TRANSFER EFFICACY: EXPLORING A SUCCESS ORIENTED NARRATIVE OF THE TRANSFER STUDENT EXPERIENCE

Abstract

The purpose of this dissertation study is to understand the extent to which self-efficacy is present in the transfer process for community college students from different racial and sociocultural backgrounds. Specifically, this research borrows from Bandura’s (1994) construct of self-efficacy in order to introduce Transfer Efficacy, which is a framework developed to describe the way in which students’ develop self-efficacy beliefs around their ability to transfer and navigate the transfer process.

This study employed a nested qualitative case study methodology, which took an in-depth look at 15 community college students who had transferred from a two-year to a four-year institution. The student participants in this study, who served as the nested cases, were interviewed individually in order to understand their transfer experiences. In addition to the individual interviews with student participants, the other data collected included the analysis of various documents and interviews with four administrators who worked on the two-year and four-year campus.

Findings from this study provide a number of implications for future consideration. In particular, this dissertation suggests that Transfer Efficacy may be a useful framework for understanding transfer student narratives. Further, the findings point to the importance of internship experiences for students while enrolled in community college, the significance of pre-transfer advising, and the need for stronger transfer articulation agreements. Also worth noting is the possible connection between institutional commitment, the development of self-efficacy for transfer, and transfer student identity.

This study is significant in three main ways. First, this study contributes to the transfer student narrative by providing a new perspective regarding the positive outcomes of transfer. In particular, this study contributes to current transfer student research by unpacking the role of self-efficacy. Second, this research provides practical implications for higher education practitioners so that the transfer student pipeline may become a more solid path for students seeking to graduate with a baccalaureate degree. Finally, this research will shed light on the contextual nature of the transfer process.