Provide an overview of the case details in 400 words or less. Research Design?- What are 2-4 features of this research design

Factors that Enable or Inhibit Dissertation Completion

by

Gail E. Cugno, MLIS, MAWS

A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Claremont Graduate University

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy in Education

Claremont, California

2015

Approved by:

David Drew, Ph.D.

Committee Chair

© Copyright Gail E. Cugno, 2015

All Rights Reserved

All rights reserved

INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted.

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APPROVAL OF THE REVIEW COMMITTEE

This dissertation has been duly read, reviewed, and critiqued by the Committee listed below,

which hereby approves the manuscript of Gail Cugno as fulfilling the scope and quality

requirements for meriting the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Education.

David Drew, Ph.D. Chair

Claremont Graduate University

Mary Poplin, Ph.D.

Claremont Graduate University

Committee Member

Lourdes Arguelles, Ph.D.

Claremont Graduate University

Committee Member, Professor Emerita

Abstract

Factors Related to Dissertation Completion

by

Gail E. Cugno, MLIS, MAWS

Claremont Graduate University: 2015

Attrition among “all but dissertation” (ABD)/doctoral candidates (DCs) from different

disciplines is holding steady at alarming rates and PhD completion could take up to 12 years.

This study sought to find factors that enable or inhibit dissertation completion among current

ABD/DCs, and ABD/DCs that left studies before dissertation completion or recent PhD

graduates since 2009 to 2014. A thorough review of literature by federal, state, private

organizations, and researchers spanning 30 years was consulted on theoretical/conceptual

frameworks and factors related to attrition and factors that enable or inhibit dissertation

completion.

Study participants were recruited from five social media sites Facebook, LinkedIn,

Tumblr, Twitter, and Yahoo Groups to take an online survey consisting of Likert-style questions

and two-open ended questions. Primarily, descriptive statistics were employed in the analysis of

the quantitative questions and a correlation analysis was performed using 29 study variables with

Question 10c, “I felt confident I could finish my dissertation and graduate.” The correlation

analysis resulted in ten variables showing a significant relationship to this key variable. Five of

those significant variables reflected different forms of advisor support.

In the descriptive analysis, participants reported that a sense of caring by advisers/chairs

that stayed in touch and provided motivational support limited feelings of isolation or pessimism

about dissertation completion. Moreover, feeling connected to other writers or support

communities, feeling confident about completion, and maintaining a sense of control over the

process were important. Factors that inhibited completion were lack of socialization into the

dissertation process, distractions from writing, and pessimism fueled by lack of motivational or

emotional support.

Qualitative responses reported by ABD/DCs and recent Ph.D. graduates provided a

descriptive profile of factors that respondents felt facilitated or inhibited their success. Adviser

support/help, staying motivated, personal internal qualities such as perseverance, determination,

and belief in oneself facilitated completion. Factors inhibiting completion were issues with

advisers/chairs, university processes/procedures, the amount of work involved, a lack of

feedback or interaction about their dissertation topic, family issues, or personal issues such as

lack of self-discipline or procrastination. Overall, adviser/chair support or caring was a critical

success factor.

Dedication

To Bogie Cugno thank you for your 20 years of love and support.

vi

Acknowledgments

Dr. David Drew

David truly enabled completion of this dissertation. He stands alone among the 95

professors I had while pursuing a bachelor’s degree, two master’s degrees, a California State

Single Subject Teaching Credential, and this Ph.D. I am so lucky to have you as my dissertation

chair and champion via your support and wizardry with funding, deans, and negotiating a

multitude of things on my behalf. Thank you, for the dozens of phone calls you made to me

during the process. In addition, your support and confidence in my skills, abilities, dedication,

and integrity to produce quality work made the process less difficult to move through.

I would like to acknowledge Pitzer College for awarding me a New Resource Scholarship

so I could finish my junior and senior year at a four-year institution. The running head start

Pitzer gave me was monumental in my intellectual growth through discourse / debate, rigorous

academics, and in showing me ways to see the world from different perspectives.

