Connectedness Needs of External Doctoral Students
Institutional concern about attrition rates of doctoral students raises the question of whether these students withdraw from a program due to perceptions of a lack of connectedness to supervisors, peers or for other reasons. The Doctoral Student Connectedness Scale was incorporated into a study of communication challenges faced by 41external doctoral students in two faculties of an Australian university. A three-factor structure of connectedness needs emerged, namely a student-to-student connectedness, a student-to-faculty connectedness, and a student-to-supervisor connectedness. Although the scale has a high reliability, the factor structure in this Australian study is more complex than in the American study from which the scale derives. The results indicate that there may be less than desirable levels of connectedness between students, their supervisors and peers. Interventions may be developed to offer external doctoral students a more complete learning experience through enhancing the teaching and supervision strategies of supervisors.