academic and social needs as well as the expectations of students. A huge number of universities across the globe do not notice the sophisticated and complexity of learning to learn at university and that support measures should go beyond ad hoc interventions (Wingate, 2007, p. 392).
This study is anchored in inductive approach to investigate student dropout in order to develop a student support model for lower-postgraduates who are enrolled in open and distance education. It uses the University of South Africa’s advanced communication research that is taught at an honours level as a case in point. This section of the literature focuses on the conceptual framework, discussing the current status of student attrition as well as theoretical lens that have been employed to guide this study – namely, the ‘deficit theory’ and Moore’s (1993) ‘theory of transactional distance’. In the Conkin’s (2002) description of a theoretical framework, it is defined as a conceptual model that serves as a guide to investigate the identified and existing research problem. In research, theory is applied to serve a particular purpose.
Parahoo (2014, p. 144) asserts that the purpose of applying a theory in qualitative research is three-fold, namely:
to help the researcher develop a conceptual framework or model,
to support the researcher’s choice for the research design or paradigm, and
to analyse and interpreted data garnered.
In addition to the mentioned objectives, the conceptual framework can be used to provide descriptions of the ontological phenomenon studied (Sandelowski, 2010). For the purpose of this study, an amalgamation of deficit theory and the theory of transactional distance are adopted to provide descriptive accounts of the phenomenon, analyse collected data on student ‘dropout’ and ‘support’ and to make sense of them in order to develop an all-encompassing student support model for students who are at the lower-postgraduate level (honours). Although some studies do not apply any theoretical lens to investigate the aspect under research, theories provide a useful foundation on which the study can be based through empirical observation (Coughlan, Cronin and Ryan, 2007, p. 660). Theories are primary to investigations of complex issues that make it possible to predict generalisations (Gokool-Ramdoo, 2008, p. 6). Nevertheless, even the pioneering theories are without detractors and their generation are by no means simple practices. Reflective of this
critical postulation, Parahoo (2014, p. 141) offers a criticism that, over the past decades, an overreliance and overemphasis on testing certain prevailing theories and models which were grounded on pseudoscience or speculation were decimally failing to explicate objective accounts and has hindered theory development as a result. In spite of criticisms, exemplified by Parahoo’s (2014, p. 141) assertion, literature points out that theory development is fundamental and possible in qualitative research that wants to apply systematic methods (Layder, 1993).
The necessity for ensuring student support in higher education introduced the use of theoretical lens that entail procedures and strategies to give support to deserving and needy students. The needs of students vary according to contexts relating to, among other things, their differing family backgrounds, frame of references, financial backgrounds, academic backgrounds, age, gender, abilities and educational levels.
Distinctive set of historical backgrounds enthused higher education institutions to develop a range of student support models to address specific students’ needs for different levels of study.
It is central in this study to explore reasons accounting for student dropout in order to determine whether they are located within the students’ home environments as per the philosophy held by the deficit theory; or institutional contexts that seem to have less emphasis in the deficit thinking. Since this study’s context is distance education, exemplified by University of South Africa as a case study, it is equally imperative to probe challenges, which students encounter while learning through distance education institutions. Findings arrived at through these blended theoretical frameworks will enhance an understanding of root causes of student dropout and suggest methods to address the problem. It is envisioned that such findings will enable the development of an integrated student support model that will help address dropout challenges for lower-postgraduates who are involved in distance learning. It is, however, noted that several student support models are already proposed in the literature and focused centrally on undergraduates, particularly first-year level (for example, Ramsay, Jones and Barker, 2007; Wingate, 2007; Scott, Yeld, and Hendry, 2007). Examples of such models include “a framework for student support for learning” (Lee, Srinivasan, Trail, Lewis and Lopez 2011) and “a framework for the coherent and comprehensive
development of learning”, yet there has been minimal attention centred on lower- postgraduate level. The study wanted to fill this void.
