As to the environmental factors that may impact student dropout from university, Chap. 2 focuses on rules and regulations that constrain information use, in particular as they pertain to grading procedures. Grading procedures might differ in several respects (e.g., whether students can participate in the grading, or in how far grades actually are valid indicators of performance), and the chapter tracks how far the perceived justice of grading procedures impacts student dropout. Moreover, the chapter takes a look at individual precursors of student dropout.While dropout in itself reflects an outcome of a motivational variable, the chapter investigates how far informational competences of students (cognitive perspective) and social integration with other students (social-interactive perspective) contribute to dropout decisions. The chapter also reports on a large online survey that tracked individual and environmental factors across various academic fields in Tübingen University, and the influence of these factors on student dropout.

In this chapter, an interdisciplinary research group of sociologists and educational scientists discusses how the informational environments of college students influence potential and actual dropout behavior. Previous research has identified academic performance and social integration as the key predictors of student dropout. Our focus is on a further explication of these aspects using information-related factors: media-related competency and information behavior, perceptions of fairness at college, and social integration into university life. Empirical analyses are based on data from a large online survey. We focus on both dropout intentions, as stated in the survey, as well as actual dropouts, as shown in administrative records around 1.5 years after the survey. We find that several factors related to information behavior, justice perceptions as well as social integration, significantly affect dropout intentions. These findings are surprisingly stable across fields of study groups as well as academic performance levels. On the other hand, actual dropouts are much harder to predict in comparison to stated preferences.