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Reframing the role of transfer facilitators: using action research methods for new knowledge development

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Reframing the role of transfer facilitators: using action research methods for new knowledge development

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Content REFRAMING THE ROLE OF TRANSFER FACILITATORS:

USING ACTION RESEARCH METHODS FOR NEW KNOWLEDGE

DEVELOPMENT

by
Salvador Rivas, Jr.

_____________________________________________________

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirement for the Degree
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION

May 2009

Copyright 2009 Salvador Rivas Jr.

ii
Dedication
This study is dedicated to my parents, Salvador and Oliva, my sister, Juanita, and to the
love of my life Dana. Thank you all for the support and encouragement during my
academic endeavors. Everything is possible with you all by my side.

iii
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Estela Bensimon, my dissertation chair, for allowing me to work at the
Center for Urban Education and patiently supporting me through the dissertation process.

To Edlyn Peña-Vallejo and Robert Rueda, my dissertation committee, thank you for your
guidance and support. Your thoughtful words encouraged me to move forward through
this process.

iv
Table of Contents

Dedication ii

Acknowledgements iii

List of Tables vii

List of Figures viii

Abstract ix

Chapter 1: Introduction 1
Statement of the Problem 3
Gaps in Transfer Rates 4
Implications of the Transfer Gap on State and Students 6
Oceanside Transfer Project 7
Oceanside College 8
Philosophy of Project 9
Project Activities 10
Purpose of the Study 12
Research Questions 12
Significance of the Study 13
Organization of Study 13

Chapter 2: Review of the Literature 15
Addressing Student Success 15
A New Way of Addressing the Transfer Gap 17
Institutional Agents 19
Qualities of Institutional Agents 19
Creating Opportunities for Developing Change Agents 23
Action Research 23
Participatory Action Research 24
Collaborative Inquiry 25
The Oceanside Transfer Project as a Collaborative Inquiry
Project 26
Reaction, Learning and Behavior 30
Conclusion 31

Chapter 3: Methods 32
Evaluation Model 32
Participants 33
Methods 35

v
Case Study Methodology 36
Interviews 37
Observation 38
Pre and Post Questionnaire 40
Analysis of Data 40
Kirkpatrick’s Framework 42

Chapter 4: Data Presentation 44
Part I: Introduction of Project Participants 44
Evaluation Criteria 49
Evaluation Findings 50
Reactions 50
Project 50
Data 53
What Participants Learned 55
Student Transfer Experiences 56
The Efficiency of Transfer Practices 59
Learning about their Colleagues’ Commitment to
Support Transfer
Changes Made by Practitioners 66
Changes in Beliefs 66
Equity-mindedness 69
Changes in Practice 71

Part II: Three Cases of Practitioner Member’s Participation
Mark, Social Science Instructor 76
Motivation to join the Oceanside Transfer Project 77
Group Meeting Notes, January-April 2007 78
First Interview, April 2007 81
Second Interview, May 2007 84
Raul, Administrator 86
First Interview, April 2007 87
Group Meetings 91
Second Interview, May 2007 93
Dana, Counselor 95
Pre-Project Questionnaire, January 2007 95
Group Meeting Notes, January-April 2007 96
Interview, April 2007 97
Conclusion 100

vi
Chapter 5: Discussion 102
Findings 102
New Learning and Changes 104
Equity 105
Institutional Agents 107
Implications for Practice 110
Limitations of the Study 113
Future Research 114
Conclusion 115

References 118

Appendices
Appendix A: First Interview Protocol 123

Appendix B: Second Interview Protocol 125

Appendix C: Letter of Invitation 127

Appendix D: Pre-questionnaire 131

Appendix E: Post-questionnaire 132

Appendix F: Consent Form 131

Appendix G: Fast-Track Transfer Data Disaggregated by
Race & Ethnicity, 199-2002 132

vii
List of Tables
Table 1: Qualities of Transfer Agents and Transfer Champions 20
Table 2: Qualities of Traditional Research Model and
Practitioner-as-Researcher Model 27

Table 3: Kirkpatrick’s Evaluation Model used to Answer
Study Research Questions 30

Table 4: Participants in the Student Interview Team 34
Table 5: Purpose of Group Meetings 35
Table 6: Data Analysis Process 41
Table 7: Participant Data Chart 48
Table 8: Model to Evaluate Participants’ Experiences 49
Table 9: Motivation for Joining the Project 51
Table 10: Profile of Students Interviewed by Group Members 56
Table 11: Participants’ Responses to Promoting Equitable Outcomes 69
Table 12: Reported Engagement in Transfer Behavior 71
Table 13: Participants’ Reactions, Learning and Changes 103

viii
List of Figures
Figure 1: Low Rates of Degree Completion and Student Success 5
Figure 2: The Inquiry Paradigm 29

ix
Abstract

In this study I evaluated the experience of eleven practitioners who participated in
a collaborative inquiry project at an urban community college. The aim of the project was
for practitioners to participate in an alternative model of knowledge development to
increase their learning regarding their institutional practices and students by engaging in
research activities that examined the cause(s) of their transfer gap (Bensimon, Dowd,
Trapp, & Alford, 2006). The gap was defined as the difference between the number of
students meeting California eligibility for transfer and the number who actually
transferred. The purpose of the study is to evaluate if practitioners’ become institutional
agents (Stanton-Salazar, 1997) as a result of participating in the project. To evaluate
participants’ experiences in the project, I used Kirkpatrick’s (1998) four-level evaluation
model as a framework to analyze the data collected during the five months of the project.
Through the project activities of interviewing students and analyzing their findings in
group meetings, practitioners were able to heighten their understanding of students’
transfer experiences at Oceanside College. By enhancing participants’ understanding
about transfer three group members were able to draw on new knowledge in making
changes to their practices to better support students.

