Higher education institutions nowadays have to respond with varieties of measurements and evaluations. Being accepted as one of the most important key performance indicators, student retention at the undergraduate level has become a significant issue in higher education administrations; a high dropout rate of students especially in the first year could result in great financial loss and lower graduation rate of the institution (Pascarella & Terenzini, 1980; Pascarella & Chapman, 1983). Various measurements have to be implemented to increase the retention of students in higher education institutions (Lau, 2003; Coll & Stewart, 2008). At the institutional level, providing appropriate academic and non-academic environment and facilities have been proved to encourage students to persist with their studies (Lau (2003). At the student level, studies have shown that academic achievement and self-regulated learning (SRL) are positively related (Van Den Hurk, 2006). Models and theories to explain factors affecting student persistence have been put forward, among which the model proposed by Tinto (1975) represents one of the most important theoretical foundations. Tinto (1975) showed that the student’s decision to persist or dropout is directly influenced by the institutional and goal commitment, which could be evaluated from student characteristics and the interactions with the social and academic environments of the institution. The institutional commitment refers to the degree to which student is motivated to graduate from a specific institution, whereas the goal commitment represents the degree to which student is committed to earn a higher education degree. Tinto (1975) confirmed that the student’s commitment to the goal of completing a higher education degree is one of the most influential factors for persistence and the level of the student’s integration into the social and academic systems plays an important role. Although the Tinto’s model (1975) has provided a reasonable theoretical framework to anticipate the student’s persistence or dropout decision and have been applied successfully in various higher education institutions in the western countries, several investigators have shown that inconsistent results could be obtained, for example from different types of institutional settings (Pascarella & Chapman, 1983a,b), e.g. commuter or residential institutions or community colleges, and additional factor should be included in the model (Napoli & Wortman, 1998).

Since the institutional and goal commitment play the most important role in the student’s decision to persist or dropout, it is of interest to validate the institutional and goal commitment construct in the context of Thai society, in which the social and economic systems, as well as the academic and cultural environments, are different from the western countries. The objective of the present study is to examine the reliability and construct validity of the institutional and goal commitment scale when applied on Thai university students.

Beil, C., Reisen, C. A., & Zea, M. C. (1999). A longitudinal study of the effects of academic and social integration and commitment on retention. NASPA Journal, 37(1), 376–385. Coll, K. M., & Stewart, R. A. (2008). College student retention: Instrument validation and value for partnering between academic and counseling services. College Student Journal, 42(1), 41-56. Lau, L. K. (2003). Institutional factors affecting student retention. Education, 124(1), 126-136. Lundberg, C. A. (2007). Student involvement and institutional commitment to diversity as predictors of native American student learning. Journal of College Student Development, 48(4), 405-416. Napoli, A. R., & Wortman, P. M. (1998). Psychosocial factors related to retention and early departure of two year community college students. Research in Higher Education, 39(4), 419-455 Neumann, Y., & Neumann, L. (1984). Equity theory and students' commitment to their college. Research in Higher Education, 20(3), 269-280. Pascarella, E. T., & Terenzini, P. T. (1980). Predicting freshman persistence and voluntary dropout decisions from a theoretical model. Journal of Higher Education, 51(1), 60–75. Pascarella, E. T., & Chapman, D. W. (1983a). A multi-institutional, path analytic validation of Tinto's model of college withdrawal. American Educational Research Journal, 20(1), 87-102. Pascarella, E. T., & Chapman, D. W. (1983b). Validation of a theoretical model of college withdrawal: Interactive effects in a multi-institutional sample. Research in Higher Education, 19(1), 25-48. Pascarella, E. T., & Terenzini, P. T. (1980). Predicting freshman persistence and voluntary dropout decisions from a theoretical model. The Journal of Higher Education, 51, 60–75. Tinto, V. (1975). Dropout from higher education: A theoretical synthesis of recent research. Review of Educational Research, 45(1), 89-125. Van Den Hurk, M. (2006). The relation between self-regulated strategies and individual study time, prepared participation and achievement in a problem-based curriculum. Active Learning in Higher Education, 7(2), 155-169.