Framing the benefits of higher education participation from the perspective of non-completers

ABSTRACT

Ensuring that students of all backgrounds are smoothly transitioned through the stages of access, participation and completion in higher education has been the focus of much public policy and research in recent decades. Subsequently, public policy discourse treats those who do not complete their higher education degrees as unsuccessful, despite a lack of research considering the beneficial outcomes of non-completing students. Evidence of beneficial outcomes of higher education participation without completion has potential to challenge the deficit-centric discourse of completion dependent on a binary view of success and failure. This article details a critical discourse analysis of responses to a 2017 survey of university non-completers asked ‘were there any benefits from the time you spent doing an [sic] incomplete degree?’. This study finds that non-completers experience a wide range of benefits from incomplete studies despite the dominant discourse discounting their experiences as unsuccessful. Additionally, this study presents a critique of framing surveys of non-completing students within the normative bounds of success as completion in higher education, and instead calls for a more nuanced construction of success in higher education.     

Retention in a Bachelor of Education (Early childhood studies) course: students say why they stay and others leave

The literature suggests that student attrition at the university level has been of growing concern in many countries. Student attrition has a number of implications for universities, chief amongst them are losses to revenue and investment in higher education. While many studies have examined causes for attrition from an institutional perspective, this study examines how the Bachelor of Education (Early childhood studies) that sits within the School of Education can support the retention of students from the students’ perspectives. Using a qualitative methodology that recorded up to 40 hours of interviews with 20 students provided insights into why they stay at university and what aspects of the Early childhood studies degree support them in staying. Conversely, the students also comment on those aspects that are not supportive and could impact on retention. The data revealed that a sense of belonging was very important and that particular course-specific activities at certain times supported developing this belonging. The students identified the importance of a mentorship program and how this program needs to be made available from the commencement of their course. Other factors contributing to retention included well-placed practicums, career choice, designated study times, as well as study groups and supportive and responsive lecturers.     

Creating a connection: tackling student attrition through curriculum development

The issue of student attrition (where students leave a programme of study for any reason) is maintaining a high profile across the higher education sector and is a key concern for those delivering nurse education. Many authors have pointed out the cause for concern that student nurse attrition raises and its impact on the higher education institution (HEI), on the student body generally, on partners in practice, and on the student who leaves. The reasons that student nurses leave their programmes of study are similar to the reasons that other students leave (financial, personal, academic, lack of support, etc). For student nurses there are also issues with their experiences in practice. It is clear that with all student attrition, the reasons for leaving are complex in nature. It must be accepted that there are some issues that cannot be addressed by HEIs, but that ways to tackle attrition and to enhance student retention must be high on the agenda of any education provider. Individual programmes of study can utilise approaches to curriculum development that aim to enhance the student experience. The introduction of an enquiry‐based learning strand to the curriculum of one pre‐registration nursing programme aims to address some of the reasons for student attrition, namely: lack of support, poor academic performance, lack of study skills, disillusionment and low motivation, lack of confidence, and the theory‐practice gap resulting in stressful practice experiences. Enquiry‐based learning (EBL) is not seen as a panacea for student attrition, but it is seen as a positive way in which to enhance the student experience.     

Are the Factors Affecting Dropout Behavior Related to Initial Enrollment Intensity for College Undergraduates?

We use data from the 1990/1994 Beginning Post-Secondary Survey to determine whether the factors associated with long-term attrition from higher education differ for students who initially enrolled part-time as compared to for students who initially enrolled full-time. Using a two-stage sequential decision model to analyze the initial enrollment intensity decision jointly with attrition, we find no evidence of correlation in the unobservables that necessitates joint estimation, but substantial evidence that the factors associated with attrition differ by initial enrollment status. The timing of initial enrollment, academic performance, parental education, household characteristics, and economic factors had a substantially greater impact on those initially enrolled full-time, while racial and ethnic characteristics had a greater impact on those initially enrolled part-time. The results of our study suggest that separate specifications are necessary to identify at-risk full-time as compared with at-risk part-time students. The data employed here were generated while working under a grant supported in part by the Association for Institutional Research, the National Center for Education Statistics, and the National Science Foundation under the Association for Institutional Research 1999 Improving Institutional Research in Post-secondary Educational Institutions Grant Program. The Spencer Foundation Small Grants program provided funding for the analysis. Leslie Stratton gratefully acknowledges additional support from a 2001 Faculty Excellence Award from Virginia Commonwealth University. Referees from the 2005 Southern Economic Association meetings and from Research in Higher Education provided very helpful comments. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Spencer Foundation, the Association for Institutional Research, the National Center for Education Statistics, or the National Science Foundation.     