Despite an array of theories which were developed to guide research on ‘educational dropout (for instance, ecological theory, the systemic inequality model, independent theory, interactionist theory, Murray’s (2014) competing risks methodology and the communication process model), this study identified some of typical theories evident in the literature which can be adopted to study the dropout phenomenon – namely, Valencia’s (2015) Three-M Model, John U. Ogbu’s Cultural-ecological model, Deficit theory and Moore’s (1993) transactional theory. Other theories which have applied as frames to study dropout involve, among others, an ecological theory in Wood, Kiperman, Esch, Leroux and Trustcott (2016), an attribution theory in Herman (2011) and Kember’s longitudinal-process model of dropout from distance education in De Hart and Venter (2013). In the Valencia’s (2015) assertion, the concept ‘achievement gap’ refers to indicators of academic performance of the mean group variance between students of white communities and those from black communities. Such performance indicators, as epitomised by Valencia (2015, p. xiii), incorporate programme completion ratio and achievement examination performance.
This study identified and briefly expounds the following related models, although only the deficit theory and transactional distance theory are coalesced to investigate student dropout concern in distance education:
2.3.1 Explanatory Sociological Model of the Dropout Process
Spady’s (1970) Explanatory Sociological Model of the Dropout Process that explicate student dropout as a conditional problem. Spady established a model that became influential and is grounded on socialisation and it encompasses, inter alia, friendship support and communal values to study and describe dropout processes. Two conditions that help to expound student dropout in the context of higher education are inherent in this model – specifically, are ‘lack of moral consciousness (normative congruence)’ and ‘lack of collective affiliation (friendship support)’. The former argues that the attrition process embeds an interaction between students and their learning environments within which their variables, such as cognitive abilities, behavioural attitudes and temperaments become conspicuous to expectations, impetuses and
demands from, among other sources, peers, members of the faculties and administrators (p. 79). The model theorises that if both the ‘normative congruence’ and
‘friendship support’ are not factors in the social assimilation, the probability to drop out of educational programmes increases. It also defines dropout as an involuntary outcome that occurs when academic institution disallows students who academically perform below a specific regulated standard to enrol for the programme again. In the dogmas which the model posits, this can occur irrespective of students being highly integrated into the environmental system or highly satisfied. Although Spady’s (1970) Explanatory Sociological Model of the Dropout Process is somewhat comprehensive, it carries potential to draw criticism. For instance, its insertion of involuntary dropout process is closely parallel to Tinto’s (1975, p. 85-90) general criticism of related theories in which he argues that some definitions of ‘dropout’ lacked attention during the formulation stages, confusing ‘dropout’ with what Reisel and Brekke (2009, p. 693) calls ‘stop-out’.
Another popular traditional theory that became the fundamental foundation upon which many other theories were developed [for example, Moore’s (1993) transactional theory of distance] occur is Tinto’s (1975) interactional theory. While the previous discussion and this one dealt respectively with the deficit theory and Explanatory Sociological Model of the Dropout Process, the next section focuses on interactional theory.
2.3.2 Interactionist theory
Tinto (1975) generated an interactionalist theory that became somewhat congruent to the Spady’s (1970) underpinning philosophical dimensions, which were discussed in the former section. This section deals with the interactional theory.
Drawing minimally from economic notion of cost-benefit analysis as well as Durkheim’s (1961) theory of suicide, Tinto founded an institutionally-focused model which is based on socialisation that subsumed, amongst other phenomena, friendship support and shared values to explain the nature of student dropout processes from higher education institutions as opposed to the ones occurring within the system (p. 91).
Durkheim’s theory is rooted on the hypothesis that the more integrated individuals are into the society, the more they are probable to survive; the lesser integrated they
become, the more likelihood for suicide to take place. Tinto’s purpose of developing an interactionalist stemmed from the need to explain interaction that occurs between individual students and higher education institutions, which eventually accounts for dropout of various students. This was achieved by reviewing existing literature and synthesising it. For this reason, Tinto’s (1975) model is potentially discreditable for having been built by merely reviewing related studies (p. 90-91) rather than through an empirical research. Comparable to the Spady’s model, although openly aligned with Durkheim’s theory of suicide, Tinto’s interactionist theory asserts that the higher individual students’ integration into the academic social system, the more likelihood they persevere to study; the less integrated they are, the greater the chance to drop out from higher education institutions. Criticising Durkheim’s theory of suicide, Tinto (p. 92) asserted that it is of no importance in the development of the theory on dropout that is aimed at expounding how different students adopt behaviours that consequently result in dropouts from higher education institutions. He further decried Durkheim’s theory (1961), arguing that it only descriptively identifies certain conditions within which an array of attrition exists.
