Best Intentions: Exploring Transfer Student Capital as a Self-Authorship Phenomena via the Academic Achievement Narratives of Community College Transfer Students

Community colleges have played an important role in providing access to higher education via the transfer process to 4-year institutions. However, the varying results associated with the academic success and degree attainment of transfer students cast doubts on how effective institutions are in facilitating these particular outcomes. The literature suggests that the quality of institutional supports play a role but are still influenced by student characteristics and the capital they bring to an educational space. Community college transfer (CCT) students possess a transfer student capital that often originates prior to transfer and influences their educational journeys. This study explored how a group of CCT students enacted their capital to facilitate academic achievement within varying contexts and to what extent this process was informed by aspects of identity development. Self-authorship served as the framework for exploring academic success narratives with ones transfer capital in-tow. The study also presented an opportunity to consider academic journeys at the nexus of student agency and the efficacy of institutional supports. The developmentally effective experiences (DEEs) of the study participants, particularly those where personal challenges were successfully overcome and life lessons learned, were catalysts for development along the intrapersonal and epistemological dimensions of self-authorship. Self-authoring began prior to first matriculating into their community colleges and influenced not only the meaning ascribed to education, specifically academic success, but also how they chose to enter these new educational spaces both academically and socially. Self-authoring afforded them agency in regards to the use of existing or the acquisition of new capital in facilitating academic success. They were also empowered in making educational decisions when responding to positive or negative institutional supports in the form of academic advisors, peer-groups, or faculty. Development along the interpersonal dimension of self-authoring was influenced by these choices depending on if they coincided with the purpose ascribed to their academic journeys and their sense of self in regards to fulfilling that purpose. These students displayed a transfer student capital agency and took the lead in not only constructing for themselves what academic success meant but how they would navigate new academic spaces to sustain it. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]