A Multi-Institutional Study of Black and Latina/o Community College Students' Transfer Intentions:A Theory of Planned Behavior Reconceptualization.

Community College;Upward Transfer;Theory of Planned Behavior;African American College Students;Latino College Students;Transfer Intentions;Education;Social Sciences;Higher Education

Nellum, Christopher JamesLawrence, Janet H. ;

University of Michigan

关键词: Community College;    Upward Transfer;    Theory of Planned Behavior;    African American College Students;    Latino College Students;    Transfer Intentions;    Education;    Social Sciences;    Higher Education;   

Others  :  https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/107253/cnellum_1.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

瑞士|英语

来源: The Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship

【 摘 要 】

Community colleges currently enroll over one-third of all undergraduates and serve as the gateway to postsecondary education for increasing numbers of Americans in the 21st century, especially students of color. A significant portion of community college students aspire to transfer to a four-year college or university, but only 23% to 40% make this transition within six years of initial enrollment with disturbing racial/ethnic disparities.Existing studies offer sociological explanations for the persistent disparity in upward transfer rates between White community college students and lower rates for African American and Latino community college students. The present theory-driven study aims to better explicate the social psychological factors that motivate community college students interested in upward transfer.This study seeks to better understand whether the constructs central to the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) explain variation in African American and Latino students’ intentions to transfer from a community college to a four-year college or university.Structural equation modeling was used with a sample of 154 African American and 831 Latino community college students enrolled at 6 institutions across the United States to test and extend the theory of planned behavior.Additional questions assessed whether policy-relevant collegiate experiences moderate intentions to transfer. Study findings support the importance of racial/ethnic-specific patterns, with clear distinctions between TPB predictors of transfer intentions for African American and Latino students.For the Latino students, significant attitudes reflected underlying beliefs about the instrumentality of transfer; subjective norms reflected expectations of non-academic; and academic individuals; and control considerations included lack of academic capacity and financial constraints.The results also show that students who participated in developmental education courses or had a positive perception of transfer climate report differences in intentions to transfer.Future research should go beyond TPB concepts to better understand social psychological mechanisms that motivate transfer intentions for African American community college students.The theory-driven findings on Latino community college students have important policy-relevant implications for targeted interventions to improve and support intentions to transfer and for future research on upward transfer.