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The meaning that each transfer student derives from a particular learning experience is unique and each individual's experience is filtered through their personal understandings, beliefs, and values. This purpose of this study is to gain an understanding of how transfer students interpret and talk about their transfer experience. The life of transfer students is generally not accessible through objective instruments and quantitative approaches. Through the use of qualitative methods this research study will assist the profession in gaining an understanding of the transfer student voice and expand the breadth and depth of knowledge about the transfer students' experience in higher education. Twenty-three transfer students at a four-year institution and eight faculty or administrators that work directly with those transfer students were interviewed. A common factor that all students in the study experienced was attendance at a community college before transferring to the university. The themes that developed as students made meaning of their transfer experience are: (1) how their community college experience frames their interpretation of their university experience; (2) individuality and transition within the context of university culture; (3) navigation and negotiation of the university environment. The discussion includes recommendations to future transfer students from the transfer student voice and a description of institutional conditions that help the community college transfer student's chances of succeeding at the four-year institution. This research adds to the limited qualitative research on students' perceptions of their transfer experience, suggesting that the transfer experience is the result of a combination of efforts made by the student, community college, and the university. Transfer students will take responsibility for their education but they are looking for a foundation for their experience through understanding the university culture. Understanding how transfer students make meaning of the transfer experience at the four-year institutions helps to improve our conversations with transfer students and direct efforts to enhance academic integration, validation, and student success.
There is a plethora of research available on students and the barriers they face in transferring to a university, such as transfer processes, articulations, pathways, 2+2 plans, institutional agents, and financial issues. However, in rural areas of Texas, little research is available on the barriers students endure in transferring from community colleges to four-year universities. The purpose of this qualitative, phenomenological study was to determine the transfer barriers faced by a community college student population and the support services needed for their successful transfers to four-year universities. The framework that guided this study was transfer student capital and transfer shock. Transfer shock is when a student transfers from community college to university and experiences culture shock in the university culture. Transfer student capital is the support needed for transfer students. The researcher gathered the data through one-on-one interviews with 15 community college students who transferred to a four-year university. Prior to the interviews, each participant completed a presurvey consisting of questions about their community college experiences, including support received on transferring and how it impacted their decisions to transfer to a university. Participants shared in interviews that their major barriers for transferring from the community college to a university were academic advising, personal issues, and inadequate collegiate services for transfer students, such as enrollment services, financial services, and university support programs.
Meaningful school reform starts with your most powerful partner—your students! When you take time to listen, you’ll find that students’ aspirations can drive your school toward exciting new goals—and when students know they’re being heard, they engage meaningfully in their own academic success. Using examples drawn from student surveys, focus groups, observations, and interviews, this groundbreaking book presents a blueprint for a successful partnership between educators and students. You’ll discover how to: Ask the right questions—and understand how to build from the answers Engage students in decision-making and improvement-related processes Implement the Aspirations Framework to guide students toward their full potential
Over the last 40 years, the expansion of the U.S. community college system resulted in a growing number of students choosing to begin their undergraduate education at a two-year institution and then transfer to a four-year institution. However, many students struggle to establish connection after transferring, especially if they transfer into a commuter university. For many college students, feelings of engagement and connection influence their persistence decisions. Using Tinto's and Astin's theories of student persistence as a framework, the purpose of this in-depth interview study is to explore how commuter community college students who transfer to Portland State University in Portland, Oregon experience connection to the university. This study also aims to identify how commuter community college transfer students become connected to PSU and how the connection experiences for these students change over time. This in-depth interview study explores the connection experiences of 14 commuter community college transfer students who transferred as college juniors. Students were at different points after transferring at the time of their interviews. This study suggests that commuter community college transfer students enroll at four-year universities with no intention of connecting to the institution. Instead, students initially focus on their academic progress. Students then establish instrumental relationships with faculty and classmates as needed in order to progress in their academics. Only once students establish strong connections with faculty and classmates do they begin to establish social relationships that provide additional forms of social support outside of the support they receive from their home social systems.
Published in partnership with the National Institute for the Study of Transfer Students. Analysis of bachelor’s degree completion suggests that only about a third of college graduates attend a single institution from start to finish. More than one quarter earn college credits from three or more schools before completing a degree. For most, these student-defined pathways lead to increased time-to-degree and higher costs. Many will simply drop out long before crossing the finish line. Ensuring college completion and success requires an understanding of the evolving nature of transfer transitions and a system-wide approach that reaches beyond two-year and four-year institutions to include high schools participating in dual enrollment programs and military college initiatives. A new edited collection offers insight into institutional and statewide partnerships that create clearly defined pathways to college graduation and career success for all students.
