THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PERCEIVED VALUE AND RETENTION: A COMPARARATIVE ANALYSIS BETWEEN PRIVATE COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES

Abstract

The relationship between perceived value and retention of students has been widely studied in national and international literature. One of the ways to analyze student’s relationship with their institutions is through understanding their perception of value of the institution. Based on this analysis, this paper proposes an alternative study of this relationship by comparing samples collected at private colleges and universities through the second-order factor models. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the influence of perceived value in retention of students in Higher Education Institutions (HEI). Furthermore, we intended to examine the possible moderating influence of HEI’s scope (either college or university) in the relationship between perceived value and retention. To this purpose, we applied five hundred and sixteen questionnaires to undergraduate students of four HEI (two colleges and two universities) located in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. Findings led to propose the second-order factor models as an alternative paradigm to traditional models of SEM, generating more robust and reliable functional relationships. In addition, we accepted the hypothesis of moderation.