Non-traditional students in tertiary education: inter-disciplinary collaboration in curriculum and pedagogy in community services education in Australia

Education policy in Australia has accelerated its aim to increase participation of under-represented groups in tertiary education including students who are culturally and linguistically diverse and have low socio-economic status. These students generally have not had prior access to privileged academic discourse, which can further disadvantage them in their participation and progress in tertiary education. In this article, we outline a cross-discipline curriculum initiative and pedagogy that draws on critical literacy and the metaphor of discourse community to integrate language and academic skills into community services qualifications. We argue that this – supports the genuine participation of under-represented (non-traditional) students. It aspires to not only support students’ entry into the new academic terrain, but to enable students to adopt a critical stance to the discourses in which they are learning to participate. This we argue is crucial, when expertise is not just a way of meeting its ostensible purposes, but is also a way of exercising power. Although we report on the application of this initiative to entry level curricula (Diploma), we suggest that it has relevance and application to Bachelor levels in a range of disciplines, both in supporting pedagogy and for transition to Bachelor level study.     

Can you earn a Ph.D. in economics in five years?

We investigate graduate school outcomes for students who entered economics Ph.D. programs in fall 2002. Students in Top-15 ranked programs and those with higher verbal and quantitative GRE scores are less likely to have dropped out, but no more likely to have graduated. Those with undergraduate degrees from Top-60 U.S. liberal arts colleges and from foreign universities have lower attrition and higher completion probabilities. There are important differences in the characteristics associated with retention and completion probabilities between U.S. citizens and non-citizens and between men and women.     

Two types of voluntary undergraduate attrition: Application of Tinto's model

Tinto's model of institutional attrition was tested by comparing undergraduate students who had dropped out from Washington State University (WSU) one year prior to the study with a control sample of students who continued at WSU. Tinto's constructs of individual attributes, past educational experience, goal commitment, institutional commitment, social integration, and academic integration were operationalized using variables obtained from precollege records, academic records at the university, and a post-withdrawal survey. Setwise discriminant function analysis was used to discriminate between the attrition sample and the control sample using Tinto's constructs. Variables measuring individual attributes, past educational experience, institutional commitment, and academic integration all contributed significantly to the discriminant function when all other variables were controlled for. Tinto's model was also able to explain the differences between those attrition students who transferred to another institution and those who dropped out of higher education. Those that dropped out had a significantly lower academic ability, lower academic integration, lower goal commitment, and lower social integration.     

Free education and social inequality in Ugandan primary schools: A step backward or a step in the right direction?

The intent of this study is to understand both direct and indirect resource effects in the context of a mass education system in Uganda. We find that under certain conditions, policies that promote physical resource availability can lead to substantial equity gains. A school's social composition appears to improve educational quality but it is also related to wider gaps between rich and poor students. We also show that heavier teaching workloads have the most damaging effect on low-income students who have fewer private resources to devote to academic pursuits. The policy implication is that equalising access to formal primary education does not guarantee equitable outcomes.     

Can the Distance Education Student Progress (DESP) Inventory be Used as a Tool to Predict Attrition in Distance Education?

This study examined the extent to which the sub‐scales and scales developed from the distance education student progress (DESP) Inventory are associated with attrition and persistence of external students enrolled in the fourth year of the Bachelor of Education course at an Australian university. A discriminant analysis of the 15 factors produced from a principal analysis of the DESP Inventory correctly classified 73% of withdrawing and continuing students. The first four factors correctly predicted 64% of withdrawing and continuing students. There is some congruence between the sub‐scales and scales of the DESP Inventory and those reported in this study.     

Call me educated: Evidence from a mobile phone experiment in Niger✰

Teacher absenteeism is an important obstacle to sustained learning gains in many developing countries. We report the results from a randomized evaluation of an adult education program in Niger, which included an additional intervention designed to improve teacher accountability and students’ learning. Villages were randomly assigned to one of three groups. The first was a two-year adult education program, with normal visits by non-governmental organization (NGO) and Ministry staff. The second included the same curriculum and visits as the first, but villages also received a mobile intervention: weekly phone calls to the teacher, village chief and two randomly selected students. The third was a pure control group, with no adult education program or calls. We find that both interventions improved students’ learning outcomes: across both years of the program, students in the standard adult education program increased their math and reading test scores by 0.19–0.22 s.d, respectively. The mobile phone intervention led to an additional increase in math and reading test scores of 0.12 and 0.15 s.d., with stronger effects amongst called students. We also address alternative threats to identification, namely, differential attrition and baseline imbalance, and find that the math results are robust across these different specifications. This suggests that using mobile phone technology as a means to communicate with teachers and students can improve learning outcomes, beyond its use as a pedagogical tool within the classroom.     