From my bachelor’s work, Dr. Richard Stahler-Sholk (political studies) and Dr. Lourdes

Arguelles who taught me how to see the world from different perspectives through innovative

coursework that challenged preconceived and previously accepted notions about politics, culture,

spirituality, and sexuality. Dr. Sharon Snowiss my adviser in both of my undergraduate majors–

Political Studies and Gender & Feminist Studies. Sharon, taking that bioethics course you

recommended was critical because I gained insight into issues from different theoretical points of

view. Thank you.

Thank you to Dr. Mary Poplin (CGU), who made me want to excel as a scholar; you

challenged us in the pedagogies course and made me think about the loss of spirituality in higher

education. You contributed toward my rigorous approach toward my dissertation topic.

vii

In the Master of Applied Women’s Studies program at CGU, Dr. Lourdes Arguelles

provided continual insight on culture, community, and belief systems that helped me revisit my

view of the world and my place in it. Moreover, this amazing woman agreed to be on my

dissertation committee after retiring “Professor Emerita.” Thank you for taking the time away

from your other works to be on my committee. You said students write but do not always say

anything, I hope I did!

During the teacher-credentialing program at California State University, San Bernardino

(fall 2003 to fall 2005) I met Alex Aitcheson who taught courses that provided advice and

practical knowledge in K-12 teaching.

To Dr. Erin Lopez-Cadena–thank you for being a friend and accepting me into your

family. I gained professional confidence working with you but more importantly, you showed

me that family does not have to be blood-related; they just have to show love and care.

Mark Martin a good friend who gave me an ear when I needed one and was always

caring toward me. Jessica Martinez we share some of the same experiences and set backs; talking

to you has always been easy because you never judge and understand what it feels like to be

different.

viii

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1. Introductory Statement and the Problem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Importance of the Study. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Study Rationale. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Previous Studies and their Limitations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Definitions of Terms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Review of Literature. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Hypotheses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Delimitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Organization for the Remainder Dissertation Chapters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

CHAPTER 2. Review of Literature. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Evolution of Doctoral Degrees and the Dissertation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

The German influence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

The Yale influence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

The Johns Hopkins University influence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Progression of the doctorate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Research on and the Prevalence of Attrition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Disciplines susceptible to attrition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Time to degree completion/doctorate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Public versus private C&Us . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

CGS study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Institutions and attrition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Limitations of previous studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

The Institution: Enabling PhD Completion and Inhibiting Attrition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

C&U recruitment, admissions policies, expectations, and fit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Institutional data gathering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Hierarchy marginalization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Institutional services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Financial factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Institutional policies and interventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Creating peer interaction opportunities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

ix

Ways institutions can help students persist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Socialization and the dissertation process. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Structure and transition to the independent dissertation process. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Facilitating completion when students get stuck. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Sense of community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Community/ies of practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Connectedness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Emotional support. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Advisers/Advising Factors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Advisers: chosen or assigned . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Regular meeting or correspondence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Adviser workloads and time for students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Adviser-student relationship and exhibiting care . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Student Issues Affecting Dissertation Completion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Choosing or agreement of a dissertation topic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Planning scheduling. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

Type or way of writing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

Ambiguity and self-direction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Feelings of isolation or alienation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Spouse/significant other/domestic partner and family . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

Personal Internal and Psychological Factors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

Self-efficacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Perfectionism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

Procrastination. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

Self-handicapping. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . 81

Locus of control. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

Literature Review Closing Discussion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

CHAPTER 3. Methodology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

Survey design. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

Research questions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Survey instruments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

x

Survey instrument 1: Dissertation Completion Factors Survey (long survey) . . . . . . 89

Survey instrument 2: Dissertation Completion Factors Survey-2 (short survey) . . . . 90

Participants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

Recruitment and survey distribution via social networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

Social network sites chosen for recruitment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

Logging searches and results. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Creation of a dedicated email address. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