1
Chapter 1
Introduction
I remember receiving a phone call from a small private liberal arts college
informing me that I had been chosen as the new Co-Director for Off-Campus Education.
One of my many responsibilities would include organizing the transfer services offered to
community college students. At the time, in 2004, seventy-five percent of the students
that transferred into our small private college came from community colleges.
When I began counseling potential students about the transfer procedures for our
institution, I found that a large percentage shared with me that this process was new to
them and that they did not know where to begin. This was a surprise for me because I
was under the assumption that students would have received general transfer information,
but this was not the case. Terminology was an obstacle because students did not know the
meaning of words and phrases such as “matriculation,” “articulation agreements” or
“transfer eligible.” In addition to a language handicap, many of the students that attended
our information sessions did not have an educational plan to guide their academic
journey. I consistently encountered students that had accumulated over one hundred
units, making them more than eligible for transfer, but transferring had not been an
opportunity presented to them in their academic careers.
After sharing these students’ experiences with counselors from the community
colleges where I conducted my information sessions, the counselors framed this dilemma
as a student problem. They attributed low transfer rates to the students’ lack of initiative
to seek out student services. Several counselors stated that they would be able to assist

2
students only if and when students schedule appointments to see them. Walking away
from my meetings with the counselors, I soon began to realize the inherent problem with
such a perspective is problematic because students were being blamed and held
exclusively accountable for their transfer struggles. What practitioners failed to
understand is that they also have the ability to influence students and can be viewed as a
solution to students learning problems (Peña-Vallejo, Bensimon, & Colyar, 2006).
To better support our targeted student population we conducted multiple focus
groups in their local community colleges. During our meetings with students, we asked
them to describe the transfer support services they believed they needed. The following
themes emerged:
• The need for bilingual presentations;
• Evening workshops that would compliment their work schedule;
• Modeling how to complete various college forms; and
• “Hand-holding” them through the processes required for transfer.
I learned many valuable lessons from this experience. I quickly learned that students
cannot be held solely responsible for navigating through academia yet at the same time
realizing the influence practitioners have over students and student outcomes. However,
through inquiry, educators are able to examine their practices to more consciously
appreciate the impact they have on students. As a counselor, I was able to move beyond a
technical background of counseling students, to developing a deeper level of knowledge
grounded in inquiry. The inquiry process, firmly rooted in student perspective, allowed
me to develop important insights about our practices.

3
In this study, I evaluated practitioners’ experiences who participated in a
collaborative inquiry project that allowed them to develop insights about students in a
manner very similar to my own. The project activities had a similar potential to create
changes in practitioners so as to create new learning that can lead to changes in the
manner in which they engage with students. The following section of this chapter
discusses the statement of the problem, purpose of the study, and explains the research
questions.

Statement of the Problem
One of the fundamental missions of the community college has been to facilitate
the attainment of a baccalaureate by preparing students to transfer into four-year
institutions (Cohen & Brawer, 2003; Dougherty, 1994). Between the years of 1960 and
1990, the mission of the community colleges shifted to expand into occupational and
continuing education (Dougherty & Kienzl, 2006). This widened focus opened the door
to other opportunities for students. Today, half of all undergraduate students are enrolled
in community colleges (Adelman, 2005). Unfortunately, greater access to community
colleges has not translated into increased transfer rates (Shulock & Moore, 2007).
According to Bensimon (2005), higher education in America is beset with stark
inequities in educational outcomes across various racial groups. The achievement gap is
alarming given that people of color are quickly becoming a larger share of the overall
population (Bensimon, 2005). With California’s changing demographics, the state is on
the verge of becoming the first in the nation in which non-Hispanic Whites are officially

4
no longer the majority (Purdum, 2000). These demographic shifts and low transfer rates
will have a negative impact on students of color. As a result, the community colleges will
play a significant role in mediating the effect of this demographic shift as greater
numbers of students of color begin their postsecondary careers in the community
colleges. Thus, the effectiveness of community colleges in meeting the degree objectives
of its student population will need to be, and has been (Schulock & Moore, 2007),
questioned if current inequitable trends continue.

Gaps in Transfer Rates
Even when students identify their educational goal as transfer, data suggest that
they are unlikely to transfer. The Institution for Higher Education Leadership and Policy
(Shulock & Moore, 2007) reported that only a quarter of all community college students
in California who self-identify as degree seekers actually transfer to complete a
baccalaureate. In this report, Shulock and Moore highlight the low transfer rates after
examining a student cohort (n: 520,407) who entered the California Community College
system from 1999-2000 (see Figure 1). Of the 520,407 students who entered community
college in 1999-2000, sixty percent identified themselves as degree seekers. From this
group, only twenty four percent completed a certificate, degree and/or transferred within
a six-year period.

Figure 1. Low Rates of Degree Completion and Student Success

From “Rules of the Game: How State Policy Creates Barriers to Degree Completion and Impedes
Student Success in the California Community College,” by N. Shulock and C. Moore, 2007,
California State University, Sacramento Institute for Higher Education Leadership & Policy.

Examining low transfer rates may be a complex process, but one that is necessary if
higher education is to educate the citizenry of the state. Community colleges play a
crucial role as a potential pathway to a baccalaureate degree for all students, particularly
among those that come from underrepresented communities (Shulock & Moore, 2005).
The problem of low transfer rates is particularly daunting for minority students
who are an ever-increasing population in postsecondary institutions. According to Harvey
(2003, cited in Bensimon, 2005), minority enrollment rates in higher education increased
nationwide over the last twenty years from two million in the 1980s to 4.3 million in
2000. In California, Latina/o and African American students make up the majority of
5

6
community college students (Adelman, 2005), but despite their high enrollment, they
have lower transfer rates than their peers (Sengupta & Jepsen, 2006). Minority students
comprise the majority enrolled in California community colleges, a focus on educating
and serving their needs is important if two-year institutions are to fulfill their educational
mission.

Implications of the Transfer Gap on State and Students
According to Shulock and Moore (2007), California community colleges are
providing access, but this is not translating into degree completion, which “… gives
California’s college students a false sense of opportunity and could jeopardize the state’s
competitive edge in the global economy” (p. 4). If the low transfer rates are not
improved, California is potentially at risk of having a declining workforce of educated
workers. With less than one-fourth of California’s community college students
completing an educational program (Shulock & Moore, 2007), existing college educated
workers will not be able to meet the state's economic manpower needs (Fountain &
Cosgrove, 2006).
The growth of California’s knowledge economy reinforces the need for educated
workers. With community colleges enrolling over forty four percent of students in public
education, which is expected to increase from 6.3 million in 2001 to a projected 6.8
million by 2013, they will be at the forefront of meeting the state's work-force demands
(NCES, 2003). The least educated Latina/o population will need to make significant gains
in educational levels for jobs in the future (Bensimon, Polkinghorne, Bauman, & Vallejo,

7
2004; Shulock & Moore, 2007). If major gains are not accomplished by Latinas/os, “The
state's per capita income will fall below the national average in about five years, leading
to a deteriorating tax base and increasing difficulty for the state to provide services to its
people” (Shulock & Moore, 2007, p. 4).
In order to support the economic demands of college educated workers, higher
education must address the low transfer and degree completion rates of minority students.
Oftentimes transfer is conceptualized as a process that institutions facilitate for students
when they are ready to do so. There is also an assumption that transfer occurs as a
process in which motivated students seek out services in order to successfully transition
into a four-year institution. Only recently, however, has more attention been paid to the
responsibility of community colleges to address these low transfer rates. Transfer
responsibilities have typically been placed on students alone and practitioners’ influence
on student outcomes has been overlooked. According to Cohen and Brawer (2003),
counseling, transfer services, campus activities and academics all play an important role
in assisting students reach their potential.

