Intentions versus outcomes in doctoral degree completion

The decline in doctoral program completion has become one of the main challenges in doctoral education worldwide. As concern about this issue grows, the number of studies examining the topic has also increased. Many of these studies, which aim to identify the factors that contribute to high attrition rates, rely on cross-sectional data and often use students’ degree completion plans as a proxy for either completion or attrition. This approach raises a crucial question: How well do these proxies correlate with actual graduation outcomes? Utilizing a quasi-longitudinal dataset, our study investigates the relationship between various indicators of student plans, as used in cross-sectional studies, and students’ eventual completion or withdrawal from doctoral programs. Our analysis reveals a significant disconnect between student intentions and their actual outcomes, which indicates that students’ plans may not always be a reliable predictor of graduation results. The findings suggest that using these proxies can lead to misinterpretations or the omission of key factors that affect outcomes. Such insights are valuable for developing more accurate scales and indicators to measure dropout intentions in cross-sectional studies and contribute to the broader understanding and discussion of doctoral student outcomes and success.