2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The purpose of this research brief is to explore the relationships that occur along a transfer student’s journey.
Increasing the number of students completing a bachelor’s degree in engineering has many possible solutions. One approach is to strengthen sense of belonging and interest with first year experience programming. This provides opportunities for students to develop strong academic and social networks. Another approach has been to focus on the community college pathway which additionally may increase the diversity of the overall engineering student demographics. Community college students also benefit from first year programming; however, they are tasked with developing a new network at the midpoint of the degree program.
This research brief is part of a larger qualitative case study examining the vertical transfer process and engineering identity development. Two of the research questions within the study are as follows:
1) How did the community college experience influence the decision to continue studying engineering at a university?
2) How did transfer student capital inform the transfer experience?
The transfer student capital framework examines the student’s background, community college experiences, transfer capital and university experiences. Most research has been completed at the university where they transfer to and how they adapt to that institution. The goal here is to provide a broader view where the students may find themselves at one of many different institutions as they transfer from the same community college.
This study includes qualitative data from thirteen students who have transferred within the last 2 years. They were interviewed to develop a better understanding of their engineering identity development and transfer social capital. They also mapped out their journey including any critical events in their transfer process and engineering identity development. This brief will focus on the analysis of the individuals mentioned in terms of those critical events. Inductive coding and thematic analysis were used to identify, code and develop themes in relation to the influence the relationships had on the students’ persistence in their journey and alignment with the TSC framework.
Results indicate that faculty members, friends, family and local community members all play a role in guiding the engineering students’ journey. In particular, as community college students may choose to maintain stronger ties to their community, the importance of non-academic individuals is underscored. By better understanding these relationships, high impact first year experiences can be designed that not only not only assist students in creating networks during their time at community college but also in developing the skills to build new networks after transfer.