Oceanside Transfer Project
As of March 1, 2007, I have been affiliated with the Center for Urban Education
(CUE), an interdisciplinary action research center founded by Dr. Estela Bensimon at the
University of Southern California. The mission of CUE is to conduct research that results
in the creation of enabling institutional environments for children, youth, and adults from
socially and economically disenfranchised groups. On January 25, 2007, Oceanside

8

College
1
and CUE initiated a collaborative inquiry project called The Oceanside Transfer
Project. The aim of the project was for practitioners to participate in an alternative model
of knowledge development to increase their learning regarding their institutional
practices and students by engaging in inquiry research activities that examined the
cause(s) of their transfer gap (Bensimon, Dowd, Trapp, & Alford, 2006). This gap was
defined as the difference between the number of students meeting California eligibility
for transfer and the number who actually transferred (Bensimon et al., 2006). Faculty,
counselors and administrators participated in inquiry activities with a goal of gaining a
better understanding of transfer issues on their campus. It is also expected that group
members will develop new learning they can apply in their daily practices to improve
transfer outcomes.
Oceanside College was selected for this project because of its close and
productive relationship in previous projects with CUE. One of these earlier projects
examined the transfer readiness of a cohort of 27,422 students who enrolled at Oceanside
College during 1999-2002. After analyzing the cohort data, it was discovered that 520
students were transfer-ready within three years of first enrolling at Oceanside. The
institution then realized that twenty percent of these transfer-ready students had not
transferred. Only five percent of the students who had not transferred were Latinas/os and
African-Americans (Bensimon et al., 2006). The transfer gap was of particular concern
for Oceanside College.

1
A pseudonym is given to the institution in this study.

9

Oceanside College
Oceanside College has served its metropolitan community as a two-year
institution for nearly eighty years. Although the college is twenty-two miles away from a
busy urban city, it provides a tranquil environment. As of fall 2006, the total student
enrollment was 26,944 with 9,522 enrolled full-time. The College is composed of two
separate campuses. The largest campus, which fifty one percent of the students attend,
focuses on liberal arts while the other campus primarily offers vocational education. The
institution is committed to the transfer of students as stated in their 2005-2010 Master
Plan, which includes equity as one of four major educational outcomes for the institution.
Over thirty-eight percent of students self-selected a bachelor degree as their educational
goal. Oceanside College is also a Hispanic Serving Institution with a Latina/o population
of thirty-five percent. The College is dedicated to serving the diverse student body needs
as stated in its mission of providing:
Oceanside College is a comprehensive community college that provides
open and affordable access to quality associate degree and certificate programs,
workforce preparation, and opportunities for personal development and
enrichment. The college develops students’ college-level skills and expands their
general knowledge, enables their transfer to four-year institutions, prepares them
for successful careers or to advance in their current careers, and fosters their
personal commitment to lifelong learning. Based upon a commitment to
excellence, college programs foster and support the intellectual, cultural,
economic and civic development of our diverse community. (Oceanside College
website)
2

Philosophy of the Project
The transfer-ready students who did not transfer were labeled as “missing”

2
Oceanside College website will not be included in the reference section of this dissertation in order to
protect the anonymity of the institution.

10
from the group that transferred. From this earlier data, the Oceanside Transfer Project
emerged. The project treated the transfer gap as a phenomenon that needed to be
comprehended by practitioners. There were no assumptions regarding the cause of the
gap. Critical to the project was the notion that participants/practitioners emerge with a
better understanding of transfer and new learning they can apply to modify their daily
behaviors to improve transfer. The project assumes that unequal transfer outcomes by
students of color may be due to a lack of knowledge by practitioners to recognize the
collegial experiences of minority students and adjust their practices accordingly
(Bensimon, 2007). Being unaware of minority student college experiences may be due to
practitioners being socialized to institutional practice, language usage, and cultural
practices that may overlook examining student experiences (Bensimon, 2007). Thus, by
enhancing their own understanding, participants would be able to draw on new
knowledge to make equitable decision in regards to their practices, policies or structures
(Bensimon et al., 2006). Moreover, their heightened awareness of the issues leading to
the transfer gap may prompt these individuals, who are influential members of the
Oceanside community, to collectively harness their influence so as to positively affect
student outcomes.

Project Activities
The Oceanside Transfer Project took place over a course of five months during
which time a team of participants participated in various inquiry activities aimed at
obtaining a better understanding of issues surrounding transfer. The team was called the

11
Student Interview Team. The inquiry activities used in the Oceanside Transfer Project
included:
• Student interviews of the missing transfer-ready students who were in the transfer
gap;
• Participation in collaborative group meetings to analyze their findings.
These forms of practitioner-driven data analysis have been neglected, which are critical
activities for professionals to participate in for the understanding and removing of student
achievement barriers (Dowd, 2005). The lack of use of practitioner-driven activities may
be a result of the complexity associated with practitioner inquiry that requires specialized
expertise and structures that may not be present in institutions (Bensimon, 2005). To help
facilitate this process, The Center for Urban Education developed structures and activities
to bring together various practitioners to inquire into the transfer problem by examining
how their transfer services impact students. This self-reflective process examined
institutional structures and practices, which can play a role in the perpetuation of
inequities in transfer (Bensimon et al., 2006).
This study evaluates the experiences of participants involved in the Student
Interview Team, utilizing participant interviews, field notes of the five group meetings,
and a pre- and post-questionnaires. As a research assistant in the project, I interviewed
group members and was a participant observer during the group meetings. Thus, my
understanding of the data was enhanced by my firsthand knowledge and participation in
the project.

12
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of the study is to evaluate if practitioners become institutional agents
(Stanton-Salazar, 1997) as a result of participating in the collaborative inquiry activities.
Institutional agents are defined as practitioners who have the “capacity and commitment
to transmit directly, or negotiate the transmission of, institutional resource and
opportunities [to students]” (Stanton-Salazar, 1997, p. 6). An institutional agent can be an
administrator, faculty, counselors and also a non-academic member who understands the
complexity of student experiences. Appreciating the challenges students face allows
institutional agents to go above and beyond their daily routines in promoting transfer
access by encouraging students to transfer, helping them to complete college applications
and provide information about financial aid (Dowd et al., 2006). In particularly,
institutional agents assist students overcome institutional barriers that may hinder their
ability to transfer. To evaluate participants’ experiences in the project, I used
Kirkpatrick’s (1998) evaluation model, which is described in more detail in chapter three,
as a framework to analyze the data collected by the CUE research team.

