According to the National Science Foundation, 50% of Black engineering students who have received a bachelor’s and master’s degree attended a community college at some point during their academic career. However, while research highlights the importance of supporting underrepresented racial and ethnic minorities (URMs) in STEM disciplines, there is a dearth of literature focusing on URMs in community colleges who pursue engineering and other science/math-based majors. Further, Black undergraduates in community colleges are often homogenized by area of study, with little regard for their specific major/discipline. Similarly, while engineering education research has begun to focus on the population of community college students, less attention has been paid to unpacking the experiences of racial subgroups of community college attendees. The engineering student transfer process has specific aspects related to it being a selective and challenging discipline (e.g., limited enrollment policies, engineering culture shock) that warrants a closer investigation.
The purpose of this paper is to examine the experiences of a small population of students who have recently transferred from several community colleges to one four-year engineering school. Specifically, we will present preliminary findings derived from interviews with three Black students who started their academic careers at several community colleges in a Mid-Atlantic state, before transferring to the flagship institution of that same state. Interview transcripts will undergo a thorough analysis and will be coded to document rich themes. Multiple analyses of coded interview data will be performed by several members of the research team, as well as external evaluation members who are leading scholars in STEM and/or transfer education research.
This research is part of a larger-scale, three year qualitative study, which will examine the academic trajectories of two distinct groups of Blacks in engineering majors: 1) Blacks born and educated in the United States and 2) Those born and educated in other countries. By looking at these populations distinctly, we will build upon past literature that disaggregates the experiences of Black STEM students who represent multiple identities across the African diaspora. Through this lens, we hope to highlight the impact that cultural background may have on the transfer experience.
The theoretical framework guiding this study posits that the persistence of Black transfer students in engineering is a longitudinal process influenced by the intersection of both individual and institutional factors. We draw from the STEM transfer model, noting that the transfer process commences during a student’s community college education and continues through his/her transfer and enrollment in an engineering program at a four-year institution. The following factors contribute to our conceptualization of this process: pre-college background, community college prior to transfer, initial transfer to the four-year university, nearing 4-year degree completion.
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Broadening conceptions of a “college-going culture”: The role of high school climate factors in college enrollment and persistence
As workforce participation increasingly requires a college degree, ensuring that more students from traditionally underrepresented populations have the opportunity to enter and complete college is an equity imperative. To that end, high school reforms have promoted “college-going cultures” in low-performing high schools through interventions such as rigorous course offerings and college counseling. College access research has focused on issues specific to academics and college-going processes. Yet this research has tended to ignore broader school climate factors such as school safety and extracurricular programming, which may play a critical role in postsecondary opportunity, especially for historically underserved students. The current study applies hierarchical generalized linear modeling to the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002 to 2006 to examine the role of college-going culture and high school climate characteristics on college enrollment and persistence. We find that while some components of college-going culture are associated with the likelihood of college enrollment and persistence, that relationship is moderated by school climate factors. We conclude that efforts to implement a college-going culture may struggle if extracurricular opportunities, school safety, and overall school climate issues are ignored.
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- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10169774
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Policy Futures in Education
- Volume:
- 18
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 1478-2103
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 314 to 340
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1177/1478210319860987
