Inside the Black Box of Doctoral Education: What Program Characteristics Influence Doctoral Students’ Attrition and Graduation Probabilities?

Ehrenberg, Ronald G.; Jakubson, George H.; Groen, Jeffrey A.; So, Eric C.; Price, Joseph

doi:10.3102/0162373707301707

Cited by 77 publications

(56 citation statements)

References 1 publication

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“…Mentoring and faculty support was found to be a key indicator to reducing attrition and promoting graduation potential in doctoral students [7]. In addition, the progression of doctoral students through the program is greatly increased with successful mentoring.…”

Section: Mentoring As Part Of Larger Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There is a gap in the literature specifically exploring the outcomes and characteristics of doctoral faculty-student mentor relationships [7]. This integrative literature review synthesizesthese outcomes and characteristics, to provide direction for future research and educational implications.…”

Section: Aimmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The set includes 5 qualitative studies [12,13,14,15,16], 6 quantitative descriptive studies [4,7,17,18,19,20], and 1 mixed methods study [21]. There were no quantitative experimental studies or systematic reviews appropriate for inclusion based on specified criteria.…”

Section: Overview Of Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Finally, two included studies explored mentoring as a component of a larger study focusing on attrition and student success [7,18]. Mentoring and faculty support was found to be a key indicator to reducing attrition and promoting graduation potential in doctoral students [7].…”

Section: Mentoring As Part Of Larger Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Outcomes and Characteristics of Faculty/Student Mentorship in PhD Programs

Mollica

Nemeth²

2014

EDUCATION

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With increasing numbers of doctoral programs, and a persistent high attrition rate, the need to provide support to PhD students grows. Faculty mentoring is one strategy employed by many doctoral programs to address attrition, although objectives, methods and responsibilities of the mentor role vary. The purpose of this integrative literature review was to synthesize outcomes and characteristics of faculty/student mentorship in PhD programs. This integrative review included studies from 2003-April 2014 in peer-reviewed journals, found from a comprehensive search of PubMed, CINAHL, Cochrane, PsycInfo, and GoogleScholar. Key search terms included: mentor, faculty, student, advisor, doctoral, education, engagement, attrition, retention, and PhD. The search strategy yielded a total of 850 references; 47 were retrieved, read and rated for relevance and research quality. A set of 12 articles met relevance criteria. Results indicate that although successful faculty mentoring is time consuming, students benefit from decreases in social isolation, and increased progression and retention through doctoral programs.

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Section: Mentoring As Part Of Larger Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Aimmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Overview Of Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Mentoring As Part Of Larger Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Outcomes and Characteristics of Faculty/Student Mentorship in PhD Programs

Mollica

Nemeth²

2014

EDUCATION

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“…There are two primary issues that have driven debate around doctoral writing. The first clusters around attrition rates (Bair & Haworth, 2005;Taylor & Beasley, 2005, p. 12), and times to submission (Bair & Haworth, 2005;Ehrenberg, Jakubson, Groen, So, & Price, 2007;Styles & Radloff, 2000;Tennant, 2004). These concerns are founded on the argument that doctoral students who do not finish within a given timeframe may be less employable outside of academia, and by failing to complete, or taking 'too long' to graduate, they are said to 'waste' not only their own time but also national educational funding (Taylor & Beasley, 2005, p. 12).…”

Section: The Impacts Of Change On Doctoral Writing Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

Conceptualising Doctoral Writing as an Affective-political Practice

Burford

2017

IJDS

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Aim/Purpose: This article offers a conceptual summary and critique of existing literature on doctoral writing and emotion. The article seeks to intervene in current debates about doctoral writing by re-positioning it as an affective-political practice Background: Over recent decades public interest in the doctorate has expanded as it has become re-framed as a key component of national success in the global knowledge economy. It is within this context that the practice of doctoral writing has crystallised as an object of interest. While researchers have examined the increased regulation, surveillance, and intensification of doctoral writing, often this work is motivated to develop pedagogies that support students to meet these new expectations. At this point, there has been limited attention to what broad changes to the meanings and practices of doctoral writing feel like for students. Methodology: The paper offers a conceptual review that examines the ways in which doctoral writing tends to be understood. A review of literature in the areas of doctoral writing, doctoral emotion, and critical studies of academic labour was undertaken in order to produce a more comprehensive understanding of the political and emotional dynamics of doctoral writing. Contribution: It is intended that this conceptual research paper help researchers attend to the emotional context of doctoral writing in the current university context. Critical studies of academic work and life are identified as a possible platform for the development of future doctoral education research, and the conceptual tool of “affective-politics” is advanced as a novel frame for approaching doctoral writing research.

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Analysis of social media forums to elicit narratives of graduate engineering student attrition

Berdanier

Whitehair²,

Kirn

et al. 2019

J of Engineering Edu

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BackgroundGraduate engineering student attrition is prevalent, but most literature that studies graduate attrition is accomplished in disciplines outside of STEM or engineering, yielding an incomplete understanding of either attrition or persistence.Purpose/HypothesisThe purpose of this article is to investigate the relationships between motivators of attrition for engineering graduate students.Design/MethodData were collected using an online Web‐scraping “bot” that mines data from the online forum Reddit. The anonymous textual forum threads collected were qualitatively analyzed through open‐coding methods.ResultsThe emergent themes reveal the interconnectedness between the roles of the advisor, student perception of cost, their support network, goals, their perceptions of how others perceive them, and quality of life and work. Our model is flexible in that it illuminates underlying combinations of factors that can influence student attrition.ConclusionThis study provides a framework by which various stakeholders can approach the support and education of graduate students, including mentoring students both toward or away from graduate school per the student's goals.

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Inside the Black Box of Doctoral Education: What Program Characteristics Influence Doctoral Students’ Attrition and Graduation Probabilities?

Cited by 77 publications

References 1 publication

Outcomes and Characteristics of Faculty/Student Mentorship in PhD Programs

Outcomes and Characteristics of Faculty/Student Mentorship in PhD Programs

Conceptualising Doctoral Writing as an Affective-political Practice

Analysis of social media forums to elicit narratives of graduate engineering student attrition

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