Stories as perspectives and interests: approaches and issues in conceptualising student attrition and retention at Central Queensland University

Abstract

This paper draws on the principles of textual and thematic analysis (Rowan, 2001) to examine a selection of statements about student attrition and retention at Central Queensland University, gleaned from an intensive, semi-structured conversation conducted by the authors in January 2005, focused on thematically clustered reflections arising from their research into the topic to date. Stories, understood as perspectives and interests, are found to be highly informative about learning from change in terms of these significant university issues.