An official website of the United States government
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.
more »
« less
Opening the Black Box of Vertical Transfer Admission: The Experiences of Community College Students in STEM Majors
Better understanding of how students achieve vertical transfer is vital for advancing equity in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) majors. Among the many sources of barriers, delays, and complexities demonstrated in previous research as influencing vertical transfer outcomes, the transfer admission process has been generally neglected. Using a longitudinal, qualitative design, and drawing on transfer capital and field theories, this study investigated how community college students who are underrepresented in STEM fields successfully navigated admission to a four-year institution in a STEM major. Results indicated that students experienced transfer admission as risky and uncertain. They accrued transfer capital over time, in the form of knowledge about transfer admission and strategies to bolster their competitiveness, including regulating their coursework intensity and actively managing their GPAs. Although these forms of transfer capital helped students succeed in transferring, some strategies could backfire, causing unintended negative consequences, such as time-to-completion delays, excess credit accumulation, or disadvantages in securing admission. Results supported the contention that the transfer admission process is a pivotal, yet largely neglected aspect of student experience in STEM vertical pathways. Conclusions provide suggestions for further research and implications for institutional practice.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 1761185
- PAR ID:
- 10412765
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Community College Journal of Research and Practice
- ISSN:
- 1066-8926
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 25
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
The purpose of this study was to highlight factors that support smooth transitions in two-year to four-year transfer in STEM fields for Latinas attending postsecondary institutions in the southwest United States. Through STEM pathway interviews with 20 students at multiple points along their postsecondary experiences, we identified instances of STEM capital mobilization, as well as instances in which students failed to recognize resources as valuable to their success. Our interpretation of student agency in the activation of students’ STEM capital toward real academic or career gains uncovered the act of recognizing a resource as valuable to one’s STEM advancement as an important precursor to STEM capital activation. We address two research questions in this study: (1) What types of capital are available to Latinas as they progress along two-year to four-year STEM academic transfer pathways? And (2) When and how do Latinas in our study activate capital to support momentum along the trajectory, and what serves as friction along the way? Our data indicate differences our participants exhibited in accessing STEM capital made available through formal instruction and cocurricular support services, as well as the differences interviewees exhibited in recognizing STEM capital as potentially beneficial for their learning and advancement in STEM. STEM equity theories of change may make assumptions of students' adeptness at capital recognition which limit the effectiveness of leveling the playing field without changing postsecondary systems of education based on privilege and middle-class mores. The data illustrate the agency participants used in navigating STEM postsecondary transfer pathways, as well as the ways in which negative experiences provided STEM capital in the form of knowledge supportive of future action. Findings from this study illuminate how structural barriers continue to oppress students who are intent on earning STEM postsecondary degrees.more » « less
-
Community colleges have long been touted as a pathway to increase social mobility through their transfer function, yet this promise has not always been realized. This study uses the lens of community cultural wealth, particularly the concepts of aspirational, social, and navigational capitals, to understand vertical transfer students’ experiences and outcomes during the pandemic. Longitudinal interviews were conducted with 27 students over a four-year period as they moved through the transfer pathway in STEM majors. Students who transferred to a university immediately prior to or during the pandemic experienced greater academic and navigational challenges and reported diminished access to social capital. Students employed multiple, informal navigational strategies and drew on social networks, when possible, to maintain their academic progress. Findings also reveal the importance of the transfer-receiving department, especially access to supportive institutional agents, in sustaining STEM transfer students’ progress during COVID-19.more » « less
-
Research has shown that student achievement is influenced by their access to, or possession of, various forms of capital. These forms of capital include financial capital, academic capital (prior academic preparation and access to academic support services), cultural capital (the attitudes, knowledge, and behaviors related to education which students are exposed to by members of their family or community), and social capital (the resources students have access to as a result of being members of groups or networks). For community college students, many with high financial need and the first in their families to go to college (especially those from underrepresented minority groups), developing programs to increase access to these various forms of capital is critical to their success. This paper describes how a small federally designated Hispanic-serving community college has developed a scholarship program for financially needy community college students intending to transfer to a four-year institution to pursue a bachelor’s degree in a STEM field. Developed through a National Science Foundation Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (S-STEM) grant, the program involves a collaboration among STEM faculty, college staff, administrators, student organizations, and partners in industry, four-year institutions, local high schools, and professional organizations. In addition to providing financial support through the scholarships, student access to academic capital is increased through an intensive math review program, tutoring, study groups, supplemental instruction, and research internship opportunities. Access to cultural and social capital is increased by providing scholars with faculty mentors; engaging students with STEM faculty, university researchers, and industry professionals through field trips, summer internships, professional organizations, and student clubs; supporting student and faculty participation at professional conferences, and providing opportunities for students and their families to interact with faculty and staff. The paper details the development of the program, and its impact over the last five years on enhancing the success of STEM students as determined from data on student participation in various program activities, student attitudinal and self-efficacy surveys, and academic performance including persistence, retention, transfer and graduation.more » « less
-
Students are taking increasingly complex pathways through higher education, yet mobility patterns other than one-to-one vertical transfer have been largely neglected in the research literature (Taylor & Jain, 2017). This paper draws on semi-structured interviews with 27 students majoring in STEM fields from three universities to explore why they undertake non-traditional transfer patterns during their undergraduate studies. Students exhibited various dynamic transfer patterns such as summer swirling at community colleges, co-enrollment at multiple institutions, or lateral transfer between two-year or four-year institutions. Rationales for dynamic transfer varied by type of enrollment pattern.. Students often received benefits from their enrollment mobility (e.g., stay on track toward degree, maximize chances for success, affordability, etc.) but dynamic transfer was also prompted by unmet needs at their home institution. Students who attended more than two institutions or who exhibited discontinuous enrollment patterns experienced the most academic, personal, and financial duress. Students’ creative and dynamic transfer patterns in their higher education studies highlight the pivotal role that community colleges play in the degree persistence of university STEM majors. Additionally, students’ dynamic transfer patterns illustrate the resourceful ways that they navigate higher education and suggests the need for institutions to reexamine how they support students.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1080/10668926.2022.2135041
