  Increasing student retention and persistence -- in particular classes or in
their major area of study -- is a challenge for universities. Students'
academic and social integration into an institution seems to be vital for
student retention, yet, research on the effect of interpersonal interactions is
rare. Social network analysis is an approach that can be used to identify
patterns of interaction that contribute to integration into the university. We
analyze how students position within a social network in a Modeling Instruction
(MI) course that strongly emphasizes interactive learning impacts their
persistence in taking a subsequent MI course. We find that students with higher
centrality at the end of the first semester of MI are more likely to enroll in
a second semester of MI. While the correlation with increased persistence is an
ongoing study, these findings suggest that student social integration
influences persistence.
