Postgraduate dropout issues at a public university in Malaysia

Abstract

The issue of postgraduate dropout is a global concern as it constantly occurs causing the loss of valuable human capital and there is no exception in Malaysia. Hence, there is a need to explore the factors of dropout based on the genuine experience of postgraduate students to understand the underlying issues. Basically, this study focused on the academic and social issues concerning the reasons why postgraduate students dropped out from their study. This study adopted a qualitative research method where the data was collected through semi-structured interviews. The four purposively selected informants had already dropped out of their Masters and Doctoral degree programmes from a public university in Malaysia. This study found that there were academic issues related to supervision such as postgraduate students lacked experience and knowledge in doing research and academic writing. Conflicts have been identified with supervisors due to different expectations between supervisors and students. The study found that students expected to receive full guidance from supervisors, however supervisors perceived students as immature and expected them to be more independent in their study. This study will provide a basis for the Ministry of Higher Education to solve the dropout issues identified and develop some relevant policies to overcome this issue. In fact, constant effort is needed for the university to ensure postgraduate students were well equipped with necessary academic skills to complete their postgraduate study.