2024 Collaborative Network for Engineering & Computing Diversity (CoNECD)

Understanding Decision Processes Related to Pathways of Community College Engineering Students

Presented at Track 2: Technical Session 5: Understanding Decision Processes Related to Pathways of Community College Engineering Students

Understanding Decision Processes Related to Pathways of Community College Engineering Students

Keywords: Transfer, Socio-economic status, undergraduate, 2-year Institution

Research highlights the importance of having strong and strategic partnerships between 2-year and 4-year institutions to increase the number of transfer students in engineering, which has been identified as a key national strategy for broadening participation in engineering and computer science. Currently, research tends to focus on the perspectives and experiences of engineering students who successfully transfer to their bachelor’s-granting institutions. These students often are easier to locate and willing to share their experiences with the transfer process. It is often much harder to understand students who followed a different path, particularly those students who had originally planned on attending a particular transfer institution but then made a different decision. Our study is uniquely positioned because of a partnership between both a 2-year and 4-year institution—we have access to and relationships with students who had originally planned on transferring to a particular 4-year institution but made a different decision along the way. We interviewed 11 engineering students who engaged in a pre-transfer program [NAME MASKED FOR REVIEW] that was organized to promote transfer to a particular receiving institution. Those students ultimately chose other pathways, and we focus this particular study on understanding the role that the pre-transfer program played in decision-making processes.

Our findings suggest that as engineering students navigate the community college-to-bachelor's degree pathway, the pre-transfer program influences them through three distinct activities of the grant that we have labeled: Recruitment, Program Involvement (scholarship, proactive advising, cohort building, and perceptions), and After Pre-transfer program. Additionally, our findings show the influences on the decision against remaining in the program of these students were ultimately life events, comparable pre-transfer programs, academic challenges, and career shifts. The findings provide insights for fine-tuning programs designed towards engineering students pursing a community college-to-bachelor's pathway and to share unique perspectives and experiences of community college engineering students who typically have not been represented in the literature.

Authors

Mr. Rene Alberto Hernandez Virginia Tech [biography]

René Hernandez, is a Salvadorean-American first-generation graduate student at Virginia Tech’s School of Education. He is pursuing his PhD in Higher Education with a cognate in Engineering Education. He has more than 10 years of K-12 and higher education experience which he leverages towards his pursuits of helping others find success in education. He has an evolving research agenda focused on pathways, policy, and how it shapes education and undergraduate engineering education, with specific attention to first-generation college students, low-income and immigrant populations. He loves running, books, anime, traveling, and food, especially when he gets to do it in the company of his husband Tommy and those he meets along the way!
Dr. David B Knight http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4576-2490 Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University [biography]

David Knight is a Professor in the Department of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech and also serves as Chief of Strategy in the College of Engineering and Special Assistant to the Provost. His research tends to be at the macro-scale, focused on a systems-level perspective of how engineering education can become more effective, efficient, and inclusive, and considers the intersection between policy and organizational contexts. Knight currently serves as the co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Engineering Education.
Dr. Walter C. Lee http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5082-1411 Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University [biography]

Dr. Walter Lee is an associate professor in the Department of Engineering Education and the director for research at the Center for the Enhancement of Engineering Diversity (CEED), both at Virginia Tech.
Dr. Amy Richardson Virginia Tech Department of Engineering Education [biography]

Amy Richardson is a Postdoc researcher at Virginia Tech in the Department of Engineering Education studying engineering transfer students and inter-institutional partnerships. Amy has 15 years of experience at community colleges, including faculty and administrative positions. She is a licensed civil engineer with a Ph.D. in Engineering Education from Virginia Tech.
Dr. Sarah Rodriguez http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3409-7096 Virginia Tech [biography]

Sarah L. Rodriguez is an Associate Professor of Engineering Education and an affiliate faculty member with the Higher Education Program at Virginia Tech. Her engineering education research agenda centers upon engineering and computing identity development of historically marginalized populations at higher education institutions. Currently, Dr. Rodriguez is involved with several large-scale interdisciplinary research projects focused on institutional environments and STEM identity development are sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Kapor Center. In recent years, she was selected as an Early Career Awardee and Faculty Fellow with the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education (AAHHE) and a NASPA Emerging Faculty Leader. She also received the Barbara Townsend Early Career Scholar Award by the Council for the Study of Community Colleges (CSCC) and gave the distinguished ASHE-CAHEP Barbara Townsend Lecture. To learn more about her current projects, visit http://sarahlrodriguez.com/
Dr. Bevlee A. Watford Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University [biography]

Watford is Professor of Engineering Education, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Executive Director of the Center for the Enhancement of Engineering Diversity.

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