Withdrawal from doctoral education has been recognized as a problem with negative consequences for different actors, leading researchers worldwide to explore its underlying factors and processes. However, even if many PhD candidates who withdrew intend to re-enrol, there is a gap in the literature regarding the factors and processes related to…

Institutional withdrawal policies allow students with academic and personal difficulties to avert or minimize damage to the GPA by dropping a course in which they may risk a grade of "D" or "F," or to reduce credit hours to better manage those that remain. Offsetting costs involve lost tuition, delay of progress, and perhaps…

This qualitative research project focused on the interviews of 27 low socio-economic students at a research university in the southwestern United States. The students had already withdrawn from the university or were in the process of withdrawing. The study seeks to provide increased understanding of how students negotiate the decision-making…

Academic dismissal resulting from poor scholastic achievement is an unfortunate reality at American universities, and one that involves students, faculty, and academic advisers. This chapter analyzes learning outcomes of the academic dismissal process for first-generation college students (FGS) resulting from a year-long study conducted at a…

Data analysis is critical to educational planning. Determining the number of school leavers is crucial for a school board when planning for interventions and supports. In researching the number of early school leavers in the province of Prince Edward Island, the method in which the data were reported affected the rates. Two critical considerations…

A 2006 study of apprentices commencing with a Group Training Organisation in an Australian regional centre identified factors that appear to support apprentices in their first year. The research demonstrates that school subject selection and access to work-related experiences while still at school make an important difference to completion of the…

This paper investigates reasons Indigenous Australian medical students gave for leaving their courses prior to graduation. Indigenous students who had withdrawn or deferred from their medical courses were asked about the barriers and disincentives that had dissuaded them from graduating. Although the response rate to the questionnaire was very…

A serious difficulty in determining the importance of credit constraints in education arises because standard data sources do not provide a direct way of identifying which students are credit constrained. This has forced researchers to adopt a variety of indirect approaches. This paper differentiates itself from previous work by taking a direct…

The research reported here is part of a larger study investigating differences between successful and unsuccessful (withdrawing) undergraduates at the University of Texas. It focuses on a 36-item list of problems which were rated by 647 withdrawing students during Fall 1969. Responses were subjected to a principal axis factor analysis and rotated…

This paper reports the results of a major research effort by the Northern California Cooperative Research Group (Nor Cal) and the Coordinating Council for Higher Education (CCHE) in California to study junior college attrition. This study differs from the original Nor Cal attrition study in that it was designed to follow up those students who…

This paper proposes a longitudinal study of Eastern Massachusetts secondary students from two culturally diverse locations beginning in the fall of 1986 and ending with their high school graduations in 1991 and 1992. After discussing dropout prevention strategies, the paper offers the following justification for the study: By following these…

An overview of issues and problems in identifying and predicting dropouts is presented in this Digest. The topics discussed are as follows: factors associated with dropping out; defining and calculating dropouts; problems in prediction; the usefulness of current prediction models; and suggestions for improving prediction. The recommendation is…

Findings from a study of administrators' perceptions of student dropout causes and possible interventions are presented in this paper. Current dropout literature was categorized into four sources of student withdrawal from school--schools, parents, peers, and students. A national survey of 650 secondary principals and 650 superintendents produced…

Assuming that the holding power of a junior college is one of the significant indices of its effectiveness, this paper reviews descriptive and inferential data on student attrition. Included are dropout statistics, reported reasons for leaving college, and personality characteristics of dropouts versus persisters. Comparisons between numbers of…

This report describes the study, its findings relative to recidivism and school withdrawal, the implications of the findings for planning preventive intervention services, and the implications of the findings for further research. (Author)