Research Questions
The following research questions guided this study:
1. How did practitioners react to the inquiry project?
2. What did participants learn as a result of participating in the project?
2a. In what ways might participants new learning assist them in developing into
institutional agents?

13
3. What changes did practitioners make, as a result of what they learned in the
project?
3a. Do these changes reflect the characteristics of institutional agents?

Significance of the Study
This study evaluates a unique collaborative inquiry approach designed to enhance
community college practitioners' knowledge of transfer with the intent of developing
their capacity to assist students more effectively. At the same time there is a greater
likelihood that practitioners will remove transfer barriers by increasing their awareness of
transfer practices. This approach to improve student outcomes is unique because
“practitioners are rarely ever the target of change or intervention” (Bensimon, 2007, p.
444) in student success. Contrary to the approach taken in the Oceanside Transfer
Project, students are typically the main unit of analysis when developing interventions to
address low student outcomes. In addition, the study adds to the lack of scholarly work
on the ways in which practitioners affect students’ educational experience (Bensimon,
2007).

Organization of Study
This study is divided into five chapters. Following this introductory chapter,
chapter two offers a review of literature on institutional agents and action research
methods that include collaborative inquiry. In chapter three, I discuss the methods and
research design used to analyze participants’ experiences in the project. Chapter four

14
outlines the evaluation findings of participants’ experiences in the Oceanside Transfer
Project. The final chapter highlights the significant findings, addresses implications for
practice, and finally concludes with recommendations for future research.

15
Chapter 2
Review of Literature
If one of the fundamental missions of community college is to facilitate the
attainment of a baccalaureate degree (Cohen & Brawer, 2003; Dougherty, 1994), then
practitioners must ask themselves, “How well is my institution doing?”
In 2001, the community colleges celebrated the one hundredth anniversary of the
first junior college (Bailey & Morest, 2006). As one segment of a broader educational
structure, the community college served a specific mission and worked with a particular
demographic. Whereas the private prestigious universities advanced the professional
training of a small elite population, the objective of two-year institutions was to provide
educational opportunities for eighteen-to-nineteen year old students from low socio-
economic backgrounds (Bailey & Morest, 2006). Today, community colleges continue to
play a critical role in providing services of personal enrichment, vocational education and
transfer into four-year institutions to an ever-expanding population. Servicing multiple
missions, however, increases the complexity involved in supporting the various
objectives of students, particularly of those who wish to transfer (Shulock & Moore,
2007).

Addressing Student Success
To be accountable for producing equitable outcomes is a challenge facing
institutions of higher education (Peña et al., 2006). Two prevalent ways of thinking can
distract institutions from effectively closing gaps in educational outcomes for students of

16
color. First, students are treated as the main unit of analysis when attempting to address
low educational outcomes (Peña et al., 2006). Because scholars and practitioners often
view the underperformance of Latino students as a problem of student culture, family
income, or language background (Katz, 1999) they may attribute unequal outcomes to
perceived deficiencies (Peña et al., 2006). Associating students with “stereotypical
characteristics attributed to racial and ethnic groups” (Bensimon, 2005, p. 7) yields an
interpretation of unequal outcomes as a student problem rather than a problem of
practitioners’ capacity to respond to student needs.
A second way of thinking that deters institutions from effectively closing the
achievement gap is that they may rely on top-down recommendations to improve student
outcomes. For example, state-level interventions have attempted to address students’ low
transfer rates by targeting financial aid transfer policies (Long, 2005). In Long’s (2005)
study, the following policies were recommended to improve transfer:
• Create a reward system for students who transfer;
• Use financial aid programs which encourage certain behaviors of students that
have been found to improve transfer; and
• Penalize students by creating a policy that would require repayment if a student
does not complete a baccalaureate degree within a certain time frame.
According to Long (2005), state involvement is “…essential to creating effective policies
to promote transfer. While individual institutions could create policies to help promote
transfer, states are in a much better position to coordinate the necessary decisions and
policies across systems” (p. 6). However, shifting responsibility from educational

17
practitioners to the state level to address low transfer rates has its limitations. This
approach assumes that policies will impact all students the same statewide without taking
into consideration contextual differences between students and institutions. Applying an
external accountability model assumes a one-size fits all approach to improve transfer
that leaves out the variable of practitioners influence on student outcomes.
Research has demonstrated the impact educators have on student effort and
success (Stanton-Salazar, 1997). Yet, rarely are practitioners considered as a factor of
influence when analyzing and addressing student success (Bensimon, 2007). Currently,
there is a lack of attention in understanding the effects practitioners have on students:
Practitioners are missing from the most familiar way of conceptualizing empirical
studies of student success: when scholars attempt to translate their findings into
recommendations for actions, practitioners are rarely ever the target of change or
intervention (Bensimon, p. 4, 2007).

Research has found that students place a high value on their interactions and relationships
with educators (Adelman, 2005). Yet, there is limited research on the communication
between faculty and students and how it can lead to learning (Katz, 1999). When
attempting to comprehend factors that may impact student success, one cannot leave out
the role practitioners play in students’ academic outcomes. To disregard an analysis of
practitioner’s impact on student outcomes is to leave the research incomplete (Bensimon,
2007).

A New Way of Addressing the Transfer Gap
This study evaluates participants experience in a project that has the potential to
shift the responsibility of transfer outcomes from students to practitioners. In the

18
Oceanside Transfer Project, The Center for Urban Education developed activities to assist
practitioners to examine their practices by learning from students’ experiences. The
project drew on sociocultural theories of teaching (Tharp & Gallimore, 1988) to better
understand participants’ experiences and learning: (a) learning is a social process; (b)
learning is facilitated through joint activities; and (c) learning is facilitated by assisted
performance. The basic idea behind this sociocultural approach is that learning is a social
process facilitated through collaborative joint activities that can lead participants to
develop new learning while in the process of questioning their beliefs about a problem.
The project operated under the assumption that practitioners were not aware they
could play an influential role in student outcomes and inspire group members to create
changes. This study evaluates if practitioners, through their participation in the project,
become institutional agents by using available resources to assist students navigate and
make sense of the transfer system. This study refers to the terms institutional agents and
transfer agents interchangeably because they represent practitioners who are able and
willing to assist students navigate complicated academic requirements, support their
educational aspirations, and dispel their fear of not belonging at Oceanside College
(Dowd et al., 2006). In adopting traits of institutional agents, participants develop a
commitment to advocating on behalf of their students because they view themselves as
one answer to students’ transfer problems.
The following section of this chapter presents characteristics of institutional
agents, notably how practitioners can develop such qualities by participating in action
research methods that include collaborative inquiry activities. The final section of this

19
chapter provides a description of Kirkpatrick’s model (1998), which is used to evaluate
participants experience to determine (a) the project’s effectiveness in developing new
learning among group members and (b) if changes in practice occurred that reflect
characteristics of institutional agents.