Searches to locate and attract possible participants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

Recruitment texts employed to attract possible participants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

Protecting participant identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

Coding created for survey participants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

Quantitative and Qualitative Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Quantitative Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

Qualitative Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Data Analysis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Concluding comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

CHAPTER 4. Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

Study demographics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

Total participants for long survey and short survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

Total ABD and PhD participants from both surveys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

Gender of ABD and PhD participants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Participant ethnicity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

Type of college or university (CorU) and program. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

Employment status during the dissertation process. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

Social media results. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

Demographics summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

Quantitative Results. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

Quantitative survey question results. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

Question 1a to 1f . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

Question 2a to 2f . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

Question 3a to 3h. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

Question 4a to 4e. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130

Question 5a to 5i . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134

xi

Question 6a to 6d. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

Question 7a to 7b. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

Question 8a to 8c. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

Question 9a to 9d. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

Question 10a to 10d. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

Question 11a to 11c. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

Correlation of questionnaire variables with the key variable Question 10c “I felt

confident I could finish my dissertation and graduate”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . 161

Concluding quantitative remarks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164

Correlation results summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170

Qualitative Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

Qualitative analysis of open-ended questions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

Most difficult factors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176

Most difficult institutional policies, procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176

Most difficult adviser/chair factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

Most difficult dissertation committee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

Most difficult preparedness and transition dissertation process factors . . . . . . . . . . 179

Most difficult funding and finance factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180

Most difficult marginalization factors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180

Most difficult personal skills. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

Most difficult employment factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

Most difficult outside assistance factor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

Most difficult environmental factors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

Most difficult time issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184

Most difficult “diversion” factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

Most difficult spouse/family factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

Most difficult personal internal factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186

Most difficult isolation factor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

Helped most factors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

Helped most institutional policies, procedures, and services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

Helped most adviser/chair factors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188

Helped most dissertation committee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

Most helpful faculty factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

xii

Most helpful peer/cohort factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

Most helpful funding and finance factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

Most helpful dissertation writers not from the home campus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

Most helpful outside help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

Most helpful SocNets and web sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

Most helpful support from friends. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

Most helpful spouse/significant other, and family factors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

Most helpful structure/routine (personal) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194

Most helpful “diversion” factors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

Most helpful motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

Most helpful personal internal comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196

Qualitative results closing summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

CHAPTER 5. Findings, Limitations of the Study, Recommendations, and Conclusion . . . 200

Findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200

Findings using research questions to corroborate hypotheses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200

Closing summary of RQs to corroborate this study’s hypotheses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

Study limitations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

Recommendations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

Recommendations for institutions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

Maintain student contact information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

Create exit surveys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

Prepare departments and faculty to assist ABD/DCs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215

Recommendations for faculty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215

Recommendations for ABD/DCs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

Recommendations for ABD/DC researchers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218

Recommendations for social media recruitment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218

Recommendations for future research. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219

Increasing the number of male participants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219

Closing Statement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220

Appendix A. Definitions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234

Appendix B. Long Survey Consent Form. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

Appendix C. Long Survey 36 Questions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

xiii

Appendix D. Short Survey Consent Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246

Appendix E. Short Survey 26 Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249

Appendix F. Open-Ended Responses Placed in Four Groups then Categorized by

Topic. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . 253

Appendix G. Group Posts and Recruitment Texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261

Appendix H. Example of Search word/term checklist for SocNet sites and Types of

doctorates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . 263

xiv

List of Tables

Table 1. Factor Grouping Acronyms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Table 2. Limitations Related to Sample or Participant Pool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Table 3. Limitations Due to Research Methodology, Design, or Distribution. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Table 4. Adviser Factors that Enable or Inhibit Dissertation Completion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Table 5. Factors that Enable Dissertation Completion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Table 6. Reasons Non-Completers Gave For Leaving Their Studies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Table 7. Limitations of Previous Studies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Table 8. Phases

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