Abstract
The time taken to earn doctorates is of major importance to administrators and faculty. By using stepwise multiple regression techniques, this study predicted time to doctorate from the available demographic, academic, and financial variables and determined the significance of each variable on time to the doctorate. The data for this study came from the National Research Council's Doctorate Records File extract prepared for UCLA. This institution is particularly appropriate for a study of this kind, since it annually awards over 400 doctorates in over 75 different majors. Its doctoral recipients represent the range of academic fields of study. The results of this study indicated that source of support was the most important variable in predicting time to doctorate. Following source of support were postdoctoral plans, number of dependents, sex, and field of study. Together these variables explained a significant amount of variation in the criterion variable.
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Abedi, J., Benkin, E. The effects of students' academic, financial, and demographic variables on time to the doctorate. Res High Educ 27, 3–14 (1987). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00992302
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00992302