Essay On Student Dropout

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3 LITERATURE AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
3.1 Introduction
Student retention is one of the most widely studied areas in HE (Tinto, 2006). Since the early 70’s theorists have pondered the causes of college drop-out rates. In this section I will review the main thread of student drop-out literature, focussing on the core literature addressing reasons for students to drop-out with a specific focus on the impact of financial support to students. The main purpose of this section is to provide understanding of key concepts and to provide a theoretical basis for addressing the research questions.
The section is set out as follows: The first movement will briefly highlight and provide context on key issues when analysing drop-out rates. This will be …show more content…

According to Scott et al (2007) the most accurate why to analyse drop-out is to analyse cohort studies. Cohort studies track the number of students in a cohort to graduate after three, four or five years. Detailed cohort data has however only recently become available in South Africa (Scott et al., 2007). Measuring student throughput is further complicated because students do not follow linear paths through HE. Students may complete one year of a course and then move to a different course or to a different institution. While these appear as 'drop-outs ' in measures of the course or institution in question, they may go on to be successful graduates elsewhere (Scott et al., 2007: 12).
3.2.3 Research

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