Hernandez, R. A., & Knight, D. B., & Lee, W. C., & Richardson, A., & Rodriguez, S., & Watford, B. A. (2024, February), Understanding Decision Processes Related to Pathways of Community College Engineering Students   Paper presented at 2024 Collaborative Network for Engineering & Computing Diversity (CoNECD), Arlington, Virginia. 10.18260/1-2--45491

\bibitem{asee_peer_45491}
  Hernandez, R. A., \& Knight, D. B., \& Lee, W. C., \& Richardson, A., \& Rodriguez, S., \& Watford, B. A. (2024, February), \emph{Understanding Decision Processes Related to Pathways of Community College Engineering Students }
  Paper presented at 2024 Collaborative Network for Engineering \& Computing Diversity (CoNECD), Arlington, Virginia.
  10.18260/1-2--45491

Rene Alberto Hernandez, David B Knight, Walter C. Lee, Amy Richardson, Sarah Rodriguez, and Bevlee A. Watford.  "Understanding Decision Processes Related to Pathways of Community College Engineering Students ".  2024 Collaborative Network for Engineering & Computing Diversity (CoNECD), Arlington, Virginia, 2024, February.  ASEE Conferences, 2024.  https://peer.asee.org/45491 Internet.  18 May, 2024

\bibitem{asee_peer_45491}
  Rene Alberto Hernandez, David B Knight, Walter C. Lee, Amy Richardson, Sarah Rodriguez, and Bevlee A. Watford.
  "Understanding Decision Processes Related to Pathways of Community College Engineering Students ".
  \emph{2024 Collaborative Network for Engineering \& Computing Diversity (CoNECD), Arlington, Virginia, 2024, February}.
  ASEE Conferences, 2024.
  https://peer.asee.org/45491 Internet.  18 May, 2024

@INPROCEEDINGS{asee_peer_45491
author = "Rene Alberto Hernandez, David B Knight, Walter C. Lee, Amy Richardson, Sarah Rodriguez, and Bevlee A. Watford"
title = "Understanding Decision Processes Related to Pathways of Community College Engineering Students "
booktitle = "2024 Collaborative Network for Engineering \& Computing Diversity (CoNECD)"
year = "2024"
month = "February"
address = "Arlington, Virginia"
publisher = "ASEE Conferences"
note = {https://peer.asee.org/45491}
number = {10.18260/1-2--45491}
}

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - Understanding Decision Processes Related to Pathways of Community College Engineering Students 
 
Keywords: Transfer, Socio-economic status, undergraduate, 2-year Institution

Research highlights the importance of having strong and strategic partnerships between 2-year and 4-year institutions to increase the number of transfer students in engineering, which has been identified as a key national strategy for broadening participation in engineering and computer science.  Currently, research tends to focus on the perspectives and experiences of engineering students who successfully transfer to their bachelor’s-granting institutions. These students often are easier to locate and willing to share their experiences with the transfer process. It is often much harder to understand students who followed a different path, particularly those students who had originally planned on attending a particular transfer institution but then made a different decision. Our study is uniquely positioned because of a partnership between both a 2-year and 4-year institution—we have access to and relationships with students who had originally planned on transferring to a particular 4-year institution but made a different decision along the way. We interviewed 11 engineering students who engaged in a pre-transfer program [NAME MASKED FOR REVIEW] that was organized to promote transfer to a particular receiving institution. Those students ultimately chose other pathways, and we focus this particular study on understanding the role that the pre-transfer program played in decision-making processes.   

Our findings suggest that as engineering students navigate the community college-to-bachelor's degree pathway, the pre-transfer program influences them through three distinct activities of the grant that we have labeled: Recruitment, Program Involvement (scholarship, proactive advising, cohort building, and perceptions), and After Pre-transfer program. Additionally, our findings show the influences on the decision against remaining in the program of these students were ultimately life events, comparable pre-transfer programs, academic challenges, and career shifts. The findings provide insights for fine-tuning programs designed towards engineering students pursing a community college-to-bachelor's pathway and to share unique perspectives and experiences of community college engineering students who typically have not been represented in the literature. 

AU  - Rene Alberto Hernandez
AU  - David B Knight
AU  - Walter C. Lee
AU  - Amy Richardson
AU  - Sarah Rodriguez
AU  - Bevlee A. Watford
CY  - Arlington, Virginia
DA  - 2024/02/25
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Understanding Decision Processes Related to Pathways of Community College Engineering Students 
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/45491
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--45491
ER  -