Welcome to a Database of Dissertation Studies Focusing on
The Doctoral Student Experience

This is a collection of brief summaries of over 400 dissertation studies that have been published in the 1980 - 2008 period. In many ways, they represent the voices of doctoral students…. those who have successfully completed the doctorate, those who have withdrawn prior to completing their degree, and students currently enrolled at the time of the study.

The source of these summaries is those dissertations published on the Dissertation Abstract database (ProQuest Digital Dissertations at http://wwwlib.umi.com/dissertations/gateway). They were selected because they touched, at least indirectly, on the lives and the characteristics of the academic experiences of the students studied. In that sense, they are an excellent source of insight into some of the unique factors that influence the course of the often 6-8 year period of study.

They also suggest ideas for students, both incoming and well as those currently enrolled, on how to better manage the obstacles, both personal and environmental, that can interrupt or delay the academic journey. There are clear indicators for faculty and departments, on ways to systematically address the current 40-50% attrition rates in academic doctoral programs across the disciplines. (Studies of students in the professions such as medicine or law were not included.)

How the 426 dissertation summaries are presented

• Title of the publication
• Researcher
• Institution
• Date of publication
• Research subjects (e.g. enrolled students, successful Ph.Ds)
• Reported results: (a 1-2 paragraph summary)
• Dissertation Abstract citation
• Department/locus of study: general
• Category: Enrolled students
• Key words: (e.g. student characteristics, faculty-student relationships)

The database will be updated regularly and may be accessed according to the categories (below) that suggest the focus of the study. Examples are the different experiences and characteristics of students who completed the degree versus those who didn’t, those students who completed the degree versus those who withdraw with an ABD status. Other studies focused on certain student groups, such as minorities or women. There are 11 categories and they are listed below.

Categories

• Attrition vs. Degree completion
• Successful Degree Completers
• ABDS vs. Ph.Ds
• Studies focusing on the Dissertation Stage
• Studies of First-year Student experiences
• Studies of Minority Student experiences
• Studies of Female Student experiences
• Gender differences (Male vs. Female)
• Studies involving marital status
• Enrolled students
• Studies of Administrators/faculty factors

Database Search Parameters

• The academic discipline/department in which the dissertation research was conducted.
  These are grouped into the following: Psychology, Education, the Sciences and General. The latter, and it is the largest, designates those studies that were not limited to students in specific departments, or were across disciplines or institutions or concentrated on certain groups of students, such as minority or women.
• By date of publication. This can be useful for identifying trends, both temporal and by category
• By key word. These are of course subjective, and designed to make it easier to track down the influence of the factors listed below:
  • student characteristics (such as motivation or stress)
  • faculty-student relationships, including more recent studies of mentoring
  • departmental factors that impact the doctoral student experience such as the role of program structuring
  • time to degree
  • faculty characteristics/influences
  • academic-social integration (a term used recently to suggest student acculturation into the department)
  • gender issues
  • financial issues or concerns
  • theoretical or conceptual issues

The entire database can be accessed in order to find general patterns (e.g. by time period or by some factors such as faculty-student relationships or by financial issues and concerns). An Alpha list of the over 400 summaries or just the citation for those summaries can be downloaded if desired.

Ilustrative search strategies:

1. What factors were reported to differentiate between those students who completed their degree, and those who withdrew? Between degree completere and ABDs? What was learned about studies conducted at the dissertation stage? About studies focusing on successful students who had completed their degree? To find answers to these and other related questions, the search would be initially, at least, in one or more of the 11 available categories.
2. Let's say you are interested in learning more about specific factors, such as student characteristics, student-faculty relationships, or the role of financial issues. The same Education collection could then be searched according to each or all of the factors listed above.
3. To add more context to the analyses in Education, for example, a search could be run on the entire database, searching within categories (enrolled students, successful Ph.Ds) in order to detect similarities and differences. Or a similar comparison could be done between students surveyed in Psychology or the general area of study. This could indicate answers to questions about the pervasiveness across disciplines of such factors as student characteristics, faculty-student relationships, departmental structures, etc.