Institutional Agents
The transfer process can be a difficult one to understand for first-time college
students, especially for those who lack models of educational success. Schools rarely
provide low-income minority students with the knowledge necessary to maneuver this
process successfully, and as a result, they may be “systematically denied true
opportunities for long-term success” (Stanton-Salazar, 1997, p. 15). A study by Dowd
and colleagues (2006) identified economic, informational, and cultural barriers that
impact student success. However, practitioners who build supportive relationships with
students can mediate these barriers and promote greater transfer success. The role of
institutional agents in Dowd’s study is not a technical one where educators follow
institutional transfer protocols, such as directing students to the transfer center for
assistance. Instead, practitioners played the role of institutional agents who demonstrated
a commitment to transmitting resources and opportunities to students.

Qualities of Institutional Agents
Institutional agents can be faculty, counselors, administrators, and even non-
academic members who have the capacity to assist students interpret academic

20
procedures and navigate complicated institutional requirements. Institutional agents can
also act as mediators between two cultures – the institutional culture and student culture –
with the purpose of supporting student success within school systems (Stanton-Salazar,
2001).
Research has shown that practitioners can play two critical roles in helping
students transfer (Dowd et al., 2006). First, practitioners can adopt the role of transfer
agents, labeled “educators” in Dowd’s study, who help students navigate complicated
academic requirements by assisting them through the application process. In doing so,
these agents validate students’ aspirations of transfer. The second role practitioners can
play is that of a transfer champion who demonstrates a commitment to educational equity
by advocating for administrative practices that promote transfer access and student
success (Dowd et al., 2006). Both roles appreciate the complexity of student transfer
experiences. By building relationships with students, sharing transfer information,
offering support and advocating on their behalf, institutional agents can play an essential
role in breaking down transfer barriers (Dowd et al, 2006). Table 1 illustrates how
transfer agents and transfer champions can remove informational and cultural barriers
that can hinder student transfer.
Table 1

Qualities of Transfer Agents and Transfer Champions
Reducing Informational Barriers Reducing cultural barriers

Transfer
Agents
-Explain how to navigate
structures.
-Offer course selection strategies.
-Convey academic expectations.
-Raise student aspirations.
-Using multiple assessment
strategies to recognize diverse
learning styles.

21
Table 1

Continued, Qualities of Transfer Agents and Transfer Champions
Reducing Informational Barriers Reducing cultural barriers

Transfer
Champions
-Being the voice of transfer
students in shaping financial aid,
admissions, and curriculum
practices.
-Implement “early warning”
advising systems to identifying
struggling students.
-Shaping policies to allow transfer
cohorts to form.
-Include experiences as a transfer
student in hiring criteria for
transfer advising and mentoring
roles.
Note. Dowd et al., 2006

Underscoring the importance of institutional agents is the understanding that anyone can
become an institutional agent. They are not to be found solely within certain departments
or levels of administration, but can be found working in formal or informal capacities that
aid students in their educational careers. In order for institutional agents to facilitate
student support, practitioners need to possess particular knowledge on how to make
sound educational decisions on behalf of students (Stanton-Salazar, 2001). These include:
• Problem-solving skills;
• An understanding of academic culture;
• Practical knowledge of how educational bureaucracies operate;
• Networking skills to negotiate with various gatekeepers and build supportive ties;
and
• Technical funds of knowledge (computer literacy, study, time-management and
decision-making skills).
In addition, institutional agents’ knowledge should extend beyond an understanding
of institutional bureaucracies to also include a separation from deficit thinking, which

22
attributes inequitable outcomes to student deficiencies, to equity-mindedness that
attempts to understand and address student outcome inequities (Peña et al., 2006).
Bensimon (2007) describes equity-minded practitioners as individuals who “attribute
unequal outcomes among Black and Latina/o students to institution-based dysfunctions…
equity minded individuals reflect on their own and their colleagues’ role in and
responsibility for student success” (p. 446). Equity-minded practitioners not only identify
inequities, but also question them in order to eliminate inequitable outcomes (Peña et al.,
2006). Characteristics of equity-minded practitioners include (Bensimon, Rueda, Dowd,
& Harris, 2007):
• Being color-conscious by noticing and questioning inequitable student outcome
patterns among minority students (p. 32);
• “Being aware that beliefs, expectations, and practices can be racialized
unintentionally (p.33);
• “Being willing to assume responsibility for the elimination of inequality” (p.33);
and
• Demonstrating caring characteristics by reaching out to students and “…give
them the tools they need to succeed-e.g., teaching them how to study, showing
them how to format a paper” (p.33).
The premise of this study is that when practitioners participate in inquiry activities
they will develop a deeper understanding of students’ transfer experiences. This new
knowledge will lead practitioners to take greater responsibility to promote student

23
success by becoming institutional agents who are equity-minded and whom assume
personal ownership and institutional responsibility for eliminating inequities in transfer.

Creating Opportunities for Developing Institutional Agents
Developing the knowledge to perform the role of an institutional agent
requires practitioners to understand the rules of the school and students’ educational
experiences. This knowledge thus enables practitioners to assist students navigate
complicated academic and social barriers that may hinder their access to institutional
resources (Stanton-Salazar, 1997). Participants in the Oceanside Transfer Project were
provided the opportunity to acquire this knowledge through the group meetings that
followed the student interviews. The following section details action research activities
that were utilized to prompt practitioners to re-examine their understanding of transfer
practices as they delve deeper into the problem of low transfer outcomes.

Action Research
The Oceanside Transfer Project participants engaged in activities grounded in
collaborative inquiry approaches, which as a form of action research, helped to increase
participants’ knowledge about the transfer process. One of the fundamental purposes of
action research (AR) is to improve practices by solving local problems (Elliott, 1991).
Action research is not a program, but a process that McLean (1995) defines as
“systematically evaluating the consequences of educational decisions and adjusting
practice to maximize effectiveness” (p. 3). Reevaluating and making changes to

24
educational decisions requires practitioners to pay close attention to students in order to
look for information on how to relate to students and make sound decisions that will
produce successful outcomes (Peña, 2007).
A potential drawback to action research, highlighted by Kember and Gow (1992),
is that practitioners involved in action research methods do not “naturally” know how to
create AR activities to find solutions to their problems. Less experienced practitioners
conducting AR may require assistance from trained researchers who possess a strong
research background in AR to implement activities to improve practices. The project
addressed this drawback by relying on CUE’s expertise to guide the project activities. In
adopting characteristics of assisted performance (Tharp & Gallimore, 1988), CUE
researchers modeled appropriate interviewing techniques and provided critical feedback
during the analysis phase of the group’s findings. An additional downside is that for AR
to be effective participants must have a desire to improve practices through this process
since participation alone will not automatically lead to new learning or change (McLean,
1995). Even with these drawbacks, McLean (1995) argues that AR has the potential to
improve education.

