Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from December, 2019

Improving Part-time Doctoral Student Success

Sara Spear, Ph.D. Student,  Higher Education, Rutgers University Doctoral student success, despite its importance in preserving the academic profession, shows up very little in the literature even when attrition rates hover around fifty percent (Bair & Haworth, 2004; Gardner & Gopaul, 2012). Why are students starting doctorate programs but not finishing? Students may leave for a variety of reasons, but faculty perceptions tend to pinpoint “student failure as lying within the students themselves” (Gilmore, Wofford, & Maher, 2016, p. 433). This is surprising because if we flip the question around and look at what makes doctoral students successful, faculty emphasize personal attributes like intellectual curiosity and grit in addition to the positive role mentors and institutional supports play. With only fifty percent of students completing their doctoral programs, more careful attention needs to be paid to the role programs and institutions play in doctoral