About a third of students seeking a doctorate degree at UCF between 1997 and 2007 attained the degree, according to a national study in which UCF is participating.
“We actually went through cohort by cohort ... and then we followed them year after year after year, and then they either graduated, they were dismissed, they withdrew or they dropped out, or they’re continuing,” said Max Poole, associate dean of the College of Graduate Studies.
The national study, conducted by the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS), has shown that 57 percent of graduate students start and complete their doctorate in the 10-year period. Twenty-eight percent of doctorate students who have studied at UCF have graduated from their programs.
CGS asked schools to volunteer to report on their last 10 years of doctorate students. With the information, CGS will determine the average rate for doctorate completion and how that can be improved.
Robert Sowell, vice president for programs and operations at CGS, said the council usually discusses ideas that are of concern and chooses to look into them; doctorate completion is just one of them. Sowell said previously conducted research suggests half of doctorate students complete their programs.
“That is a tremendous cost to the institutions involved in doctoral education, to the students who have to be amongst those who don’t complete, and to the federal government, who fund doctoral programs,” Sowell said.
UCF’s baseline data showed that the program with the highest graduation rate was the doctorate in education counseling, with 59 percent. Economics, sociology and hospitality education programs had no graduates, but each had at least 11 students enrolled in the programs.
According to Poole, UCF’s electrical engineering doctorate is a large program and is doing better than the national average.
“Not everything is bleak,” Poole said. “Some programs are doing quite well. Some programs can certainly do quite better.”
Of the 58 students who entered a doctorate program at UCF for civil engineering, 18 graduated. It took an average of 4.1 years for those students to graduate. The national average graduation rate is 77.6 percent.
Students who studied counseling education took an average of 3.3 years to graduate, the shortest of all the programs, while clinical psychology took the longest at 7.3 years.
Poole said clinical psychology is a unique program that leads to licensing and has many different internships involved, so that the amount of time is not unusual.
According to data provided by CGS, 50 percent of psychology doctorate students graduated in the seventh year. At UCF, 27 percent of psychology students from the three different programs (clinical, human factors and industrial and organization) graduated in 10 years.
In addition to taking part in the study, Poole also conducted a survey to see what students really thought of their programs. He has used this information to point out the weaknesses and strengths of each program and has met with different department chairs and deans to discuss the results. He said the departments then discuss the data with faculty to address the issues.
Jay Corzine, chair of the sociology department, was one of the professors with whom Poole met.
“Overall, most students were pleased with most aspects of the program,” Corzine said. “There were a small number of students who were displeased with most aspects of the program.”
Corzine said the doctorate in sociology program accepted its first group in fall 2005, and one student has graduated since the data was collected. In the data provided by Poole, the sociology department had 21 students in the program and no graduates. Four had reached candidacy for their Ph.D.
“The results will be more helpful to us after we get two or three years of data,” Corzine said.
Corzine said the idea that all graduate students are going to complete a program is not realistic.
“Most students drop out because, over the course of three or four years; their life changes,” Corzine said, citing family or health problems.
Criminal justice graduate student Alexandra Bojorquez has been working on her master’s degree since August 2008 and said she hasn’t had any trouble putting herself through school because of fellowships and other financial aid, but without them going to school wouldn’t be easy.
“I would probably have to be working full time, and I’d definitely be back home (in Texas) working there,” Bojorquez said, adding that the support system of friends and professors she has is helping her through the program.
“I have one friend,” Bojorquez said. “She’s married and has two children. She has family emergencies. Sometimes she can’t take as many classes as she would like to take. She can only take one.”
Sometimes financial, family or health problems don’t arise. A student may simply change their interest of study.
“One student was more interested in race and gender by the end of the year,” Corzine said. He said her interests had changed to the field of criminology.
Corzine said it was lucky they had the professors to contribute to that student’s specialization, but sometimes they don’t.
“Sometimes student interest change and they go into a direction where you really don’t have faculty expertise in your department, and they leave and go elsewhere, which is exactly what they should do,” Corzine said.
Poole said he hopes the faculty will pay attention to the surveys conducted and try to strengthen the problem points identified by students. He said he wanted to teach faculty members how to be better mentors.
Sometimes professors become focused on their own career and forget they have an apprentice, he said.
“It’s something they need to do, especially with doctorate programs,” Poole said.
Poole said there’s no “silver bullet” to fixing the problems.
“It’s going to take several years before we turn around some of these attrition problems we’ve seen,” Poole said. “But we will turn it around. It will happen.”
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