The Malleability of Higher Education Study Environment Factors and Their Influence on Humanities Student Dropout—Validating an Instrument

Abstract

In this article, we investigate how tertiary humanities students’ perceptions of the study environment, dropout considerations, and background variables, respectively, explain variations in dropout. Based on Tinto’s Institutional Departure Model and a systematic review of the dropout literature, the study environment comprised an academic system, a social system, and teaching. Multivariate statistical analyses in the form of explorative factor analysis and logistic bivariate regressions were used on half-early register and survey data from all humanities students at a Danish university [University of Southern Denmark], matriculated in 2017–2019. This article found that students’ perceptions of their study environment explained between 15.8% and 36.9% of dropout, whereas dropout considerations and background parameters explained only between 0 and 9.1% and between 7.9 and 21.4% of dropout, respectively. We hereby present and discuss the results obtained during different terms. The discussion revolves around the proposed research instrument and the longitudinal research methodology, as well as around what we could learn from this study about being a humanities student and about study environments that could help us increase the number of graduates.

Keywords

• dropout
• study environment factors
• humanities
• Tinto
• teaching quality
• malleability