Determinants of students’ completion of postgraduate studies: A case of selected Universities in Uganda

Abstract

Completing a postgraduate programme is a great achievement to the candidate and the institution of higher learning attended. Generally, master's and doctoral programmes in Uganda take a minimum of two and three years, respectively. However, the long time it takes for the majority of postgraduate students to complete their studies, the low success rate, and the high percentage of postgraduate students who terminate their studies and drop out of the system before they graduate have remained a concern. The purpose of this study was to analyze the determinants of students’ completion of postgraduate studies in selected universities in Uganda. The study was guided by four objectives namely; to analyze the relationship between research supervision and students’ completion of postgraduate studies, to examine the relationship between students’ perceived academic psychological state and completion of postgraduate studies, to analyze the relationship between resources availability and students’ completion of postgraduate studies, and to establish the current strategies for effective research supervision in the completion of postgraduate studies. Tinto’s interactionist theory was used to inform the study. The study was anchored in the pragmatic paradigm and its assumptions were employed to achieve all its objectives. A concurrent embedded mixed methods research design was employed. A total of three hundred and Fifty-six (356) participants were sampled from selected universities. Of these 230 were enrolled postgraduate students, 105 lectures/supervisors, 15 heads of department and 3 deans/directors of graduate schools and faculties of education. Both probability and non-probability sampling approaches were applied to select participants. These included simple random probability sampling techniques and purposive non- probability sampling techniques. Quantitative data were collected using a questionnaire that included scales and were analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics with the help of the SPSS 21.0 version. Qualitative data were generated using an interview guide and documentation analysis guide and were analyzed thematically by arranging emerging categories and themes. Results revealed that research supervision and students’ completion had a positive significant relationship (rS = .457, p (.000) < 0.01, N=230), students’ perceived academic psychological state and students’ completion had a positive significant relationship (rS = .243, p (.000) < 0.01, N=230), and resources availability were not significantly related to students’ completion of postgraduate studies (rS = .111, p (0. 094) >0.01, N=230). Ordinal regression findings further revealed that research supervision had a high prediction power of students’ completion of postgraduate studies compared to resources availability and students’ perceived academic psychological state. It was found out that for every unit increase of research supervision, there was a predicted increase of 1.505(P<.05) in the log odds of falling at the higher level onstudents’ completion of postgraduate studies. On the current strategies for effective research supervision in the completion of postgraduate studies, it emerged that supervisors, deans and universities embraced online research supervision, corroborative research supervision approaches, effective coordination, workshops for supervisors and students, motivation and administrative follow-up on the progress of both students and supervisors. It was concluded that research supervision and students’ perceived psychological state are key in students’ completion of postgraduate studies and that availability of resources does not justify timely students’ completion of postgraduate studies. The study recommends that universities should establish support mechanisms for students during their research period, a policy for online research supervision and an active psychological support policy for postgraduate students. The study further recommends that a study on Students’ usability and accessibility of universities’ resources should be conducted in Uganda. This is because the current study revealed that the availability of resources was not significantly related to students’ completion of postgraduate studies.