Assistant Professor of Sociology Matthew Grace recently published a paper in Social Science & Medicine. “Friend or frenemy? Experiential homophily and educational track attrition among premedical students” appears online in the journal’s September issue.
The paper presents a continuation of research Grace is doing on premedical education. This study shows that premedical students who include more premedical peers in their support networks over time are less likely to leave the pre-med career track at the end of an academic year.
Grace supplemented longitudinal survey data with in-depth interviews to explain why such connections are beneficial for students (e.g., peers provide emotional support and help with studying/assignments, advice from more advanced pre-med peers is especially helpful).
