Students\u2019 trajectories through higher education: a review of quantitative research

Christina Haas,Andreas Hadjar

doi:10.1007/s10734-019-00458-5

Abstract

With the increasing availability of high-quality longitudinal data on students in higher education, scholars’ interest in how students proceed through higher education has risen. So far, the research field is diverse in theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches. Thus, based on 27 studies published in (higher) education research journals during the past two decades, this literature review provides an overview of the theoretical concepts, methodologies and main empirical findings in the study of students’ trajectories in higher education. The results depict a US dominated research field. Most theoretical frameworks are based on student’s decision-making. Across different country contexts and research designs—ranging from descriptions of student trajectories to studies predicting who engages in which types of trajectories to sequential trajectory reconstruction—we found that historically disadvantaged groups in higher education such as students from low social origin follow less linear and less smooth higher education trajectories. However, while the field of comparative education is growing steadily and may significantly contribute to explaining the link between the realization of students’ opportunities and the way how higher education is designed and implemented both on the national and local level, there were no cross-country comparison studies on higher education trajectories.

Highlights

While researchers, higher-education (HE) counsellors and policymakers rely on indicators such as access, enrolment and graduation rates, students’ HE trajectories—and Higher Education (2020) 79:1099–1118 continuities and discontinuities in the process of acquiring HE degrees—are an underresearched issue
Our review sample shows that research with a geographic focus on the United States (USA) dominates research on students’ trajectories in HE—a finding that might be explained with reference to the USA’s early HE expansion and diversification and its consequential pioneering role in collecting large-scale longitudinal data on students
As we had to reduce the level of complexity, we restricted our focus to studies using quantitative research designs based on longitudinal data

Summary

Introduction

Higher-education (HE) counsellors and policymakers rely on indicators such as access, enrolment and graduation rates, students’ HE trajectories—and Higher Education (2020) 79:1099–1118 continuities and discontinuities in the process of acquiring HE degrees—are an underresearched issue. Higher-education (HE) counsellors and policymakers rely on indicators such as access, enrolment and graduation rates, students’ HE trajectories—and . Despite agreeing that HE is a crucial educational stage for individual and societal development, researchers’ interest has centred on narrow conceptions of dropout and/or (long) study durations (Melguizo 2011), neglecting the fact that students may leave HE, transfer study programmes or HE institutions, interrupt their studies or slow down the pace of study. Only looking at enrolment and completion/dropout does not allow the identification of certain factors within the educational trajectory that may have led to one or the other outcome. An increasing number of HE researchers perceive variable-centred and single-institution approaches to research on dropout as too narrow to encompass the complex nature of how students proceed through HE today, trajectory research remains scant (e.g. Andrews et al 2014; Bahr 2013; Marti 2008). Since the publication of major articles and reports on students’ trajectories through American HE, the ways in which students proceed through HE have gained some recognition in the US context (Adelman 1999, 2006; Hearn 1992)

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