigation (6) to further probe the relationships between student-faculty informal contact and freshman year voluntary persistence/withdrawal decisions. After statistically controlling the influence of twelve student entering characteristics and six additional measures of freshman year social and academic integration, frequency of student-faculty informal contact of six different types accounted for significant R2 increases and had significant partial correlations with freshman year voluntary persistence/withdrawal decisions. The pattern of associations, however, differed somewhat by sex. For freshman men the categories of interactions having significant partial correlations with persistence were oriented toward instrumental outcomes, while those for freshman women had more intrinsic value.
Pascarella et al. (Thu,) studied this question.