Student Flow in a University Department: Results of a Markov Analysis

Abstract

Most of the applications of Management Science reported in the literature have been macroanalytic studies requiring massive expenditures of time and money, rather than useful applications for small systems involving little effort and cost. One such application was made at the University departmental level in which a Markov analysis was employed to study the progression of doctoral students to completion (with periods of nonenrollment accounted for) to determine if the number of current admissions was creating an undesirable future dissertation overload for supervising professors. The department unanimously approved the recommendation based on the study. Problems of implementation were avoided by having a department member (1) participating in the model development and data gathering and (2) presenting the results of the analysis to department members.