With over 60% of college graduates attending multiple institutions (United States Department of Education, 2006), many starting at community colleges, the importance of understanding community college transfer students' stories is critical to retention and graduation agendas at colleges and universities nationwide. Schlossberg's Transition Theory has recently been introduced into higher education literature as a conceptual framework for working with various student populations such as student veterans (Wheeler, 2012; Rumann, 2010); student athletes (Henderson, 2013); and students on academic probation (Tovar & Simon, 2006) among others. Minimal work has incorporated Schlossberg's Transition Theory into studies of community college transfer students; thus this study was developed to help fill that gap of understanding their transition through that lens. The central question to the study was "how do community college transfer students perceive their transition into a large research, land-grant institution." This phenomenological qualitative study incorporated journaling and interviews with 12 full-time community college transfer students (21-41 years old) at three points during their first semester (fall 2014) at a large Midwestern research institution. Using open, axial, and selective coding, the following five themes emerged: funding the college experience; transition takes time; support is critical; maturity; and personal responsibility. These participants transition experience, as indicated by the emergent themes, fit well within the context of Schlossberg's Transition Theory. Overall, these participants' transition meant an opportunity to move forward, start a new chapter, and expand one's opportunities. Consistent with other studies that have used Schlossberg's Transition Theory, there is value in considering this theoretical framework when working with community college transfer students. When universities create policies and procedures that are geared toward increasing student's assets in Schlossberg's 4-S coping resources and are mindful of the full transition (moving in, moving through, and moving out), administrators, staff, and policy makers can assist in the transition for community college transfer students and provide support to a growing portion of the student population in higher education.
This dissertation tested the constructs of academic and social involvement and adjustment on grades as a pathway to explain community college transfer student experiences beyond the concept of transfer shock. The study contributes to the growing body of literature on Latina(o) community college transfer student experiences with the application of conventional theories of student involvement at a traditional, highly diverse institution. The presence of transfer shock was examined as well as the degree to which the community college transfer student involvement model helped to explain student persistence, as defined by GPA. It was hypothesized that Latina(o) student involvement in social and academic activities would positively contribute to persistence. Factorial analysis of variance was used to test the relationship between two key variables: social and academic involvement and four independent variables: race/ethnicity, age, major, and gender. The analyses focused on seven research questions that examined the relationship between these variables and were conducted with two groups: the total sample of 517 students and a sub-sample of 75 Latina(o) students. The results of the study confirmed that the community college transfer student involvement pathway worked for the large sample. However, the pathway was not a good fit for explaining Latina(o) student involvement experiences. The student engagement construct is reviewed as a better fit for studying underrepresented transfer students' higher education experiences. Limitations of the study are discussed including implications for practice and recommendations for future research.
Students who transfer from a community college to a four-year university have a singular path to travel. Researchers have studied this population for several decades. This research dissertation has built on the findings of these pioneers in the field of transfer student persistence. As a result of this study, two additional pieces of the transfer process have fallen into place. Transfer students are motivated by negative experiences as well as positive experiences. Transfer students who persist to graduation possess the capacity to make crucial adjustments which enable them to overcome numerous obstacles which stand in their way.
Access to higher education in the U.S. is seen as an opportunity for social mobility. California’s Master Plan for Education created a three tier system to provide educational opportunities for its citizens. By design, transfer pathways were implemented to allow students to begin their higher education journey at open access community colleges and transfer into four-year public institutions for bachelor’s degree completion. Institutional support for transfer students, however, is almost non-existent at most four-year receiving institutions (Eggleston& Laanan, 2001). This qualitative study sought to understand the experiences of transfer students who transferred to a four-year receiving institution from a community college and thereafter departed from the university without persisting to degree attainment. I interviewed transfer students about their experiences and the findings contribute to the broader understanding of the transfer student experience. Tinto’s theory of student departure, which emphasizes the importance of institutional transfer receptivity in students’ decisions about persistence and departure, provided a valuable theoretical framework from which to operate. Four major themes emerged at the conclusion of my interviews: recognizing the value of the community college experience; understanding the external opportunities of transfer students; accepting institutional commitment to the transfer agenda; and experiencing the transfer students’ movement from expert to novice in the middle of the post-secondary educational journey. Recommendations urge both higher education administrators to evaluate their institutional commitments to transfer student success and state policy makers to reinvest in the transfer agenda.