Date on Master's Thesis/Doctoral Dissertation

12-2012

Document Type

Doctoral Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph. D.

Department (Legacy)

Department of Educational and Counseling Psychology

Committee Chair

Hirschy, Amy Seleste

Author's Keywords

Community college; Transfer students; Transfer program; Student success

Subject

Community college students--Kentucky; Transfer students--Kentucky; Academic achievement--Kentucky; College attendance; University of Louisville; Jefferson Community and Technical College

Abstract

More students now begin their postsecondary education at the two-year college level with the intention of transferring to earn a bachelor's degree, making the transfer function more important. Recent government mandates in Kentucky brought about new programming efforts to aid student transitions between public institutions. This study was designed to determine whether the University of Louisville (ULtra) Transfer Program, designed as a bridge between Jefferson Community and Technical College and the University of Louisville (UofL), played a significant role in community college students' successful academic transition to the four-year institution. Participants of this study were 227 community college students who transferred to UofL between 2006 and 2011. Results indicated that, even when controlling for relevant background characteristics (age, high school GPA, and ACT score), students who participated in the Ultra program had more credit hours earned and accepted toward their major, suffered less transfer shock after the transition to UofL, earned a slightly higher first and significantly higher second semester GPA, and had a higher persistence rate at UofL.

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