Student drop‐out from a distance education project course: A new method of analysis

A study of student attributes and achievements in previous Open University courses was undertaken to find out what affect they had on the drop‐out rate and achievements on a project work course. A special case of multidimensional analysis called partial order scalogram analysis has been employed in this research. The main aim of the study was to help the staff when advising prospective students (of various drop‐out risks) and to distinguish between students requiring different levels of assistance on the course. The findings, based on a sample of 445 students from 1982–;88, indicate that particular attributes such as occupation affect the drop‐out rate, while achievement in the project course appears to be influenced by the students’ performance in some previous courses.