Characterizing and Modeling the Experience of Transfer Students in Engineering

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This STEP Type 2 project is a research study of engineering undergraduate students intended to provide new knowledge about transfer of these students between two year and four year colleges. The project is studying how transfer students differ from native students in demographics, outcomes, and trajectories. It explores the contribution of transfer students to the size and diversity of graduating classes, and searches for explanations for observed outcomes. The research team is studying the degree to which engineering students transfer across institutions and pursue undergraduate engineering studies using a longitudinal database of over 700,000 student records that have been previously assembled by the investigators. The qualitative component of this study relies on interviews and focus groups of transfer students to explore the factors that motivated them to transfer out of their institutions, exploring GPA and time-to-degree of engineering students for transfer and native students. The project is expected to contribute to published literature about student progression through the academic cycle and to provide information useful to administrators of colleges and universities for making policy changes about student participation and degree awards.