Although high PhD attrition rates are a matter of international concern, the factors that lead doctoral researchers to leave their programmes are not well understood. The present study addresses that issue by exploring factors that prompted thoughts of discontinuing among 1017 PhD researchers (PhDRs) at a public, research-intensive Australian…

Academic failure is an important and personal event in the lives of university students, and the ways they make sense of experiences of failure matters for their persistence and future success. Academic failure contributes to attrition, yet the extent of this contribution and precipitating factors of failure are not well understood. To illuminate…

Student attrition continues to be a significant and costly challenge for higher education institutions across the globe. In Australia, universities cite the importance of addressing student attrition through strategic statements and policy documents, and expend time and resources on the problem. Despite vast expenditures, they have made little…

A study examined the difficulties encountered by first-year, part-time Technical and Further Education (TAFE) students that cause them to consider withdrawing from, and in many cases, dropping out of their TAFE programs. Questionnaires were administered to 4,150 early withdrawers (persons who dropped out between January 1 and May 16, 1986), 2,940…

Data on the Y95 cohort (first interviewed in 1995 when in Year 9) of the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth were analyzed to identify the effects of student employment on participation and attrition in secondary school and tertiary study and on young people's activities after secondary school. Working between 1 and 5 hours during Year 9 of…