2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The transfer pathway is a crucial route that many students pursue to earn a bachelor's degree, but numerous studies highlight the challenges and barriers students face before and after the transfer process. This study aims to identify prominent challenges commonly encountered by students at both 4-year and 2-year institutions, describe the tightly integrated partnership and key interventions designed to address the issues, and present the progress and impact on students to date.

Sponsored by the [Funding Agency], the [4-year institution] Computer Science (CS) Department partnered with three departments at [2-year institution], where most prospective CS students are enrolled, to develop several joint initiatives. This tightly integrated partnership involves a joint team of chairs, directors, and faculty members from both institutions working closely, dedicating significant time to collaboratively analyze institutional data, co-develop pathways, co-host events, and co-revise curricula.

The first step involved identifying key challenges and barriers through student surveys, curriculum analysis by faculty, and focus group meetings. Some of the major recurring challenges included: (Pre-transfer) Insufficient or lack of information and advisement on transfer requirements and processes at [2-year institution], (Post-transfer) Adjusting to different teaching styles after transferring, (Post-transfer) Changes in academic expectations and the increased difficulty of course content, (Both pre- and post-transfer) Limited access to additional support such as tutoring, counseling, and advisement, and (Both pre- and post-transfer) A lack of community support and a sense of belonging.

To address these challenges, we developed a holistic transfer pathway through the following key interventions: 1) Establishing clear transfer pathways and roadmaps, and updating articulation agreements, 2) Providing adaptive and consistent advisement, incorporating new pathways information, 3) Aligning the CS1 courses between the 4-year and 2-year institutions, embedding socially responsible components (SRC) to encourage retention, especially among Hispanic students, 4) Offering academic support, including boot camps for post-transfer students and tutoring for both pre-and post-transfer students, and 5) Building transfer student communities and facilitating resource sharing, managed by student ambassadors, via Discord and in-person social events.

The joint team began implementing these interventions in the Fall of 2023, and we are now in the second year of the project. Most interventions have been rolled out, including pathways, articulation updates, course alignment for CS1, and community building. Since the implementation, we’ve seen a slight increase in the number of transfer students from [2-year institution]. Upon full implementation, we aim to see not only a meaningful increase in computing transfer students from [2-year institution] and other community colleges but also improved post-transfer student success rates in the sequence courses at [4-year institution]. The paper will present tracked transfer rates, academic performance data in early programming courses, and a comparison of outcomes before and after implementing interventions.

In parallel, our research aims to assess: 1) the effectiveness of each intervention in addressing specific challenges, and 2) the overall most effective intervention. To conduct this assessment, we will analyze student survey data and participation rates in events in conjunction with institutional data to discover correlations. Ultimately, we plan to identify the most effective interventions and share them with other feeder 2-year colleges.