Participatory Action Research
Participatory action research (PAR) is a form of action research that provides
practitioners with an approach to evaluate and change their practices. PAR involves
identifying a problem, initiating research activities to collect data, and analyzing the
findings to identify a solution to the problem. The Oceanside Transfer Project parallels

25
PAR activities by having practitioners engage in research activities by interviewing
students and analysis of their findings in a group setting. These activities allow group
members to become familiar with local practices with the goal to improve the
performance of said practices. Because researchers and local practitioners work together
as co-researchers (Bray, Lee, Smith, & Yorks, 2000) in the research process, team
members work collectively to find solutions to the phenomena under study.
According to Bray et al., (2000), this type of collaboration allows practitioners to
make sense of their own data in terms of their own language and in relation to their own
perception and values. This collaborative inquiry method is based on questions emerging
from real-life situations, as opposed to conventional academic research where questions
originate from an exterior academic community. The collaborative method focuses on the
practitioner as the means to solve the problem and enables the group to continue learning
after the researchers have left the setting (Bray et al., 2000).

Collaborative Inquiry
Collaborative inquiry (CI) is a powerful process that allows members to
“collectively construe from their lived experience new meaning about their world
meaning that, through repeated cycles of reflection and action, they found to represent
valid knowledge and to have a significant influence on their practice” (Bray et al., 2000,
p. 1). Two critical aspects of collaborative inquiry are the processes of dialogue and
repeated reflection cycles.

26
Collaborative inquiry consists of dialogue, which according to Freire (1970) is an
expression of the human condition that inspires people to come together as thinking and
feeling beings to form a common entity. If group dialogue is not rushed in order to reach
a quick conclusion, but rather done at an appropriate pace it can maximize the
opportunity to share perspectives and understanding among team members, which in turn
can positively impact the exploration of the problem (Bray et al., 2000). Through
dialogue, participants in the Oceanside Transfer Project were provided an opportunity to
inquire into the nature of the transfer problem to better understand its cause(s); moreover,
they could mobilize collectively to apply their new knowledge to solve the dilemma in
hand (Park, 2001).
Reflection is another integral part of meaning-making in the CI process. Through
reflection, members were able to question their assumptions about students and practices.
The aim of the project was to have practitioners increase their knowledge about transfer
and shift towards creating institutional changes that support student success. Through
reflection and dialogue, participants were able to learn from each other and identify
inefficiencies in their practices by questioning their understanding of institutional
structures.

The Oceanside Transfer Project as a Collaborative Inquiry Project

The Center for Urban Education (CUE) researchers developed research activities
for the Oceanside Transfer Project that were grounded in an alternative model of
research. This model, called the practitioner-as-researcher, is intended to bring about

27
institutional change by developing a deeper awareness among practitioners of a problem
that exists within their own setting (Bensimon et al., 2004). The practitioner-as-researcher
model was adopted by CUE during a two-year study, called the Diversity Scorecard, of
fourteen urban community colleges in Southern California. The study’s focus was to
improve educational outcomes for minority students by reversing the role between
researcher and practitioner.
By transposing responsibilities practitioners adopt the role of researchers and are
able to produce knowledge and take action to solve a local problem. In a traditional
research model, the expert researcher is responsible for defining the problem and
producing knowledge that is often summarized in a scholarly article. Table 2 provides a
summary of qualities extracted from Bensimon et al., (2004) that distinguish the
traditional model of research and the practitioner-as-researcher model.
Table 2

Qualities of Traditional Research Model and Practitioner-as-Researcher Model
Traditional Research Model Practitioner-as-Researcher Model
-Researcher defines the problem to
be studied.
-Researcher selects the appropriate
research methods to use.
-Researcher assumes the roles of the
facilitator.
-Research team identifies a suspected problem.

-Researchers collect data.
-Researcher interprets the data.
-Researcher reports the findings.
-Knowledge obtained tends to
remain unnoticed by insiders.

-Involve campus members in the research
process.
-Stakeholder/insider conducts research by
collecting and analyzing data.
-Insiders acquires new knowledge about their local
problem and can be applied towards taking action
to solve it.
Note. Bensimon et al., 2004

28
An additional difference is that the practitioner-as-researcher model requires more
time because practitioners are not often familiar with conducting research. Yet a benefit
of using the practitioner-as-researcher model is that the knowledge produced is specific to
a particular institution and therefore enables practitioners “to feel empowered to assume
the role of change agents” (Bensimon et al., 2004, p. 114). Research studies using the
practitioner-as-researcher model have been successful in enabling: practitioners to
identify, investigate, and provide solutions to policies and practices that were a hindrance
to student transfer success (James, 2008), and have also made a difference in the way in
which faculty members understand, think about, and change the way they relate towards
students of color (Peña, 2007). With this said, the model has not been successful in other
instances that attempted to challenge the beliefs, of student deficit, held by mathematic
faculty members (Bustillos, 2007). This study differs from those listed above because it
evaluates practitioners’ participation in an inquiry project that can lead them to develop
into institutional agents.
Participants in the project refused to accept the low transfer rates of Latinas/os
and African-American students as an unavoidable educational outcome. The desire to
understand and close the transfer gap provided the impetus for project members to
engage in a multi-step inquiry process. The Inquiry Paradigm, illustrated in figure 2,
outlines the cyclical nature of the inquiry process that can challenge practitioners’ beliefs
by providing a space for them to rethink their understanding about a particular problem.
The inquiry paradigm model allows practitioners to transform existing data into usable
knowledge (Bensimon, et al., 2006) they can apply in their own setting.

Figure2. The Inquiry Paradigm
Equity Scorecard Project
USC
Copyright 2006 University of Southern California.
All Rights Reserved.
The Inquiry Paradigm
Transfer
Readiness
Data
Minority students
who are UC-
transfer ready
transfer to less
selective
institutions
Faculty and staff use
Various tools to inquire
Into reasons for
transfer-gap:
•Student Interviews
• Cultural Audit
•Self Assessment
•Inventory of
• Institutional transfer
Practices
Solution
addresses
the identified
Causes for
Transfer gap
Evaluation of
Implemented
Solution
Data Transfer-
Gaps
Inquiry Solution Evaluation

From “The ‘Missing 87’: A Study of ‘Transfer-Ready’ Community College Students who
do not Transfer,” by E. M. Bensimon, A. Dowd, F. Trapp, and H. Alford, 2006, Unpublished
Manuscript, Center for Urban Education, University of Southern California.

