RETAINING STUDENTS IN ONLINE DOCTORAL PROGRAMS: FACTORS INFLUENCING THEIR PERSISTENCE

RETAINING STUDENTS IN ONLINE DOCTORAL PROGRAMS: FACTORS INFLUENCING THEIR PERSISTENCE
Linda D. Grooms, Regent University, United States of America / Don Finn, Regent University, United States of America

(Presented at the International Conference on Humanities, Social and Education Sciences (IHSES) which took place on April 16-19, 2024, in San Francisco, CA, USA (https://www.2024.ihses.net/) and at the International Conference on Life Sciences, Engineering and Technology (ILSET) (https://www.2024.ilset.net/) (https://www.2024.ictels.net/) organized by the International Society for Technology, Education and Science (ISTES) http://www.istes.org).

As early as fall 2019, the National Center for Education Statistics reported that 76% of students enrolled in graduate-level courses in the U.S. were at least 25 years old or more, and by fall 2022, they found that 52% of post-baccalaureate students (1.6 of 3.1 million) took exclusively online courses. With this surge in popularity of online learning for adults, these two researchers examined doctoral candidates across six disciplines who were enrolled in 100% online programs at one private institution in the mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. to determine both the programmatic and the personal factors related to their retention and persistence in their studies. With the multiple roles and responsibilities of adult learners to family, the community, and most often a full-time career, time management challenges often permeate not their cognitive ability, but the feasibility of realizing the goal for which they had originally hoped regardless of their degree level, but particularly with the rigor of a doctoral program. This phenomenological study also aimed to determine the conditions that helped students transition from andragogy to heutagogy and how that facilitates their persistence as they move closer to completing their doctoral degrees.