Sponsor
Portland State University. Department of Biology
First Advisor
Erin E. Shortlidge
Term of Graduation
Spring 2024
Date of Publication
5-28-2024
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Biology
Department
Biology
Language
English
DOI
10.15760/etd.3771
Physical Description
1 online resource (xiii, 217 pages)
Abstract
Ensuring that the bachelor's degree pathway that begins at a community college is a robust option for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) students will be key for addressing the calls to increase and diversify the future STEM workforce. Yet, students on this pathway currently face many structural barriers that can lead to attrition. In this work, we aim to understand the experiences of community college students as they transfer, adapt, and persist to graduation at an urban four-year university.
First, we used the Model for Analyzing Human Adaptation to Transition to explore the experiences of community college STEM students as they transferred to an urban four-year university. Through analyzing focus groups conducted with students post-transfer, we developed the Amended Model of Adaptation to Transfer Transition (AMATT). The AMATT displays characteristics that impacted the students transition under three categories: perception of the transition, environmental characteristics, and individual characteristics. We also identified two key pathways of adaptation: surviving or thriving. Within the AMATT, we illustrate which factors contributed to each pathway of adaptation and demonstrate the relationships between the characteristics under each category.
We then aimed to develop a deeper understanding of how STEM transfer students adapt to the transition to the university. Drawing from the AMATT, we chose three key factors that supported a "thrive" adaptation to investigate further: sense of belonging, social capital, and science identity. To explore how a sense of belonging may be cultivated post-transfer, we conducted interviews with a group of STEM transfer students as they neared graduation. We leveraged the Network Theory of Social Capital and Counterspaces Framework to guide our analysis and found evidence of both the elements of social capital and counterspace processes supporting the development of a sense of belonging for these transfer students.
Continuing in our investigation of factors that supported a "thrive" adaptation, we again utilized the Network Theory of Social Capital to examine how a group of community college transfer students developed social support post-transfer. We conducted interviews with a second group of STEM transfer students as they neared graduation and found that social capital actions facilitated the development of relationships that provided social support post-transfer. Connections made with peers were primarily facilitated through expressive actions (i.e., emotional support), while connections made with faculty were primarily facilitated through instrumental actions (i.e., structural support).
The last factor that we consider from the AMATT that supported a "thrive" adaptation is science identity. We conducted interviews with transfer students after their first-year post-transfer and used the Possible Selves Framework as a guide in our analysis. We found evidence of multiple experiences that supported the student's development of a science identity, with an interdisciplinary research-based course having an outsized effect on their identity development. Through this work, we provide insight into the complexity of the transition experience for community college students in the STEM fields and demonstrate how groups of persisting transfer students developed factors that support a "thrive" adaptation post-transfer.
Rights
© 2024 MacKenzie Jade Gray
In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/42250
Recommended Citation
Gray, MacKenzie Jade, "Experiences of Community College STEM Students in Transferring and Adapting to a Four-Year Urban University" (2024). Dissertations and Theses. Paper 6639.
https://doi.org/10.15760/etd.3771