Getting Doctoral Students to the Finish Line

Only about 50% of doctoral students finish their degree, and usually it's because they don't finish their dissertation. A myriad of factors have been found to either help or hurt doctoral program completion. One significant but understudied factor is the influence of family. This study explored the influence of family on the doctoral student experience of those who did and did not finish their online doctoral degree. Results support finding a way to facilitate doctoral program completion by leveraging the importance of family in the online learning environment.

Outcomes: Identify barriers and facilitators to doctoral student success * Identify the different social connectedness domains relevant to doctoral student success * Explore an approach to helping improve doctoral student success by leveraging social connectedness in multiple domains