Tinto's Theory Of Separation

Theoretical Framework
Tinto’s Theory of Departure. Tinto (1975) introduced the concept of retention where it says that “students who socially integrate into campus community increase commitment to the institution and are more likely to graduate. This theory focuses on how students’ lack ofinteraction within the higher education community leads to student departure.. Based on Van Gennep’s (1960) anthropological model of cultural rites and passages, “students must separate from former groups,, undergo transition, incorporate and accept the normative behaviours of the new group. (Kuh et. Al, 2006).
There are three major sources of student departure cited under this theory, including: academic difficulties; the inability to resolve educational
Types of transitions include anticipated, unanticipated, event, non-event and chronic or “hassles”. Anticipated transitions are those that are seen as occurring predictably in one’s lifetime, whereas unanticipated are just the opposite where the individual did not expect them to occur. Those transitions that a person counted on to happen and did occur are called events. A non-event is defined as a transition a person counted on to occur, but did not happen as hoped. Chronic transitions are changes in one’s roles and routines that occur due to an anticipated, unanticipated, event or non-event transition. Context of transition refers to the relationship the person has with the transition (i.e., personal, interpersonal, or community) and the setting where the transition occurs. Impact would be assessed by understanding how much a person’s daily life has be altered. Schlossberg outlined the transition process with the terms of “moving in”, “moving through” and “moving out”. Methods for coping with transition, whether positive or negative, come from assessing a person’s assets and liabilities in the four areas which Schlossberg termed as the 4 S’s – situation, self, support and