Attempting to change the beliefs of practitioners is not a simple process.
Bensimon (2007) argues that practitioners develop implicit theories to explain why
students succeed or fail in school. These theories can often be reinforced by institutional
cultures or academic norms that practitioners internalize as facts to explain student
outcomes. Implicit theories are difficult to change since practitioners may not notice the
need to modify their practices (Bensimon, 2007). Research has shown that changes in
practitioner beliefs can occur through participation in collaborative inquiry activities that
can challenge their assumptions about students and increases their awareness of their
practices, which can lead to modifications in their daily routines (Bensimon et al., 2004).

29

30
Reaction, Learning and Behavior
Kirkpatrick’s (1998) four level evaluation model was used to evaluate
practitioners’ experiences in the Oceanside Transfer Project. According to Kirkpatrick
(1998), the information from each level serves as a base for the next level’s evaluation. I
used the first three levels of the evaluation model as a framework to answer the research
questions posed by this study:
Table 3

Kirkpatrick’s Evaluation Model used to Answer Study Research Questions
Level Research Question
Level 1 1. How did practitioners react to the inquiry project?
Level 2 2. What did participants learn as a result of participating in the
project?
2a. In what ways might participants new learning assist them in
developing into institutional agents?

Level 3 3. What changes did practitioners make, as a result of what they
learned in the project?
3a. Do these changes reflect the characteristics of institutional
agents?

Evaluating participants’ reactions (level 1) is important because if individuals
react favorably towards the project they will be highly motivated to learn (Kirkpatrick,
1998). This increases the likelihood they will augment their knowledge about the
institution and students. A positive reaction can lead practitioners to share their
experiences with their colleagues. A negative reaction to the project, conversely, may
lead to no learning.
Level two evaluates whether new learning new skills or knowledge took place
among participants. Project inquiry activities created opportunities for the accumulation

31
of new knowledge that led practitioners to increase their awareness about their ability to
directly play a critical role in transmitting access to institutional resources and
opportunities to students. Evaluation at this level informs the study if new learning was
transferred into participants’ everyday environments (Kirkpatrick, 1998).
Level three evaluates whether practitioners made changes to their practices
(Kirkpatrick, 1998). Evaluation at this level informs the study if changes made by group
members reflect characteristics of institutional agents.

Conclusion
Action research, particularly elements of participatory action research and
collaborative inquiry, provide an approach for practitioners to examine how their own
practices and organizational processes affect students. By engaging in research activities,
individuals can examine their own beliefs about students to better understand the
effectiveness of their structures.
New knowledge based on a deeper understanding of students can allow
practitioners to become experts in their own setting (Bensimon et al., 2004). Thus, new
learning can empower practitioners to develop alternatives to the status quo by making
them aware of errors in their reasoning and behaviors regarding transfer.
The following chapter discusses the methods used to examine participants’
experiences in the Oceanside Transfer Project.

32
Chapter 3
Methods
The purpose of the study was to evaluate participants’ experiences in the project
and examine if their participation led them to become institutional agents. There are
various forms of evaluation approaches, such as process evaluations, which are used to
highlight specific areas of strength and improvement in programs (Patton, 1987). For this
study, I conducted a summative evaluation, which is typically used to determine the
effectiveness of a project by rendering an overall judgment (Patton, 2002).

Evaluation Model
Kirkpatrick’s (1998) four-level evaluation model (reaction, learning, behavior,
results) was used as a framework to evaluate participants’ experience in the Oceanside
Transfer Project. The fourth level (results) was not used in this evaluation because long-
term results were not a focus of the project. According to Kirkpatrick, there are three
purposes for evaluations (1998):
1. To justify the expense of a program and show how it contributes to the
organization’s objectives and goals;
2. To decide whether to continue or discontinue a programs; and
3. To gain information on how to improve future programs.
This study focused on the third purpose of program evaluations by learning from
participants how to improve future projects.

33
Kirkpatrick’s (1998) model provides a framework in which to analyze
participants’ experience and answer the following research questions posed by this study:
1. How did practitioners react to the inquiry project?
2. What did participants learn as a result of participating in the project?
2a. In what ways might participants new learning assist them in developing into
institutional agents?
3. What changes did practitioners make, as a result of what they learned in the
project?
3a. Do these changes reflect the characteristics of institutional agents?
This study evaluated if practitioners become institutional agents as a result of
participating in the Oceanside Transfer Project. Through an analysis of the data, I was
able to examine if the project’s inquiry activities enabled participants to understand the
complexity of transfer from the standpoint of the student. Moreover, I was able to see the
extent if new learning led them to make modifications to their daily practices.

Participants
A total of eleven participants made the group who included counselors, faculty
members and directors. All the participants read and verbally agreed (Appendix F) to the
project. To protect their identity all the participants were assigned a pseudonym.

34
Table 4

Participants in the Student Interview Team
Participant Gender Race Discipline
Anne Female Latina Counselor
Beth Female Latina Counselor
Dana Female Caucasian Counselor
Jill Female Caucasian Faculty
Patty Female Latina Student Support Instructor
Mike Male Latino
Student Support Services
Professional
Paul Male Latino Counselor
Raul Male Caucasian Administrator
Heather Female Asian Mid-Level Administrator
Fe Female Caucasian Faculty
Mark Male Caucasian Faculty

Each team member interviewed 2-3 students. The group members participated in a half-
day training to prepare for the student interviews by (a) discussing interview approach
practices, (b) constructing an interview guide of questions to ask students, (c) observing a
mock interview, and (d) learning how to operate a digital audio recorder. The interviews
were important because they can allow practitioners to make meaning of their
interactions with students and add depth to their understanding of their transfer
experiences (Patton, 2002). The purpose of the interviews was to attain, from students,
answers to the following questions:
1. What were their goals when they came to Oceanside College?
2. What was it like to be a student at Oceanside College? If students indicated that
transfer was their goal, then why didn’t they transfer? Did they plan to transfer at

35
a future point?
3. What could Oceanside College have done (if anything at all) to facilitate student
transfer?
To learn from students can be a transformative experience because, as Bensimon et al
(2006) suggest, practitioners are able to expand their knowledge of students’ personal
experiences.
The group participated in five collaborative group meetings (see table 5) that took
place throughout the duration of the project and served the following purposes:
Table 5

Purpose of Group Meetings
Meeting Purpose
Meeting #1 Prepare and train for student interviews
Meeting #2 Collaboratively analyze student interview transcripts
Meeting #3 Continued transcript analysis
Meeting #4 Begin final report on findings and recommendations
Meeting #5 Finalize the project findings report

The following section outlines the qualitative methods used to collect data. Then I
highlight the steps taken to analyze the data.