Lifelong learning: beyond the rhetoric of retention

Initially, this study of the attrition of adult Māori students in a Tertiary Institute was undertaken to determine whether the factors in the literature explaining attrition/retention in tertiary institutions were relevant to Māori students and whether the literature covered all the factors. The main finding was that they mostly did apply. Research published subsequently raised other issues that led to the conclusion that we need to reframe the concept of attrition/retention and accept that a certain level is inevitable. This suggests that it is time to turn our attention to strategies that ease the exit and return of Māori students to tertiary education institutions if they have to withdraw for any reason. At the same time, those of us in the tertiary education sector must continue to find ways to improve the quality of educational experiences for Māori students.     

Learning in formal and informal contexts: conceptions and strategies of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander university students

Research suggests that students' approaches to learning and hence learning outcomes are closely related to their conceptions of learning. This paper describes an investigation into conceptions of formal learning held by 22 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students from three Australian universities in Queensland; categories of informal learning, reasons for studying and strategies used to learn were also investigated. The attrition rate for these students in tertiary education is higher than that of any other group of students. The main aim of this study was to determine their conceptions of learning in order to provide information that might facilitate instruction more suited to their needs in order to address the high attrition rate. Results showed that these students view and approach university learning in much the same way as other university students. It was also apparent that, for the most part, the strategies these students used did not match the conceptions of learning they held. An interesting result was the difference between the conceptions of formal learning and perceptions of informal learning.     

远程学习者辍学影响因素的追踪对比研究

本研究以某省级电大2010年春季入学的英语专业本科生为研究样本,对其进行追踪调查,对比分析了第一学期和第二学期辍学生在个人背景、学习情况及辍学原因上的异同。研究数据通过网上调查问卷和深度访谈的方式获得,并在"远程教育辍学归因框架"下,使用量化统计和质性研究工具Nvivo 8.0进行编码和分析。研究发现,第二学期的辍学生比之前者,尽管学习目标更加明确,英语基础较好,学习投入更多,但其努力程度依然有限,加之课程难度增加,学校教学支持服务又不到位,使其在工学矛盾等环境因素的刺激下最终做出辍学的决定。与第一学期相比,导致辍学的因素更趋多样化,且激烈程度大为降低;隶属于远程教育机构的因素在辍学影响中发挥着更大的作用。     

Doctoral students’ experiences leading to completion or attrition: a matter of sense,progress and distress

A central trend in qualitative studies investigating doctoral students’ dropout is to stress the importance of students’ integration and socialisation in their working environment. Yet, few of these studies actually compared the experiences of doctoral students who completed or quit their PhD. In order to overcome this limitation and identify the factors that differentiate these two groups, the present study interviewed 21 former doctoral students: 8 completers and 13 non-completers. The results show that what best differentiates these two groups of participants is the extent to which they feel that they are moving forward, without experiencing too much distress, on a research project that makes sense to them. We assume that this set of factors is central in the dropout process. Support from doctoral peers was found to play a positive role overall but did not contribute to differentiating the two groups, presumably because peers have a limited impact on dissertation progress. Supervisors’ support was central to the participants’ stories; it is thus assumed to play a role in the process, but this role is complex and needs further investigation. These results call for a stronger consideration of the doctoral task itself when investigating the process of persistence and attrition and for a more integrated framework that considers jointly both task- and environment-related aspects.     

Socio-economic status,cultural diversity and the aspirations of secondary students in the Western Suburbs of Melbourne,Australia

Using data from a recent survey of Australian secondary students, we find that those from higher socio-economic backgrounds are more likely to aspire to attend university. The same can be said for students who do not speak English at home. We find that students with an ethnic minority background are more likely to perceive higher levels of support from parents. However, we find that all students believe they receive encouragement from their parents to do well at school (rather than discouragement or disinterest), and that there is little difference in the level of importance placed on the views of parents between students from English and non-English speaking background. While interest in university education is strong across all socio-economic groups, particularly for students who do not speak English at home, there is a considerable gap between aspirations and enrolment levels. We suggest that this ‘aspirations gap’ is larger for students from low socio-economic backgrounds. This analysis also supports growing evidence that the postcode methodology for allocating socio-economic status to individuals is unreliable.     

