| The purpose of this study was to investigate psychological variables related to doctoral attrition in psychology comparing Successful Degree Graduates (SDG) and All But the Dissertation (ABD) students. The research was conducted to further understand dependent variables, such as fear of success and dependency needs, between ABDs and SDGs. The sample included 66 doctoral students from a private institution in Southern California, 45 were SDGs and 21 were ABDs. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to compare ABDs and SDGs in their relationship to fear of success and dependency needs. Terms tested were age, gender, student status, marital status, psychological condition, physical condition, and economical condition. Results from this study did not support the hypotheses that H1 - ABD will exhibit significantly (.05) high fear of success (FOS) attributes than SDGs and H2 - ABD will exhibit significantly (.05) high dependency traits than SDGs. |
