Ivankova, N: Students‘ Persistence

The purpose of this mixed methods sequential explanatory study was to understand what influenced students‘ persistence in a Distributed Doctoral program in Educational Leadership in Higher Education. In the first, quantitative phase of the study, the research questions focused on identifying the predictive power of ten composite variables, representing selected internal and external factors to students‘ persistence in the program. Five variables best predicting students‘ persistence were: program, online learning environment, student support services, faculty, and self-motivation. In the second, qualitative phase, four case studies explored the results from the statistical tests in more depth. Four themes related to participants‘ persistence emerged: quality of academic experiences, online learning environment, support and assistance, and self-motivation. The results of the quantitative and qualitative phases were integrated while interpreting the outcomes of the entire study. Based on the findings from the quantitative and qualitative phases, a preliminary model of students‘ persistence in a distributed doctoral program was developed.