Leaving the Ivory Tower: The Causes and Consequences of Departure from Doctoral StudyGraduate schools have faced attrition rates of approximately 50 percent for the past 40 years. They have tried to address the problem by focusing on student characteristics and by assuming that if they could make better, more informed admissions decisions, attrition rates would drop. Yet high attrition rates persist and may in fact be increasing. Leaving the Ivory Tower thus turns the issue around and asks what is wrong with the structure and process of graduate education. Based on hard evidence drawn from a survey of 816 completers and noncompleters and on interviews with noncompleters, high- and low-Ph.D productive faculty, and directors of graduate study, this book locates the root cause of attrition in the social structure and cultural organization of graduate education. |
Contents
The Invisible Problem | 1 |
Explaining the High and Persistent Rate of Attrition | 20 |
Explaining Departure | 39 |
The Lack of Information | 50 |
The Absence of Community | 82 |
Disappointment with the Learning Experience | 110 |
The Quality of the AdviserAdvisee Relationship | 131 |
The Decision to Leave | 166 |
Chapter 9 Personal Consequences of Departure | 192 |
Labor Market Consequences of Departure | 219 |
Conclusions and Recommendations | 255 |
Most and Least Successful AdviserAdvisee Relationships from the Point of View of the Faculty | 279 |
290 | |
299 | |
About the Author | |
Other editions - View all
Leaving the Ivory Tower: The Causes and Consequences of Departure from ... Barbara E. Lovitts No preview available - 2001 |
Common terms and phrases
academic and social academic integration asked at-risk completers attribution theory attrition rates campus cial cognitive maps complete the Ph.D completers and noncompleters contrast decision to leave degree dents departmental departmental community DGSs differences discipline discussed dissertation Domain of Knowledge duration emotional enrolled entered graduate school exams exit factors faculty member faculty retention faculty's feel felt fundamental attribution error graduate education graduate programs graduate student attrition graduate study high producers Hispanic intellectual interac interaction with faculty interest lack less low producers noncom number of interviewees on-track completers organizational culture participation percent persistence pleters pluralistic ignorance profes professional development professor questions received responses Rural University salary satisfied secondary labor market sector selected social integration social sciences stage status structure students who left subscribing to journals survey data talked teaching things tion track job undergraduate Urban University
Popular passages
Page 290 - Bean,J. (1980). Dropouts and turnover: The synthesis and test of a causal model of student attrition.
Page 290 - The relation of graduate students' role relations to their stage of academic career, employment, and academic success. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 7, 428-441 . . (1976).
Page 290 - P 1982. Conceptual models of student attrition: How theory can help the institutional researcher. In ET Pascarella (ed.), Studying student attrition, pp. 17-33. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Bean, J.