Timing Is Everything

Download or read book Timing Is Everything written by Scott F. Peska and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 35 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This sequential mixed method study (Creswell, 2003) compared the adjustment process of community college transfer students who began in the fall to those who began mid-year, beginning with a quantitative phase and extending to a qualitative phase of data collection in the fall semester and repeating this same sequence of data gathering with transfer students enrolling in the spring term. The central question guiding the quantitative phase was whether there are differences in the adjustment of fall and mid-year community college transfer students in the semester they first transfer to a public, four-year institution. The second phase explored the community college transfer students' adjustment experiences during the fall and mid-year through the use of small group interviews. The central question guiding the qualitative inquiry was how mid-year community college transfer student adjustment differs from fall transfer student adjustment, focusing this qualitative inquiry on the mid-year transfer students and comparing and interpreting their results to those of fall transfer students. In summary, this study supports this author's contention that community college students who transfer mid-year have different experiences with college adjustment than their fall counterparts. Results of this study begin to provide a useful picture of mid-year transfer students, but more research is needed. Investigations of programs and services that two-year and four-year institutions can offer to help mid-year transfer students adjust to college, persist in college, and earn a baccalaureate degree are needed. (Contains 2 tables and 1 figure.) [For the full report, "Timing Is Everything: A Comparative Study of the Adjustment Process of Fall and Mid-Year Community College Transfer Students at a Public Four-Year University," see ED527131.].