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Healthcare Student Collegiate Honors Decision-Making: A Grounded Theory, Brenda Frie

Culminating Projects in Higher Education Administration

This qualitative study explored high aptitude healthcare students’ decision-making surrounding collegiate honors program participation. The topic of decision-making was relevant; according the National Collegiate Honors Council (2014-2015) the mean four-year honors program completion rate is less than 50% . The primary research question explored how students’ values, knowledge, and experiences influenced decisions to participate in a collegiate honors program. Twenty-five students’ were interviewed representing ten different healthcare professions. The transcribed narratives were analyzed using a constructivist grounded theory method. The result was a model, grounded in the data, which identified the factors associated with decisions to join, decline or drop …