A Scale to Aid in the Retention or Dismissal Decision

Freshman students on probation as a result of unsatisfactory first semesters in college are generally dismissed after the second semester if their work does not show improvement. A special MMPI scale was developed to assist in determining retention and dismissal. The procedure employed involved the matching of individuals from retained and dismissed groups of students on certain intellective and non-intellective factors. MMPI items that discriminated between these criterion groups were identified, and an RD scale (retained-dismissed) was composed of these items. The scale was successfully cross-validated on a large sample of freshman probation students. An expectancy table for the prediction of retention or dismissal was constructed from the data.