Conceptualization of Academic Plateau and Recognizing Its Affecting Contextual Factors

Today, one of the most important problems in Iranian higher education is the mitigation of doctoral students’ motivation to finalize their doctoral dissertation in proper and legal time which has posed huge costs on students, domestic higher education system and the country. Considering the concept of plateau, this phenomenon is called academic plateau. Thus, present study aims at conceptualizing academic plateau and recognizing its affecting contextual factors. Present study is a fundamental one and it is a descriptive survey in terms of data collection technique. Its population consists of all doctoral students who have approved their proposals. Finally, 660 students were selected by accessible method and they answered a semi-open questionnaire. All data were analyzed by drawing a contingency table and logistic regression. Findings suggest that about 19% of respondents suffer from academic plateau. Likewise, the findings indicate that among seven thematic variables studied in present research (including gender, the number of half – years to acquire dissertation, marital status, job occupation, type of university (with or without tuition), the importance of doctoral degree in job or in achieving a job, and interest in dissertation subject) two variables namely marital status and type of university have no effect on academic plateau while other variables were effective; in this vein, dissertation subject has the highest impact compared to other variables.