Examining significant predictors of students’ intention to drop out

Abstract

The objective of this study was to determine if core self-evaluation traits, burnout, disengagement, social support and career decision making difficulties are significant predictors of university students’ intention to drop out. A cross-sectional design and non-probability sample (N=782) was used. The participants were grouped as students with no intention to drop out (n=501) and students with the intention to drop out (n=280). These two groups were enclosed as the dependent variable in the logistic regression analysis. The variables included in the final model predicted between 13% and 18% of the variance in intention to drop out. In the final step of the logistic regression, significant predictors of the intention to drop out were lack of self-esteem, cynicism, lack of dedication and lack of information on ways of obtaining information (p < 0.05).