The DOI matches its Crossref record.
Who Stays and for How Long: Examining Attrition in Canadian Graduate Programs
Open accessAbstract
Attrition from Canadian graduate programs is a point of concern on a societal, institutional, and individual level. To improve retention in graduate school, a better understanding of what leads to withdrawal needs to be reached. This paper uses logistic regression and discrete-time survival analysis with time-varying covariates to analyze data from the Youth in Transition Survey. The pre-entry attributes identified in Tinto’s (1993) model of attrition are examined to help uncover who is most likely to withdraw from graduate school. A good academic background is shown to be the strongest predictor of entering graduate school. Upon entry, demographic and background characteristics, such as being married and having children, are associated with a reduced likelihood of completing. Policy recommendations at the department and institution level are provided as well as directions for future research.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
In the citing paper
“Socialization, positive academic experiences, and mentors with similar lived experiences have been shown to support completion rates (DeClou, 2017; Devos et al., 2017; Gardner, 2009).”
From PhD Pathways in Canada: Sociodemographic and Disciplinary Influences That Impact Pathway, Duration, and Outcomes (2026) · cites this paper as DeClou, 2017
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
Still being checked.
Research works printed but not linked: 12
- Bowen, W. G., Chingos, M. M., & McPherson, M. S. (2009). Crossing the finish line: Completing college at America's public universities. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
- Boyd, M. (2009). Social origins and the educational and occupational achievements of the 1.5 and second generations. Canadian Review of Sociology, 46(4), 339-369.
- Breen, R., & Goldthorpe, J. H. (1997). Explaining educational differentials: Towards a formal rational action theory. Rationality and Society, 9(3), 275-305.
- Espenshade, T. J., & Radford, A. W. (2009). No longer separate, not yet equal: Race and class in elite college admission and campus life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
- Espenshade, T. J., & Rodríguez, G. (1997). Completing the Ph.D.: Comparative performances of U.S. and foreign students. Social Science Quarterly, 78(2), 593-605.
- Ishitani, T. T. (2006). Studying attrition and degree completion behavior among first- generation college students in the United States. The Journal of Higher Education, 77(5), 861-885.
- Lehmann, W. (2007). "I just didn't feel like I fit in": The role of habitus in university dropout decisions. Canadian Journal of Higher Education, 37(2), 89-110.
- Lehmann, W., & Tenkorang, E. Y. (2010). Leaving university without graduation: Evidence from Canada's Youth in Transition Survey. In P. Sawchuk & A. Taylor (Eds.), Challenging transitions in learning and work (pp. 49-64). Boston, MA: Sense Publishers.
- Mare, R. D. (1980). Social background and school continuation decisions. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 75, 295-305.
- Mullen A. L., Goyette, K. A., & Soares, J. A. (2003). Who goes to graduate school? Social and academic correlates of educational continuation after college. Sociology of Education, 76(2), 143-169.
- Strauss, L. C., & Volkwein, J. F. (2004). Predictors of student commitment at two-year and four-year institutions. The Journal of Higher Education, 75(2), 203-227.
- Tinto, V. (1993). Leaving college: Rethinking the causes and cures of student attrition (2nd ed.). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Nelson, J., Walters, D., Jones, A., & Jacobs, S. (2026) · International Journal of Higher Education · doi:10.5430/ijhe.v15n1p34
Metadata
- Authors
- DeClou, L.
- Corresponding author
- DeClou, Lindsay
- Venue
- Canadian Journal of Higher Education
- Published
- 2017-01-31
- Volume
- 46
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 174-198
- ISSN
- 0316-1218 (ISSN-L)
- 2293-6602
- OpenAlex
- W2586773386
- Cited by
- 20
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2024: 6 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 1
- FWCI
- 6.83
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- diamond
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by-nc-nd
- Locations
- Canadian Journal of Higher Education (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Education › Higher Education Research Studies
- Social Sciences › Education › Doctoral Education Challenges and Solutions
- Social Sciences › Education › Evasion and Academic Success Factors
- Keywords
- graduate student attrition, student retention
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Who Stays and for How Long: Examining Attrition in Canadian Graduate Programs. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.47678/cjhe.v46i4.185181
- The paper
- DeClou, L. (2017). Who Stays and for How Long: Examining Attrition in Canadian Graduate Programs. Canadian Journal of Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.47678/cjhe.v46i4.185181
