The Role and Influence of Faculty as Predictors for Retention and Satisfaction Among Generation Z

Access the online Pressbooks version of this introduction here. While previous research has established that faculty and their interactions with students have had the greatest impact on student retention and satisfaction for centuries, limited studies have been done to understand how faculty are influencing Generation Z, our newest generation of students in higher education. This study examined how the quantity of faculty interactions is impacting student retention and satisfaction among 342 Generation Z first-year college students at a public land-grant institution in the Midwest using the National Survey of Student Engagement instrument. In a Mann-Whitney U test, significant difference was found between students’ overall satisfaction and student retention during their first year. Results of a multiple linear regression found that student-faculty interactions significantly predicted students’ overall satisfaction. Recommendations for fostering evolving student-faculty relationships are discussed.