<p> Nearly one-half of doctoral students will never finish their program of study. This statistic is alarming. There is a need for an additional method to assess applicants, aside from prior academic success, in order to best identify those that will not only perform well in courses, but also have the psychosocial skills to persist to degree attainment. The purpose of this study was to evaluate an intentionality rubric which was found to have evidence of initial construct validity. Intentionality is a multivariate construct comprised of five domains: motivation, beliefs, goal-setting, goal-seeking, and self-efficacy. Such domains have been found to be important for pursuit of long-term goals. Doctoral students require high intentionality as there is not only coursework to complete, but dissertation research as well. Students need both the academic potential to complete the coursework and intentionality to maintain the journey. Doctoral students and faculty from a university in the Southwest participated in this study. With the rubric evaluated, tests were done of prompts to confirm that intentionality could be elicited in writing samples. The study found evidence of initial construct validity and confirmed that intentionality could be elicited from prompts. A recommendation for incorporating intentionality writing and evaluation into curriculum was offered with suggestions that additional research be conducted on the relationship between intentionality and success. </p><p> <i> Key Words:</i> Intentionality; attrition, university admission, goal setting; goal seeking, statement of purpose, self-efficacy, purpose, projective writing, psychosocial evaluation</p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PROQUEST/oai:pqdtoai.proquest.com:3587568 |
| Date | 28 August 2013 |
| Creators | Jones, Jennifer Marie |
| Publisher | Grand Canyon University |
| Source Sets | ProQuest.com |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis |
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