Announcing the Final Examination of Claire L. Brady for the degree of Doctor of Education.
Date of defense: March 6th, 2017
Time and room: 3:00pm, ED 306
Dissertation Title: An Investigation of State College to University Transfer Students’ Sense of Belonging
The purpose of this study was to examine the sense of belonging of state college transfer students who enroll at a large research-intensive university through structured and unstructured transfer pathways using the Sense of Belonging Instrument (SBI; Hoffman, Richmond, Morrow, & Solomon, 2002). The SBI includes five subscales; Peer Support, Faculty Support, Classroom Comfort, Isolation, and Empathetic Faculty Understanding. This mixed methods study (n = 54) derived quantitative data from the modified SBI and used a concurrent nested strategy to collect qualitative data. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to test the three research questions. Qualitative data were identified, categorized, and analyzed using conventional qualitative content analysis (Hsieh-Fang & Shannon, 2005). To date, no systematic investigation has considered the construct of belonging with this population or transfer pathway.
The findings from this study found a positive statistically significant correlation between Peer Support and Isolation (r(52) =.801, p = .000) and a statistically significant difference between the mean values of Empathetic Faculty Understanding between the structured and unstructured pathways (p = 0.027). This study concluded that structured transfer pathway student sense of belonging was grounded in the classroom experience, empathetic faculty, and faculty support. Unstructured transfer pathway student sense of belonging was grounded in peer relationships, the classroom experience, and empathetic faculty. First Generation status had a negative and statistically strong association (p = 0.033) with Isolation. Transfer through an unstructured transfer pathway had a negative and statistically strong association (p = 0.027) with Empathetic Faculty Understanding. Effect size was low and the Multivariate Analysis of Variance showed no significant relationships (p < 0.05) between the SBI subscales and the six demographic factors.
There were also differences noted in the qualitative data between the transfer pathway groups, including differing perceptions of faculty care and empathy, peer engagement, and the role of Advisors and online support systems in the transfer experience. The data and findings presented in this study are clear that the academic experience in the classroom and the perception of empathetic faculty are central to the state college transfer student experience and contribute to transfer student sense of belonging.
Committee in charge:
Dr. Rosemarye Taylor
Dr. Lee Baldwin
Dr. Walter Doherty
Dr. Pam Cavanaugh
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