Characterizing and Modeling the Experience of Transfer Students in Engineering

这个STEP 2型项目是一项针对工程专业本科生的研究，旨在为这些学生在两年制和四年制大学之间的转学提供新的知识。 该项目正在研究转学生与本地学生在人口统计学，结果和轨迹方面的差异。 它探讨了转学生对毕业班规模和多样性的贡献，并寻找对观察到的结果的解释。 研究小组正在研究工程专业学生跨机构转学的程度，并使用调查人员先前收集的70多万学生记录的纵向数据库进行本科工程研究。本研究的定性部分依赖于转学生的访谈和焦点小组，以探讨促使他们转出机构的因素，探索转学生和本地学生的工程专业学生的GPA和学位时间。预计该项目将有助于出版关于学生在整个学术周期中的进展情况的文献，并为学院和大学的管理人员提供有用的信息，以改变有关学生参与和学位授予的政策。

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.