Effects of Non-Cognitive Factors on Post-Secondary Persistence of Deaf Students: An Agent-Based Modeling Approach

TL;DR

This paper develops an agent-based model to understand how non-cognitive factors like goals and social skills influence deaf students' persistence in post-secondary education, aiming to improve retention strategies.

Contribution

It introduces a novel agent-based modeling approach to analyze the impact of non-cognitive factors on deaf students' educational persistence.

Findings

Model shows social integration significantly affects persistence.

Clear goals and social skills positively influence retention.

Agent-based modeling offers insights for targeted interventions.

Abstract

Post-secondary education persistence is the likelihood of a student remaining in post-secondary education. Although statistics show that post-secondary persistence for deaf students has increased recently, there are still many obstacles obstructing students from completing their post-secondary degree goals. Therefore, increasing the persistence rate is crucial to increase education and work goals for deaf students. In this work, we present an agent-based model using NetLogo software for the persistence phenomena of deaf students. We consider four non-cognitive factors: having clear goals, social integration, social skills, and academic experience, which influence the departure decision of deaf students. Progress and results of this work suggest that agent-based modeling approaches promise to give better understanding of what will increase persistence.