Research Landscape and Scientific Production on Student Retention in Higher Education: A bibliometric Analysis of 10 Years

Abstract: Student retention for higher education institutes is an important performance indicator but complex. The objective of the research is to systematically analyze scientific production in the field of student retention over last decade to understand trends, factors, authors, countries, sources, and their conceptual, intellectual, and social connectivity. To study, a bibliometric analysis of 459 articles on “student retention” extracted from Web of Science was done. Findings indicate that student retention has been studied in all modalities of teaching. Average annual growth rate of scientific production is negative, but the topic is gaining interest in different countries. US, UK, and Australia are the leading countries. New authors and journals are creating impact. There is scope for collaboration. Student retention is related to social integration, involvement, environment, experiences, achievement, perceptions, and satisfaction. In addition, models for early alert and support inform future research. “Retention” has overlapping use with “Persistence” in research. Key words: Student Retention, Engagement, Persistence, Biliometrix, Biblioshiny, Higher Education JEL Classification Number: 123, J24