Student Retention Rates in Associate Degree Dental Hygiene Programs

Dental hygiene is a program that is expensive f or a college to operate. Retaining the most dental hygiene students is a financial benefit to a college budget due to the inability to fill open seats. Institutional settings and student barriers may impact the retention rates of associate-degree dental hygiene students. This quantitative, correlational research study examines the relationship between dental hygiene retention rates and the institutional setting and early/rolling enrollment. This study also explores if there is a relationship between student barriers and the instructional setting. A stratified random sample of 150 associate degree programs was used in this study. Fifty-seven programs responded to the survey with a varied a mount of usable data; retention data was included from 45 surveys. The research identified no significant difference between institutional setting and associate-degree dental hygiene programs. There search also identified no significant difference between barriers and institutional setting. Future research is needed to investigate remediation strategies that programs have implemented to help improve retention rates.