高职院校10年内的发展目标:培养专业硕士

高职人才培养,再也不能只盯着以内贸为主的中小企业,指导思想上要为"中国的世界企业"培养人才,没有国际知识与技能、全人类的视野与眼光的职业教育是走不出国门的。职业教育必须有高层次人才培养的实践与探索,在国际化视野下,培养满足多层次需要的现代职业人才。少数优质高职院校现在就应该开始,到企业进行调查研究,探索高职本科教育的可行性,探讨培养高职硕士研究生的可能。     

The Court Is Now in Session: Professor Discourse on Student Attrition

This article presents the results of a discourse analysis of semi-structured interviews with professors from nine Russian universities. This analysis focuses on narratives of student attrition and its causes and reveals the generally accusatory nature of the professor discourse. All the narratives can be integrated and described in terms of the metaphor of the trial. In its most obvious form, the accusation that students are to blame for attrition is developed as a type of discourse that can be called prosecutorial, but it can also be developed in speeches resembling those made by defense attorneys and judges. These three types of discourse build figurative barriers between the university and professors, on the one hand, and students, on the other hand. These barriers encourage professors to feel uninvolved in student attrition. Not one of the three discourse types articulates the university's mission or problematizes the principles and goals of its activities. We suggest that the “bad student” discourse reflects some real problems associated with the massification of education and inevitable changes to the student body. An analysis of the professor discourse allows us to hypothesize that their response to these changes is limited to stating the problems and disassociating themselves from them. The construction of figurative barriers may result in professors' self-distancing not only from students, but also from the changes affecting the education system. Such self-distancing complicates the process of adapting to these changes and makes it difficult to control.     

An exploration of important factors in the decision-making process undertaken by foundation degree students with respect to level 6 progression

Deciding what degree to study and where are very important decisions to make for a range of practical and economic reasons, and much research has been undertaken in this area. What has not been considered previously is the decision-making processes of students who have completed an associate degree, such as a Higher National Diploma or Foundation Degree, and are now considering where to complete their Bachelor education. Associate degrees are often provided by further education colleges (FECs) in partnership with universities, and the choices available to college-based higher education students are whether to continue at the college or move to university. A mixed-methods approach was adopted comprising of an online questionnaire and subsequent focus groups of students studying at HE at a southwest FEC. The findings showed that equal importance is placed on the practical issues of proximity and familiarity as on course suitability, with the only differences between those remaining at college and those moving to university being financially based.     

Study-group diversity and early college academic outcomes: Experimental evidence from a higher education inclusion program in Peru

Beca18 is a Peruvian social inclusion program for higher education. It provides full scholarships to economically disadvantaged public high school graduates who have been admitted to eligible universities. We exploit the random assignment of first-year students to small study groups at an elite university in Peru to evaluate how the interactions between relatively wealthy non-Beca18 students, who predominate at this institution, and Beca18 fellows affect early academic outcomes. We find that assignment to mixed study groups, composed of Beca18 and non-Beca18 students, on average improves performance on individual weekly/biweekly quizzes. In the case of Beca18 fellows, the positive effect of mixed-study environments is greater among fellows that possess relatively high academic ability as incoming students (that is, among those with higher pre-college academic ability). Interestingly, the opposite holds for non-Beca18 students. We identify two potential underlying mechanisms behind these results: (i) peers’ incoming (pre-college) academic ability and (ii) peer's attitudes towards effort and cooperation. Beca18 students in mixed study groups seem to benefit more from the relatively higher academic ability their non-Beca18 peers possess upon entrance. Non-Beca18 students appear to benefit from experiencing the higher effort and cooperation levels displayed by Beca18 fellows. Our evidence also suggests that some individuals may be adversely affected. These include Beca18 students who are toward the bottom of their socioeconomic group and non-Beca18 students who are at the top of their socioeconomic group in terms of pre-college ability distribution.     

Why students drop out of the Bachelor of Arts

Attrition, which courses in the humanities and social sciences particularly suffer from, is a major problem for universities and students. This paper investigates the reasons students give for prematurely discontinuing studying the Bachelor of Arts. This is a qualitative study that thematically analyses semi-structured interviews. The sample represented a cross-section of the population of students enrolled in the course. The reasons for attrition can be divided into course-related or personal reasons. Amongst course-related reasons, the most important relate to: career direction and purpose, subject range and peer bonding, as well as teaching quality. Personal issues that interfere with study relate to illness, finances and employment. Course-related and personal reasons also interact and reinforce each other, with students studying the humanities and social sciences more vulnerable to personal pressures due to course-related reasons. Student engagement with support services is also analysed, and conclusions drawn on how attrition can be addressed.