Whereas there are varied models and theories in the documented literature which have been developed over the past decades to provide explanations about student dropout and its processes, this study identified and discussed some of them, and the conceptual model of non-traditional undergraduate students, is part. The forthcoming section focuses on the conceptual model of non-traditional undergraduate students.
The purpose of this section is to enhance, further, an understanding of the nature and processes students go through that lead them to dropping out from higher education institutions. As in cases of other models and theories identified and discussed, this section will dwell into the philosophical viewpoints posited by the model and briefly provides critiques directed to the model.
2.3.3 Conceptual model of non‐traditional undergraduate
Bean and Metzner’s (1985) conceptual model of non-traditional undergraduate student attrition that is based on two compensatory effects – namely, effects of environmental and academic factors and those of psychological and academic achievements on student dropout. It argues that whereas a high score of academic
performance determines student retention when accompanied by encouraging psychological effects, non-academic variables compensate for low academic achievement rate. Measured in terms of their relationships, the model predicts that students tend to drop out when environmental and academic factors are unfavourable.
It further theorises that environmental factors are highly significant than academic reasons, predicting that even though the academic factors can be favourable, if environmental factors are bad, students will still dropout. On the compensatory effect between the psychological and academic outcomes, the model postulates that students who perform poorly in both are likely to drop out than those whose scores are high in both types of achievements. Over again, the model considers academic support and outcomes as of less importance to student retention. It portends that students are more likely to drop out if they are highly stressed, or have low satisfaction level, low utility level, less motivated to study. It also postulates that dropout is the result of lack of social and academic integration that students experience. The latter makes the model congruent to the philosophical views underpinning Tinto’s (1975) theory. The forthcoming section is based on the popular theory of transactional distance and provides highlights of philosophy held by the theory of transactional distance.
2.3.4 Three‐M Model
Valencia’s (2015) Three-M Model which, in which he theorises (t p. xvii) that in order to stimulate performances of low socioeconomically deprived students of colour (black), a vigorous discourse of complications and resolutions at microlevel, macrolevel and mesolevel is essential.
2.3.5 Cultural‐ecological model (CEM)
John U. Ogbu’s Cultural-ecological model (CEM) that helps researchers to study and expound the performance/success differences among racial groups. It guides researchers that for them to investigate factors that give rise to the students’ failure or dropout, they must first understand the typology of minorities such as, ‘autonomous’,
‘immigrant’ and ‘involuntary’ (Valencia, 2015, p. xv). He argued that members of groups with ‘autonomy’ value an education high and tend to perform academically well
(Valencia, 2015). Ogbu’s theory further posits that students who are part of ‘immigrant’
group do not have adaptation problems and failure, but encounter problems relating to adjustment, acculturation and assimilation. The model claims that those who are members of an ‘involuntary’ group perform below the regulated standard and are unable to adjust with the academic demands (Valencia, 2015, p. xv).
2.3.6 Attribution‐based theory of motivation
Another popular theory that has widely used in studies that sought to explicate student attrition is the attribution theory. The term attribution refers to an explanation of a particular factor that people assert to describe events that occurs to and around them (Weiner, 2010; Herman, 2011, p. 42). There are three aspects of this theory which researcher can examine attributes (Weiner, 2010). The first aspect is ‘stability’ that is based on the likelihood of factors to change of a particular timeframe. The stability dimension encompasses competencies and capabilities. The second aspect of the attribution theory is the ‘locus of causality’ that is oriented towards whether attributions are from within (e.g. competency level, abilities and efforts) or from outside (e.g. lucks).
The final dimension is ‘controllability’ and it measures the perceptions of individuals to determine whether such individual people are able to control the cause or event.
In this study, a combination of deficit and transactional distance theories is used to serve a guide in the process to undertake this research. The ensuing explanatory section provides grounds on why the study adopts these two theoretical approaches.
This is in congruence with Parahoo’s (2014, p. 146) avowal that the option for theories must be justified science there are several theories to investigate the topic. The detailed reviews of these theories as discussed in the plethora of literature are provided later under the banner of this chapter – ‘literature: a traditional (narrative) review’.