Original title: Intensity, association, and situated relevance of reasons for university dropout
José Sánchez-Santamaría, María José Galván Bovaira, Ana Rodríguez, Miguel Angel Nogueira Perez · September 2026
Why do students drop out of college? Researchers often study risk factors or dropout intentions, but they do not know if different ways of measuring students' reasons lead to the same conclusions. To find out, researchers examined how strongly students rated their reasons, how those reasons linked to background traits, and how those reasons unfolded in real life. They found that different ways of measuring reasons only partly agree with each other. Learning-related reasons received the highest intensity scores. However, general academic issues had the strongest links to student traits. In the end, students took two main paths to leaving: a gradual loss of connection to their academic studies, or sudden pressure from outside life events. One single ranking cannot capture dropout reasons.
Imagine you ask friends why they stopped playing a sport. Some say they lost interest, others say they got injured. If you rank reasons by how strongly they feel, losing interest might come first. But when you look at who actually quit, injury might be the real cause because it forced them to stop. Here, the researchers found that the reason students felt most intensely about (like not liking their subject) did not match the reason that best predicted who dropped out (like failing courses) or the reason that mattered in their full story.
Universities often ask dropouts why they left and rank the answers by how strongly students feel about each reason. This study shows that ranking can mislead: the reason students feel most intensely about is not necessarily the one that best predicts dropout or that matters most in their actual trajectory. Interventions based on a single list of reasons may target the wrong issues, wasting resources and failing to retain students.
The study is retrospective and relies on self-reported reasons after dropout, which may be subject to recall bias. The CFA model did not fit well, suggesting the domain structure is not fully confirmed. The sample is limited to four Spanish public universities, so findings may not generalize. The qualitative component used purposive sampling, which may not represent all dropout trajectories.
Ask anything about this paper. Answers come from its abstract, and say so when the abstract doesn't cover your question.
Intensity, association, and situated relevance of reasons for university dropout — José Sánchez-Santamaría, María José Galván Bovaira, Ana Rodríguez et al. — EdArXiv — doi:10.35542/osf.io/e793u_v1
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper. This is a preprint, so it hasn't necessarily been peer reviewed.