Retention and progression of postgraduate business students: an Australian perspective

Abstract

This paper presents the findings of an exploratory case study that investigated factors affecting the retention and progression of postgraduate business students at a major Australian distance education university. The majority of prior research addressing student retention focuses on undergraduate on‐campus students, while this research investigated the postgraduate distance education context. The findings of this research indicate that a range of factors, in many cases different to those identified in the student retention literature, impact upon retention and progression in this context. This paper concludes with implications for distance education providers and recommendations for further research.

Keywords:

• retention
• progression
• student attrition
• postgraduate
• business
• Australia

Acknowledgement

The authors wish to thank Jodie Druce for the time and effort she invested in transcribing the interview recordings on which this paper is based.