| Many doctoral students reach the final stage of their doctoral matriculation and for one or more reasons withdraw from the program prior to degree completion. The purpose of this study was to develop the Autonomous Learning Environment Scale (ALES), an instrument to measure doctoral-level learning environments in the context of autonomous learning. This study investigated one suspected cause of graduate-level attrition: the learning environment experienced by the PhD candidate during the coursework phase of his or her doctoral journey. Two populations of interest were studied: individuals self-identified as permanent, all-but-dissertation adults (noncompleters) and doctoral program graduates (completers). Each participant must have been enrolled in a dissertation-required doctoral program. The method for the development of the ALES required thorough research of current autonomous learning and learning environment literature. Participants were located initially via snowball methodology and then by cluster sampling via U.S. community colleges. Principal component analysis was used to determine factor loadings. Reliability was evaluated via Cronbach's alpha (alpha = 0.961) and test--retest, r = 0.801. Inferential statistics indicated the survey was not a good predictor for noncompleters, but some interesting statistics were revealed regarding graduation odds of ethnicity, gender, and public versus private institutions. |
