State of California
California State University, San Bernardino Office of Institutional Research, (909)880-5052 5500 University Parkway, San Bernardino, Calif. 92407-2397
Memorandum Date January 10, 1996
IR95-27*
To Members of Committee on Student Retention From Ross Moran, Assistant Director, Institutional Research Subject Changes of Major by Undergraduates At the recent meeting of the committee on student retention, the question was raised as to the extent of student changes of major. In an effort to analyze this issue I looked at all the changes of HEGIS major posted to the Chancellor’s Office Enrollment Reporting System Student (ERSS) during the last academic year (94-95). This is a “cross sectional” rather than a “cohort” approach in which a group of students would be tracked over an extended period of time. Note that the HEGIS codes are less specific than those used by SIS+ which, in combination with A&R rules for changes, means that this operational definition of major change is more restrictive than A&R’s. I measured the major changes between current and next enrolled terms for all students enrolled during the year. I excluded students enrolled for only one term. Altogether there were 21,979 undergraduate term transitions with an initial term ranging from Fall 94 through Spring 95 with a next enrolled term ranging from Winter 95 to Fall 95. A continuously enrolled student would have had three term transitions and three potential changes of major in this one year period. For 1,810 or 8.2% of the 21,979 undergraduate term transitions in 94-95 a different major was reported on the subsequent term of enrollment. These major changes have been analyzed in several ways. The following table gives the change percent and number of transitions for several variables. All Undergraduates: Group Change % Total 8.2 American Indian 6.8 African-American 9.1 Chicano 8.9 Other Latino 8.1 Asian-Pac Island 7.3 White 8.0 Others (+For) 8.5 Female 8.5 Male 7.8 FTF Admit 8.1 Transfer Admit 8.3 FTF 4.7 Fresh 6.3 Soph 10.4 Junior 8.0 Senior 8.5
N 21,979 235 1,854 3,817 981 1,998 10,378 2,716 13,225 8,754 7,272 14,707 699 2,298 2,808 7,228 8,946
Group