The Role of the Department and Discipline in Doctoral Student Attrition: Lessons from Four Departments

This paper explains doctoral student attrition as a consequence of inadequate academic integration, a concept developed to explain undergraduate attrition. Theoretically, poor integration results from either isolation from or mismatch with the departmental (local) or disciplinary (national) communities. Interviews with students who left four departments at one university reveal six reasons (each present in at least three of the departments) that fit into a modified framework. A third category, “the discipline as filtered through the department,” is added.