The purpose of this research is to identify institutional factors that impact time to degree for the doctoral students who take the longest to complete their studies and graduate. Comparisons are made relative to their disciplinary peers, across nationally representative samples, without disclosing the identity of any institution or student. This study merges data from two nationally collected sources: (1) The Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED); and (2) The supplemental data (not rankings) from the National Research Council's (NRC) A Data-based Assessment of Research-Doctorate Programs in the United States. The SED and NRC data are merged to determine the patterns of time to degree and the point of extended time to degree within each discipline using the NRC taxonomy. The analysis then looks for interactions between the different levels of data--student qualities, socio-demographic factors, and institutional factors--to identify which factors influence extended time to degree.
The driving force behind the research is a void in the current literature. We know that the length of time to doctoral degree varies widely within and across disciplines. While other research has evaluated interactions between various individual and program factors on time to doctoral degree, the impact of institutional factors on extended time to degree has not been specifically investigated. Furthermore, a statistical analysis has not previously been conducted using merged SED and NRC data to evaluate extended time to doctoral degree. This research seeks to fill that void and to add new information to the body of knowledge.
Broader impacts: One significant outcome from this study will be the research-based identification of institutional factors associated with extended time to degree. Institutions, doctoral students, and researchers will all be able to identify different fields and populations impacted by the phenomenon of extended time to degree and thereby make more informed decisions about effective strategies to promote timely doctoral degree completion. This project will also train a new researcher in the use of multiple large-scale national datasets.
Many factors—individual, departmental, and institutional—have been associated with longer time to degree and progress toward degree completion. Lengthy time to degree affects the availability of resources, advising, persistence, and degree completion. This research identified institutional characteristics that impacted extended time to degree, relative to discipline, in doctoral programs. The data were drawn from three years of Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED) data—2004, 2005, and 2006—and the National Research Council’s (NRC) 2010 A Data-based Assessment of Research-Doctorate Programs in the United States. The sample included 18,545 student records representing 58 different fields. Extended time to doctoral degree was defined as completion equal to or greater than one standard deviation beyond the Mean, relative to discipline. The study employed descriptive statistics, Hierarchical linear models, and Analysis of Variance models to test nested student and field data against targeted independent variables in each of nine categories: socio-demographic factors, student qualities and time to degree factors, discipline and institution factors, financial support factors, support and training factors, process and procedure factors, program environment factors, research environment factors, and selectivity factors. Understanding the factors that impact time to doctoral degree is complex. The NSF Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant funded travel to support the research collaborations between the doctoral student and the dissertation committee. The doctoral student and committee convened to outline the research approach, to evaluate the research findings, and to finalize the dissertation manuscript. Unlike previous research, this study evaluated the institutional factors that affect time to degree for not only a sample of the population, but for those graduates within the population who had extended time to degree relative to their disciplinary peers. The recommendations outlined in this dissertation, which are based on the study findings, are aimed at improving the culture and climate of doctoral education for all graduate students. More specifically, these recommendations seek to support current and future students who may be headed toward extended time to doctoral degree by outlining institutional intervention strategies aimed at reducing the time required to complete the doctoral degree. The proposed interventions, if adopted by institutions and doctoral programs, will not reduce time to degree or eliminate extended time to degree for all students, but careful attention to the institutional and program factors addressed in this dissertation could decrease time to degree and improve the overall experience for many doctoral students. Key findings include writing the dissertation as a critical point for reform in doctoral programs to reduce time to degree for early, average and extended completers. Relationships between diverse students, diverse faculty, and the research environment impact time to degree differently for early, average, and extended completers, which requires additional research. Child dependents increased time to degree for all completers, and primary source of support had mixed effects for early, average, and extended completers. Five recommendations for institutional interventions and additional research were developed based on the study findings: develop programs to support timely (dissertation) writing, conduct additional research on diversity and extended time to degree, develop programs for graduate student parents, reorganize doctoral student financial support mechanisms, and establish program-level review of time to degree. The recommendations are aimed at improving the culture and climate of doctoral education for all graduate students. As a result of the DDRIG funding, the research was successfully completed and the dissertation was successfully defended.
