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LEARNERS POOR RETENTIVITY: EXPLORING CAUSES AND SOLUTION
LEARNERS POOR RETENTIVITY: EXPLORING CAUSES AND SOLUTION
Talabon, Raymond J.
Central Philippines State University
ED 201 Foundation of Education
July 16, 2022
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LEARNERS POOR RETENTIVITY: EXPLORING CAUSES AND SOLUTION
Abstract
Teachers of today struggles in the teaching and learning process because majority of the learners
have very poor retention. This affects their overall academic performance. Retention has been
indicated as one of the greatest weaknesses/problems of every students. Retention is very essential
because it is the key in the success of every individual learner not only in schools but also in their
future lives. Evidence has also shown that knowledge retention is a necessary factor for
achievement. The main purpose of this paper is to further discuss the causes of student’s poor
retention as well as the solution, considering that there are previous studies that seeks to explains
why students struggles in their academic because they are very low on needed skill which is to
remember. In discussing what really cause poor retention, different theories support to explain how
retention works and what really are the cause of it. This paper concludes that motivation is the key
to learn. The desire to learn are lacking to those students and that is the challenge teachers facing
right now but it is also found out that they’re a lot of solution that can battle in this problem.
Keywords: retention, academic performance, teachers, motivation
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LEARNERS POOR RETENTIVITY: EXPLORING CAUSES AND SOLUTION
LEARNERS POOR RETENTIVITY: EXPLORING CAUSES AND SOLUTION
Retention as a student is essential. Learner’s retention is one of the basic skills that is
needed in order to succeed in education, however majority of the students/learners are very poor
on it. Evidence has also shown that knowledge retention is a necessary factor for achievement.
Poor academic performance has been strongly linked with student retention (Airey & Bennett,
2007; Hagedorn, 2015). It is important to define students’ retention intentions. The first word
“retention” can be described as a persistence rate, meaning that it is different than the graduation
rate (Wild & Ebbers, 2002; Wyman, 1997). Graduation rate only measures the end result, while
the retention rate measures the “stickiness” of the education process (Crawford, 1999). The
concept of retention is an academic institution’s equivalent of the marketing concept of loyalty.
Oliver (1999) claimed that loyalty can transpire at four different levels: cognitive, affective,
conative (behavioral intention), and action (actual behavior). All these intentions can influence
academic ability and can be predictors of student retention (Gerdes & Mallinckrodt, 1994).
However, one could claim that retention intention is a concept that is most related to conative
loyalty—that is, behavioral intention.
Early retention focused primarily only on singled-institution studies and the growth of the
theory-driven research initially emphasized more genetic model that could explain causes of
attrition and suggestion for retention as a general formula. Many studies now focus on how specific
types of students (e.g., students from different racial/ethnic backgrounds and socio-economic
statuses) fare in terms of retention at specific types of institutional settings (e.g., community
colleges, selective institution etc.). (Berger 2000) has proposed, for example, that the students who
come from different socioeconomic strata are more or less likely to retained at different types of
campuses and that future research should focus on a number of mid-range theory that explains the
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LEARNERS POOR RETENTIVITY: EXPLORING CAUSES AND SOLUTION
interaction of specific types of students and campuses, rather than continuing to search for more
micro-oriented theories that try to explain retention at all types of campuses.
There are many studies and theories that seeks the key to explain student retentivity. Tinto
(1993) has categorized student retention theories into three types: psychological, environmental,
and interactional. Psychological theories focus on individual personality attributes and view
student attrition as reflecting some shortcoming and/or weakness in the individual. However, there
is no “departure-prone” personality or any other personal characteristics which are uniformly
associated with student attrition (Tinto, 1993). The key theories in this category are Astin’s (1984)
Student Involvement Theory and Bean and Eaton’s (2000) Psychological Theory.
Some researchers and educators argue that retention can lead to negative outcomes such as
poor social adjustment, increased behavior problems, negative self-image, and issues with
attendance (Holmes, 1989; Jimerson & Ferguson, 2007). Others argue that retention can be a useful
way to give students more time to mature and get the help they need, and suggest that when more
rigorous studies are done where other compounding factors are controlled for, retention does not
always have a negative impact on student outcomes (Hong & Raudenbush, 2005).
Retention rate is a vital parameter as it determines the sustainability and financial feasibility
of the course (Wild & Ebbers 2002). Though retention of learners has been a problem in the
traditional educational system, the MOOC environment presents a unique scenario. The retention
of learners in MOOC has been explained using the ‘funnel of participation’ (Clow 2013) which
indicates that the number of participants in a MOOC course decreases as it progresses (Freitas et
al. 2015; Greene et al. 2015). Research has identified diverse reasons for this pattern. These include
academic and personal reasons (Gutl, et. al. 2014), lack of time (Belanger & Thornton 2013), low
levels of learner motivation and commitment (Yuan & Powell 2013), lack of self-determination,
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LEARNERS POOR RETENTIVITY: EXPLORING CAUSES AND SOLUTION
difficulty in the subject, unchallenging activities and lack of monitoring mechanism are some of
the often-cited reasons for high drop-out rates. Understanding the reason for low retention rates
helps MOOC providers formulate strategies for improvement of student engagement and learning
(Keller & Suzuki 2004). Quality of the content provided, increasing peer interaction, creation of a
positive learning environment (Adamopoulous 2013) and improving the activities embedded
within the course are some of the commonly used strategies to improve retention.
What really are the factors why students develop poor retentivity? Dhondi (2015) describes
causes of low retention because of the following first, lack of motivation second, lack of desire
to learn third, inability to comprehend content and lastly, too much of mental tension. This
statement is supported by some theories of learning such as behaviorism, cognitive,
constructivism, humanism, and connectivism.
Lack of motivation is one of the forces that lead to poor retention. Motivation is defined as
the desire to achieve a goal or a certain performance level, leading to goal-directed behavior.
When we refer to someone as being motivated, we mean that the person is trying hard to
accomplish a certain task. The structure and allocation of rewards in a course can encourage or
discourage effort in several important ways. First, students may lose interest to do particular tasks
if they do not feel that there will be a reward for their time and effort. Second, students may not
do an assignment well if the time and effort required is incommensurate with the points they
would earn. Third, students may lose motivation to work on specific elements of a task if their
efforts in those areas are not rewarded.
Abraham Maslow is among the most prominent psychologists of the twentieth century. His
hierarchy of needs is an image familiar to most business students and managers. The theory is
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LEARNERS POOR RETENTIVITY: EXPLORING CAUSES AND SOLUTION
based on a simple premise: Human beings have needs that are hierarchically ranked. There are
some needs that are basic to all human beings, and in their absence nothing else matters. As we
satisfy these basic needs, we start looking to satisfy higher order needs. In other words, once a
lower level need is satisfied, it no longer serves as a motivator. These will later make the learners
less motivated.
Lack of burning desire to learn causes inability to learn new information. According to
cognitive psychology research, traditional methods of study, including rereading texts and
drilling practice, or the repetition of terms and concepts, are not effective for committing
information to memory (Brown et al., 2014). Rather, cognitivists assert that activities that require
learners to recall information from memory, sometimes referred to as “retrieval practice,” lead
to better memory and ultimately better learning. For example, they suggest that language learners
use flash cards to practice vocabulary words, rather than writing the words out over and over or
reading and rereading a list of words, because the flash cards force the learner to recall
information from memory.
Too much pressure in our environment also caused us to unable to retained new
information. The learning environment dramatically affects the learning outcomes of students.
Schools' open space and noise, inappropriate temperature, insufficient light, overcrowded
classes, misplaced boards and inappropriate classroom layout all make up factors that could be
confounding variables distracting students in class.
Dhondi (2015) There are many ways by which one can easily retain knowledge. Let us
see some tips to retain everything we learn.

