Campus Location

Dallas Campus (Online)

Date of Award

6-2021

Document Type

Dissertation

Department

Organizational Leadership

Degree Name

Doctor of Education

Committee Chair or Primary Advisor

Dr. Irma Harper

Second Committee Member or Secondary Advisor

Dr. Glenda Ballard

Third Committee Member or Committee Reader

Dr. C. Dean Campbell

Abstract

There is a plethora of research available on students and the barriers they face in transferring to a university, such as transfer processes, articulations, pathways, 2+2 plans, institutional agents, and financial issues. However, in rural areas of Texas, little research is available on the barriers students endure in transferring from community colleges to four-year universities. The purpose of this qualitative, phenomenological study was to determine the transfer barriers faced by a community college student population and the support services needed for their successful transfers to four-year universities. The framework that guided this study was transfer student capital and transfer shock. Transfer shock is when a student transfers from community college to university and experiences culture shock in the university culture. Transfer student capital is the support needed for transfer students. The researcher gathered the data through one-on-one interviews with 15 community college students who transferred to a four-year university. Prior to the interviews, each participant completed a presurvey consisting of questions about their community college experiences, including support received on transferring and how it impacted their decisions to transfer to a university. Participants shared in interviews that their major barriers for transferring from the community college to a university were academic advising, personal issues, and inadequate collegiate services for transfer students, such as enrollment services, financial services, and university support programs.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.