Advising from Community College to University: What It Takes for Underrepresented Transfer Students in STEM to Succeed

Harper, Raquel; Thiry, Heather

doi:10.1080/10668926.2022.2050842

Cited by 14 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…This means that aspects of students’ community college experiences motivate them to pursue STEM, raising questions about how STEM interest and choice to pursue a STEM transfer pathway emerge and develop during community college attendance (Crisp & Nuñez, 2014; Wang, 2013b). Previous research points to the importance of validating experiences—in the form of STEM course-taking success (Cohen & Kelly, 2019), faculty and advising support (Harper & Thiry, 2022; Zhang & Ozuna, 2015), and engagement with mentors, academic support outside class, and transfer preparation and readiness programming (Johnson et al, 2016)—as being positively associated with student choices to pursue STEM transfer pathways during community college. Recent research also finds that students’ career goals and opportunities to connect with STEM professionals during community college influence student success by enabling them to see how their majors align with their career goals (Loomer, 2021; Smith et al, 2021).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Navigating STEM Major and Transfer Destination Choices: Community College Student Experiences through the Lens of Practice Theory

Zahner

2023

Community College Review

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Objective/Research Question: This research explores how community college students, who are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields and aspire to vertical transfer in STEM make choices about majors and transfer destinations. The question is important to advancing equity in STEM, which continues to perpetuate disparities in attainment for minoritized, first-generation, and financially disadvantaged students, who disproportionately enter higher education in community colleges. Methods: Using a longitudinal, qualitative research design, the study relied on semi-structured interviewing to generate in-depth evidence about student experiences. Results: Findings showed that career goals were uniformly influential to students, yet career information was unevenly available or comprehensible during community college. Students’ choices about what to major in and where to transfer were iterative and intertwined, with these choices deeply connected to students’ families and lifetime priorities. Delays in student decision-making tended to have less to do with uncertain individual preferences than to lack of information about a specific STEM major and its alignment with possible future degrees, transfer destinations, and career pathways, as well as contingencies associated with the transfer admission process. Conclusions/Contributions: This research demonstrated STEM-specific nuance in how underrepresented community college students navigate major, career, and transfer destination decision-making as well as the influence of family and location-based priorities in student choices. Future research should investigate how to best provide directional support for students’ major and transfer destination decisions, including major-to-career awareness and the academic and personal dimensions of transfer.

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Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Navigating STEM Major and Transfer Destination Choices: Community College Student Experiences through the Lens of Practice Theory

Zahner

2023

Community College Review

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“…Similarly, transfer shock has also been shown to be exacerbated for historically marginalized STEM students ( e.g. , women, Black students). ,− Understanding all facets of the transfer student experience is important, especially as such transfer students entering a predominately white institution do not feel as though they belong and are more likely than white students to be dissatisfied with the university. , This pattern has not been without contradictory studies: Starobin et al found that women in STEM who transferred from a two-year institution to a four-year research-intensive institution had a smoother transition with greater cultural capital ( i.e. , academic preparation, self-efficacy, network of support from advisors, faculty) and social capital ( i.e.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The four-year institution plays a key role in the future success of transfer students. , Primary roles within four-year institutions that support transfer students include, but are not limited to, advisors, faculty members, and campus tutoring services. , However, there are still barriers and stigmas against transfer students. Lopez and Jones found that the more STEM transfer students felt that they belonged and less “like a number,” the more likely they were to succeed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Motivation Differences in First-Semester Organic Chemistry: A Comparison between First-Time-in-College Students and Transfer Students

Frost,

Rocabado,

Pratt

et al. 2024

J. Chem. Educ.

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Transfer students are a growing population at four-year higher education institutions, especially in STEM degree programs. Though much work has explored the broad transfer student experience, the experience of these students within specific courses is understudied. Furthermore, knowledge of how transfer students approach STEM courses and their affective experience is lacking. We report, herein, on the motivation differences between first-time-in-college students, Florida community college transfer students, and transfer students from non-Florida community college institutions in the first semester of an introductory organic chemistry course. We use the Academic Motivation Scale-Chemistry, an assessment previously used in multiple general chemistry and organic chemistry course contexts including at our study site, to measure motivation. We found a lack of evidence for a difference between motivation for all admission types, even though there are persistent differences between these groups' course performances. This finding challenges the assumption that transfer students are less or differently motivated than their peers. A goal of reporting this work is to place emphasis on the importance of faculty members knowing the students enrolled in their courses particularly beyond gender or race/ethnicity demographics, exploring the unique learning experiences of students in their courses, and how faculty members play an important role in the success of students in their courses beyond content learning.

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“…Engineering programs at universities enroll fewer underrepresented students. The silver lining is that traditionally underrepresented students in engineering programs are overrepresented at community colleges (Harper & Thiry, 2022), which provides a valuable pathway for many of these students to pursue STEM education. Underrepresented Groups (URGs) of students refer to the intersections of multiple marginalized identities; for example, first‐generation college student, gender, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, veteran, a person with a disability, and gender identity are all components of marginalized identities (Mishra, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Community values: Exploring what undergraduate engineering students value in their community college experience

Maitra,

Coley,

Greene

2023

New Drctns Community Coll

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Previous research exploring the lived experiences of marginalized groups of students in STEM at community college settings is limited, despite the fact that community colleges have the potential to create pathways to 4‐year engineering degrees and diversify the STEM workforce. This study explored what underrepresented students in STEM valued most as they navigated community college. We conducted nineteen semi‐structured narrative interviews. Our findings suggested that the students found some of the values implicit compared to other explicit values mentioned by the participants. For example, they valued intimate class size, invested faculty, available tutors, and financial support as explicit values. They appreciated the low‐pressure environment, directional support, networking opportunities, and hands‐on learning as implicit values associated with their college experience. Our research has a direct implication on how such experiences influence students’ chosen pathways toward engineering careers, and institutions can learn directly to establish programs with an understanding of what they value.

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Advising from Community College to University: What It Takes for Underrepresented Transfer Students in STEM to Succeed

Cited by 14 publications

References 35 publications

Navigating STEM Major and Transfer Destination Choices: Community College Student Experiences through the Lens of Practice Theory

Navigating STEM Major and Transfer Destination Choices: Community College Student Experiences through the Lens of Practice Theory

Motivation Differences in First-Semester Organic Chemistry: A Comparison between First-Time-in-College Students and Transfer Students

Community values: Exploring what undergraduate engineering students value in their community college experience

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