Understand the purpose your learning
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LEARNERS POOR RETENTIVITY: EXPLORING CAUSES AND SOLUTION

Focus only on the content that matches your purpose

Have a strong desire and interest to learn

Make an in-depth analysis and get a clear understanding of the information you learn

Shape yourself with a well-rounded procedure by actively participating – by
involving, memorizing, imagining, observing, investigating, etc.

Keep writing about what you learn

Have the “background” knowledge of what you are learning

Evade cognitive overload of the irrelevant / unnecessary things

Take frequent breaks during your study sessions

Try to break the information into small manageable chunks by tricking yourself using
memory aids, mnemonics, rhymes, acronyms, etc.,

Try to connect the information you learn with real life examples

Communicate your thoughts and ideas of what you have learned to someone else

Try to implement what you have learnt

Bookmark all important information for your reference

Use 3 R’s i.e., read, relate, and review to retain everything what you have learnt.

Spend most of your time on active reading

Do not under estimate your ability and be positive about yourself
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LEARNERS POOR RETENTIVITY: EXPLORING CAUSES AND SOLUTION

Plan for regular study sessions and keep reviewing the information constantly

Do not waste too much of time reading the familiar concepts. Rather, spend time
reading unacquainted and indistinct concepts.

Visual and auditory learners are recommended to take clear notes in their own words
of whatever they learn, as they concentrate more on visual and auditory things.

If possible, try to read just before sleeping, as it is proved that new concepts can be
easily recalled after sleeping.
In general, this paper emphasizes the cause and solution of low retentivity and on how to
cope with it as a teacher. We teachers are the soldier in fighting the poor retentivity of our
students. We should consider all causes and solution moreover, we as a teacher can innovate
because we are the one who knows our students.
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LEARNERS POOR RETENTIVITY: EXPLORING CAUSES AND SOLUTION
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