Purpose This study aims to focus on survey reports of doctoral students’ experiences in the USA, providing a look at factors influencing “in the moment” decisions students make about persistence. Specifically, the authors investigate the reasons doctoral students consider leaving their programs, and how these reasons may differ for international and domestic students. The authors also examine international–domestic patterns by sex and by program of study. Design/methodology/approach As part of a campus-wide doctoral program assessment, doctoral students and recent graduates at a large, public, Research I institution in the Midwest region of the USA are asked to complete a program satisfaction survey. Content analysis of open-ended survey responses is the basis of the analysis. Next, a code by committee approach is used whereby two members of the research team coded all open-ended responses and discussed discrepancies to reach consensus on all codes assigned, and to reduce individual biases. Each open-ended response is assigned at least one of 16 codes, with more than one code used as necessary. Findings The results suggest that, although both academic and social factors are important influences of doctoral departure in general, academic concerns – specifically, alignment with goals, career preparation and program structure – may be particularly important for international students, whereas social aspects – faculty relationships and program climate – may be more important for domestic US students. Research limitations/implications Researchers should consider conducting larger, multi-institutional studies in the USA, which would reflect a diversity of perspectives and experiences within the American context. Parallel studies of doctoral programs in other countries may be useful in identifying whether similar factors are found for international and domestic students attending those programs. Follow-up interviews could be used to further delve into and understand the emergent patterns from the surveys. The findings of such future studies have the power to inform programs and policies designed to increase the retention of both domestic and international doctoral students. Practical implications Given that faculty/advising is one of the most important factors cited by both domestic and international students, our findings suggest that US faculty members may need to give more attention to nurturing supportive relationships with their advisees. Furthermore, American university administrators might consider changing tenure requirements and reward systems for professors to place more emphasis on cultivating positive relationships with advisees, publishing, presenting and writing grants with advisees, and providing high-quality mentoring for doctoral students. Doctoral-granting institutions should consider implementing regular program reviews that include surveys from doctoral students to help programs identify and meet their students’ needs. Originality/value Likewise, while other research on international students’ doctoral experiences has been conducted, such as the relationship with their faculty advisor (Kim, 2007; Rice et al., 2009), single studies that focus on factors affecting the attrition of domestic versus that of international students’ remain limited. The purpose of this study is to address the following research questions: What factors contribute to doctoral students’ considerations of departure in the USA? How might these factors differ between domestic and international students? We seek to expand understandings of doctoral attrition by using larger-scale qualitative data to address limitations of existing studies that focus on the experiences of only a few students.

中文翻译：

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优先顺序不同？

目的这项研究旨在关注美国博士生经历的调查报告，着眼于影响学生做出“持久性”决定的“当下”决定因素。具体而言，作者调查了博士生考虑退出课程的原因，以及这些原因对于国际和国内学生可能有何不同。作者还研究了按性别和学习计划划分的国际国内模式。设计/方法/方法作为校园范围内的博士课程评估的一部分，美国中西部地区一家大型公共研究I机构的博士生和应届毕业生被要求完成课程满意度调查。开放式调查答复的内容分析是分析的基础。下一个，研究人员采用委员会制定的方法，由两名研究小组成员对所有开放式响应进行了编码，并讨论了差异，以便就分配的所有准则达成共识，并减少个人偏见。每个开放式响应均被分配16个代码中的至少一个，并在必要时使用多个代码。研究结果表明，尽管学术和社会因素都对博士生离职产生了重要影响，但学术问题（特别是与目标，职业准备和课程结构的对接）对国际学生而言尤其重要，而社会方面（教师关系）和课程环境–对美国国内学生来说可能更为重要。研究的局限性/意义研究人员应考虑在美国进行大型的多机构研究，这将反映出美国背景下的各种观点和经验。对其他国家的博士课程进行并行研究可能有助于确定是否为参加这些课程的国际和国内学生发现了类似的因素。后续访谈可用于进一步研究和了解调查中出现的模式。此类未来研究的发现有能力为旨在增加留住国内外博士生人数的计划和政策提供信息。实际意义鉴于教师/咨询是国内外学生引用的最重要因素之一，我们的研究结果表明，美国教师可能需要更多地注意与他们的顾问建立支持性关系。此外，美国大学管理者可能会考虑更改教授的任期要求和奖励制度，以更加强调与顾问建立积极的关系，发布，提出和撰写与顾问相关的赠款，以及为博士生提供高质量的指导。授予博士学位的机构应考虑进行定期的课程审查，其中包括来自博士生的调查，以帮助课程确定并满足学生的需求。原创性/价值同样，尽管开展了其他有关国际学生博士生经历的研究，例如与他们的教职顾问的关系（Kim，2007年； Rice等，2009年），但单项研究侧重于影响国内流失率的因素。与国际学生相比仍然有限。本研究的目的是解决以下研究问题：哪些因素促使博士生考虑离开美国？这些因素在国内和国际学生之间可能有何不同？我们试图通过使用更大规模的定性数据来解决现有研究的局限性，即仅关注少数学生的经历，从而扩大对医生减员的认识。