“Like a Freshman Who Didn’t Get a Freshman Orientation”: How Transfer Student Capital, Social Support, and Self-Efficacy Intertwine in the Transfer Student Experience

Abstract

Community colleges and other open-access two-year campuses provide an important pathway to higher education; however, a surprisingly small proportion of these students successfully transfer to and graduate from a bachelor’s degree-granting institution. The present study examined barriers and challenges students faced as they built their sense of self-efficacy as transfer students. We conducted interviews with 65 prospective or recent transfer students, including “internal” transfers (moving from an open-access predominantly two-year campus to their university’s flagship campus) and “external” transfers (moving from a community college to the university’s most selective campus). Our results indicate that both internal and external transfer students experienced challenges in terms of obtaining accurate information about transfer (transfer student capital, or “TSC”), but these challenges were easier to overcome for internal transfers, in part due to their social support networks. While both sets of transfer students utilized social support networks as an informal source of TSC, internal transfer students reported a more extensive social support network. Gaining accurate information about transfer and being supported by members of their social networks seemed to boost self-efficacy for transfer as well as adjustment during the post-transfer experience period. Recommendations for sending and receiving institutions are provided.

Use of Transfer Student Capital in Engineering and STEM Education: A Systematic Literature Review

“…Transfer student capital was cited as developing from many different types of sources. Students may develop transfer student capital through peers, family, student and institutional culture, high school teachers and staff, community college faculty and staff, and four-year institution faculty, staff, and advisors [27], [33], [48]. Interestingly, in one study, a latent class analysis found that race and ethnicity were not significant factors in determining transfer student capital [35].…”

“…The original presentation of transfer student capital was comprised of three theoretical frameworks: Pascarella's [30] model of student learning and development, Becker's [31] theory of human capital, and the notion of transfer student as student retention [32]. Many articles cite these three primary frameworks [22], [33], [34]. However, a variety of research studies integrate new frameworks or use existing frameworks to describe the original frameworks.…”

“…By far, the theories that are most cited in 12 articles with transfer student capital and used to describe how student capital is formed and grown are social and cultural capital frameworks built on Bourdieu's social capital model [38]. This model comprises personal networks that provide individuals with information and opportunities and a model cultural capital which describes accumulated experiences within social contexts [8], [9], [25], [27], [28], [33], [36], [37], [39]- [41]. The next most cited theory appearing with transfer student capital was Yosso's [42] conceptualization of community cultural wealth [6], [25], [37], [43].…”

“…Integration of this framework extended transfer student capital to explain development of various types of capital for persisting in education in communities of color and other non-dominate groups [43]. Other frameworks appearing in the literature included Bandura's self-efficacy [27], [33], [37], experiential capital [6], Jain's transfer receptive culture, and critical race theory [43].…”

“…Finally, institutional practices, institutional coordination, and information sharing from institutions were highlighted as strategic ways to improve transfer student capital. One of the most often mentioned institutional practices to support transfer students was orientation (face-toface and online) and transfer days or preview days to provide students with necessary information and orient them to the culture of the institution [24], [28], [33], [34], [46] . There were also several articles that discussed creating a more transfer receptive culture [6], [23], [43].…”