Student persistence is an object of empirical enquiry for over seventy years (Braxton et al., 2000) and is international in its significance (Von Stolk et al., 2007; Crosling et al., 2008). The significance of the issue can be viewed from a student, educational institution and societal perspective (Yorke and Longden, 2004; Kezar, 2004). The present research is a case study of the intentions to persist of the first year students in the Wexford Campus of the Institute of Technology Carlow in the Republic of Ireland which offers both OECD Type A and Type B tertiary education programmes (OECD, 2004). The focus is on first year students as they are the cohort most likely to discontinue their higher education studies (Mooney et al., 2010; Yorke, 2000). The Wexford Campus is an outreach higher education institution with a significant non-traditional student representation. At this point in time the body of research conducted on non-traditional students in an Irish and European context needs development (RANHLE, 2009). The focus on non-traditional students is increasingly relevant as higher education moves from educating a limited number in society to a mass enterprise, with increased numbers of mature and low socio-economic status students (Mooney et al., 2010; Fleming et al., 2010; McCoy et al., 2010; HEA, 2008; Heagney, 2008; Dickerson and Stiefer, 2006).

The theoretical framework of the study proposed is that of adapting the social integration approach of Tinto (1993, 1975) in a classroom context as well as synthesising it with the organisation adaptation approach (Yorke and Longden, 2004; Thomas, 2002; Berger, 2000). Specifically, the concept of social integration, part of Tinto’s (1993, 1975) model of student persistence, is critiqued with a classroom based modification suggested (Tinto, 1997). This classroom based social integration approach is linked to the organisational adaptation perspective. This alternative, and as yet underdeveloped, perspective puts the onus on the HEI adapting to the diversity of students including through the use of active teaching methodologies (Thomas, 2008; Zepke and Leach, 2005; Yorke and Longden, 2004). Thus the theoretical framework reconciles the two perspectives of social integration and educational institution adaptation. The core research question of the study is ‘Will classroom based social integration and active teaching methods influence the intention to persist of first year students in Higher Education?’ Two categories of secondary research questions were developed. These two categories represent the two main approaches presented in the literature as solutions to student departure – social integration and organisational adaptation.

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