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Article Excerpt
The authors present the findings of a qualitative study (N = 33) of doctoral student persistence in counselor education programs accredited by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (2001). Using in-depth interviews with students representing 17 different doctoral programs, the findings revealed factors that influenced students' decisions to persist or leave their counselor education doctoral programs. A key determinant in attrition or persistence decisions was a match between the students' goals/expectations and the faculty members' expectations and goals for the program. Implications of the findings for program selection, recruiting, and student retention are discussed.
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The term persistence, when used in the context of doctoral student attrition and retention, has been defined as "the continuance of a student's progress toward the completion of a doctoral degree" (Bair, 1999, p. 8). In the United States, approximately 50% of students who begin doctoral study do not persist to degree completion (Berelson, 1960; Bowen & Rudenstine, 1992; Lovitts, 2001). Attrition rates vary by field of study (Bair, 1999; Bowen & Rudenstine, 1992; Lovitts & Nelson, 2000), with the highest rates occurring in the humanities and the lowest rates in the natural sciences (Bait, 1999; Bowen & Rudenstine, 1992; Lovitts & Nelson, 2000). Despite careful student selection processes, the high rate of attrition has remained at this level for 40 years (Bowen & Rudenstine, 1992).
One reason doctoral student persistence and attrition are important to study is the personal cost to doctoral students who fail to complete their degree (Lovitts, 2001). Lovitts reported that students described their decision to leave a doctoral program as personally devastating, leaving them depressed and sometimes suicidal. Another reason is the loss in U.S. society of the most highly trained individuals (Lovitts, 2001; National Science Foundation [NSF], 1998; Tinto, 1993). Still another reason is the extensive amount of time and effort expended by faculty members who work with doctoral students (Berelson, 1960; Lovitts, 2001). Finally, there is the financial cost incurred by academic institutions to educate doctoral students (Cook & Swanson, 1978; Lovitts, 2001; NSF, 1998; Nerad & Miller, 1996; Pauley, Cunningham, & Toth, 1999). Budget constraints at the department level, coupled with high rates of attrition, can place doctoral programs and the faculty who teach in them at risk (Lovitts, 2001).
The majority of research on doctoral student persistence, attrition, and retention has been quantitative (Ferrer de Valero, 2001), correlational in design, and has examined the relationship between a variety of independent and dependent variables. Dependent variables that have been studied are attrition, persistence, and time-to-degree. Independent variables are academic indicators (e.g., scores on the Graduate Record Examination [GRE], grade point average [GPA]), personal and psychological variables (e.g., motivation, goals), program variables (e.g., department culture), and demographic variables (e.g., age, gender, ethnicity), just to name a few. The variety of variables studied is an example of how complicated the research on this phenomenon can be. Other factors that make the study of persistence/attrition difficult are acquiring manageable data to work with (Bowen & Rudenstine, 1992; NSF, 1998) and the variation in how universities define enrollment, start dates, track students, and record financial aid data (NSF, 1998). Still other complications include tracking transfer students (Bowen & Rudenstine, 1992; Nerad & Miller, 1996), deciding which students have dropped out (NSF, 1998), and the difficulty in comparing results across studies due to the variation in definitions that have been generated for the same word.
Despite the complications inherent in persistence/attrition research, studies have indicated a number of factors that contribute to a student's decision to either leave doctoral study or to complete the program. One such study, which attempted to pull this large amount of information together, was a metasynthesis conducted by Bair (1999) on the doctoral attrition and persistence literature in higher education published between 1970 and 1999. Among the key factors influencing doctoral student attrition and persistence reported by Bair were (a) department culture, (b) student-faculty relationships, (c) financial support, (d) student involvement, and (e) program satisfaction. Factors that have not been found to influence persistence include demographic variables (e.g., age, children, family, gender, race, enrollment status) and academic achievement variables such as GPA and GRE scores, with the exception of the advanced GRE score. As Bair (1999) noted, "no single variable explains doctoral student attrition or persistence; rather, several variables are at play" (p. 124).
A review of the literature on doctoral student attrition, retention, and persistence revealed a lack of qualitative research and research on the student voice. One explanation for this is that, oftentimes, students leave in silence without expressing their reasons for leaving (Lovitts, 2001; Lovitts & Nelson, 2000; Nerad & Miller, 1996). Thus, some researchers have recommended that more qualitative research be conducted to obtain the voice of the students (Bair, 1999; Ferrer de Valero, 2001). In addition to the recommendation for more qualitative studies, it has also been recommended that more studies be conducted at the programmatic level to address the variation in attrition rates across degree programs and fields of study, (Bair, 1999: Bowen & Rudenstine, 1992).
The purpose of the present study was to fill the gap in the current research on this topic by obtaining the voices of the students, studying students at the programmatic level, and targeting counselor education doctoral students who had not been a target population in previous research. More specifically, this study describes, from the students' perspectives, the factors that influence counselor education doctoral students' decisions to persist in or leave their programs.
Method
Participants
Thirty-three current and former (defined as graduates and students who left programs) students from 17 of the 41 CACREP-accredited doctoral programs that were accredited...
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