Correlating Hardiness with Graduation Persistence 
	Donald Lifton, Ithaca College, NY
	Sandra Seay, East Carolina University, NC
	Nancy McCarly, Mississippi State University, MS
	Rebecca Olive-Taylor, Elon University, NC
	Richard Seeger, Pacific Lutheran University, WA
	Dalton Bigbee, Texas A&M University at Kingsville, TX 

A five-campus longitudinal study of 1,432 first-year respondents found 
a positive correlation of students’ “hardiness” with persistence to their 
expected ’02 graduation, four years later. This capstone research’s results 
reinforce two previous smaller studies that yielded similar outcomes. The 
report acquaints the reader with the hardiness construct, applies it to 
campus persistence efforts and outlines undergraduate retention policy 
ramifications inherent in such an approach. Specifically enrolling 
“lo-hardy” undergraduates in retention-intervention programs would provide 
a more efficient usage of expensive, labor-intensive retention intervention 
programs. 
                      
Academic Exchange Quarterly  Fall 2006