Curriculumorganisatie en studievoortgang: een onderzoek onder zes studierichtingen aan de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

In the Netherlands as in most other countries in Europe, there is a great concern about the costs of universty education. The demand for university education has increased and until some years ago each year more students attended university. But not all of these students graduate and the students who do, use more time than the four years of the official program. The policy of the Minister of Education aimed at an increase of completion rates and a reduction of the time to graduate. The last decade in research on study progress as well in policy on university education, factors within the organization of university education have gained more attention. This is in contrast with the sixties and seventies, when student-related factors were more prominent. In this thesis we deal with the following research question: Which model can explain differences in students’ study progress when we regard the effects of the curriculum organization as a starting point? In our research project we investigated the study progress of five cohorts of students (enrollment years 1987-1991) within six different departments at the University of Groningen.