Academic difficulties, wrong choice of study programme or a lacking sense of belonging? - Reinvestigating the reasons for early dropout

What leads beginner students to break off their higher education experience and drop out? Based on Vincent Tinto’s seminal analysis of student departure, the following study identified three main reasons for early dropout: (1) the wrong choice of study programme, (2) academic difficulties and (3) the “failure to become or remain incorporated in the intellectual and social life of the [higher education] institution” (Tinto 1993). Feeling out of place, having little to no contact with other students or just difficulties in finding one’s way in the new, often anonymous university environment can make it hard to start out and succeed in higher education.

Using a survey developed within the international ENTRANTS project that investigates beginner students’ sense of belonging in detail (habitus issues, relationship to students and teachers, motivation, anonymity, family support etc.) while also gauging the other two reasons (ability to follow content, satisfaction with chosen study programme/discipline etc.), the following study tests Tinto’s model at one university and arrives at surprising results. It can show for this specific institutional case which aspects of Tinto’s model weigh most strongly on the dropout-decision and for which groups of students.

The study is thus able to delineate clear-cut recommendations to counteract and prevent early dropout and to focus support in the areas and to student groups that need it.