A comparative study of factors related to attrition in online and campus based master's degree programs

Using contructs from Tinto's (1975, 1993, 1997, 1998) theory of student integration, Bean and Metzner's (1985; Bean, 1990) student attrition model, and Rovai's (2003) composite persistence model, this study examines how the mode of instructional delivery, campus face-to-face or online, affects dropout relative to students' academic and demographic characteristics. A quantitative study was conducted to analyze the academic and demographic characteristics of newly admitted, matriculated degree-seeking students (N = 640) from Fall 2002 to Fall 2004 in the Master's of Business Administration (MBA) and Master's in Communication Sciences and Disorders (CSDI) at East Carolina University, a national research university in the southeastern United States.; Results of the study found that online students were significantly more likely to dropout than campus based students. Age was found to have a significant unique affect on dropout in both programs with older students more likely to dropout. Academic and demographic variables were not found to be significantly associated with dropout in the online formats of either program. Variables related to dropout for the campus based groups of both programs differed. Campus MBA students who dropped out were older and had higher GMAT scores while campus CSDI students who dropped out had lower undergraduate GPA's and GRE scores. Logistic regression analyses showed age and delivery format to have significant unique effects beyond other predictors on dropout in the MBA program overall while age and undergraduate GPA had significant unique effects beyond other predictors on dropout for the CSDI program.; Factors other than individual student characteristics appear to influence dropout. Reasons for student attrition seem to vary according to program specific characteristics and delivery format. Often viewed as an indicator of program quality, a high dropout rate may be a consequence of student career motivations and program specific characteristics, particularly at the graduate level. Implications for higher education administrators include being attentive to the continued need for assessment of attrition and cognizant of the many variables influencing attrition when guiding enrollment planning and program development efforts.