Abstract:

Graduate education leads students to follow a career in their expertise fields. In this respect, graduate education is attractive to students. However, in graduate education, there are several factors affecting the students’ degree completion. This study aims to check the student attrition rates for master’s and doctoral education and to investigate the role of organizational factors on the degree non-completion in graduate education. This study was designed as a correlational study using secondary data. The non-completion rate was the criterion variable, while the university type, the students per faculty member, and the articles published per faculty member were the predictors. Descriptive statistics and Simultaneous Multiple Regression Analysis were performed to achieve the purpose of the study. The findings of the current study showed that the student attrition rates for master’s education were higher than those for doctoral education. Furthermore, the articles per faculty member predicted the non-completion both in master’s and doctoral degree, while the university type predicted only the non-completion in master’s degree. It was recommended that the performance of the academic staff should be taken into consideration to increase the degree completion rates.

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