Methods
As a research assistant for CUE during the Oceanside Transfer Project, the
following qualitative research methods were used to collect data: interviews, observation
field notes from the group meetings, and pre and post questionnaires. Critics of
qualitative data collection have charged this approach as too subjective due to the role of

36
the researcher who is the instrument of data collection (Guba, 1991; Patton, 2002).
Alternatively, quantitative methods would not be able to provide the benefits of a
qualitative approach because quantitative research requires the use of standardized
measures to fit the experience of individuals into predetermined response categories to
which numbers are assigned (Patton, 2002). Qualitative methods are able to provide an
evaluation the ability to illuminate individuals’ experiences by detailing any learning,
changes in perceptions, and new knowledge development (Patton, 2002). To provide an
in-depth analysis of participants’ experiences in the project, the study used case studies to
understand group members’ experiences in the project.

Case Study Methodology
Case studies are useful for conducting examinations into a phenomenon, such as
practitioners’ attempting to make sense of their problem (Patton, 2002). The purpose of
case studies is to gather detailed information that captures the subjects’ thoughts and
experiences in the project. A criticism regarding case studies relates to the validity of the
cases because of potential researcher subjectivity. Yin (1984) argues, however, using
multiple sources of data counteracts the criticism. For this reason the study relied on
three sources of data that consisted of participant interviews, observation field notes of
the group meetings and pre-post questionnaires.
All three sources of data were organized chronologically in a three-ring binder
with tabs separating participants’ individual interviews and questionnaires. Field notes

37
were organized under a separate binder tab. The organization of the data allowed for the
management and analysis of all data sources.

Interviews
Griffee (2005) encourages the use of interviews because it is perceived as a
natural process. Interviews allowed project participants to communicate naturally through
their own words as events occurred in their normal setting (Miles & Huberman, 1994).
Due to the small number of participants, I was able to analyze each members’ interviews
in depth that contributed to the richness in details to this study (Patton, 2002).
I attempted to conduct two interviews with each group member. It was important for
the first interview (Appendix A) to take place after the second group meeting because
participants were in the process of analyzing their student interview findings. Any new
learning from their interview analysis would be fresh in their minds after the group
meeting and could be discussed at length during the interview. The second interview
protocol was developed from the findings of the first interviews and observation field
notes.
Additionally, the second interview had two purposes and took place after the
completion of the project (Appendix B). First, it allowed for follow-up questions (Farber,
2006) to responses participants provided during their first interviews. Secondly, the
interviews were able to identify whether changes in practices or behavior took place as
reported by participants. Due to time constraints, it was not possible to interview

38
individuals a third time. The purpose of both interviews was to evaluate participants’
experience in the project.
Both interview protocol questions were open-ended to allow practitioners a venue
in which “to tell a story” (Ohman, 2005, p.275) about their experiences in the project.
Open-ended questions were carefully arranged for the purpose of taking each participant
through the same sequence of carefully worded questions (Patton, 1987). According to
Patton (1987), using open-ended interview methods minimizes variations in questions
posed and also reduces bias that can occur from having numerous interviewees. Also, the
interviews consisted of semi-structured questions that allowed room for probing as the
interviews progressed.
During both interview sessions an audio-recorder was used to capture all verbal
communication. The audio-recordings were transcribed verbatim. There are limitations
on how much can be learned from verbal communication via interviews alone if this
source of data is not mutually related with other information. To overcome possible data
limitations, this study relied on field notes and questionnaires as additional source of
information that contributed to an overall understanding of participants’ experiences. The
remaining section of this chapter describes the observation methods used and then
discusses the analysis of the data.

Observations
Observations provided an additional source of data that captured detailed
descriptions of participants' activities, behaviors, and interpersonal relations in the group

39
meetings (Patton, 2002). As a participant observer, I was able to develop an insider’s
view of what occurred in the meetings (Patton, 1987). Participant observation provided a
research strategy that allowed CUE research members to intimately share in the activities
and also build a relationship with participants (Waddington, 1994).
As a participant observer, I observed practitioners’ engagement in the analysis of
student interview transcripts and their attempts to make sense of their findings. I used the
following steps as a guide to taking field notes when being a participant observer (Patton,
2002; Merriam, 1998):
1. The Physical Setting: Describe the physical space of the meetings and resources
available to participants.
2. The Participants: Record participants’ that are present or absent and their role in
the meetings.
3. Activities and Interactions: Describe what is taking place in the meetings, the
sequence of activities and how people relate to each other.
4. Unexpected Outcomes: Describe unplanned outcomes and unexpected activities.
Capture non-verbal communication and symbols.
5. Researcher’s Behavior: As a participant observer, the researcher is a member of
the setting and should describe the role he/she will have. Describe how the
researcher may be affecting the dynamics of the group and capture what they say
or do.
After each group meeting the field notes were reviewed and revised within a twenty-four
hour period. Audio recordings from the group meetings were relied upon to fill in any

40
gaps in the observation field notes. The third and final source of data evaluated in the
study was the pre- and post-questionnaires.

Pre and Post Questionnaire
Two questionnaires were given to the participants during the project, which were
used as supporting documents during the analysis process. The first questionnaire was
distributed to all the members during the introductory project meeting (Appendix D). It
asked participants to provide background information regarding their area of
specialization, thoughts about equity in relation to transfer and their history at Oceanside
College. The post-questionnaire was given to members at the last project meeting. It
contained both Likert scale and open-ended questions (Appendix E), which sought to
elicit their reactions to the project, to identify what participants learned, and if they
experienced any changes in practice or behavior related to transfer.
The following section describes the data analysis methods used in this study and
then discusses the framework used to evaluate participants’ experiences in the project.

Analysis of the Data
Kirkpatrick’s (1998) evaluation model was used as a framework to evaluate
participants’ experiences. I used the themes of reaction, learning and changes made in
practice or behavior, as outlined by Kirkpatrick, to provide direction of coding and
analysis of the data. Coding the data allowed for organization and making sense of the
information analyzed (Bodgan & Biklen, 2002). Before beginning the analysis process,

41
the data were organized in one binder that allowed for better management of various
sources of information. Table 6 below outlines the steps taken to analyze the three
sources of data (Miles & Huberman, 1994).
Table 6

Data Analysis Process
Steps Purpose
Step #1
Reaction, learning and behavior were used throughout all data
sources as overarching themes, which provided both consistency
and accuracy. I read the transcribed interview of each participant.
Through this process, I became familiar with the data.
Step #2
I then re-read each participant interview and underlined key words
or sentences that highlighted significant findings that related to the
three themes. Each theme was identified in the text by a symbol in
the margins of the text, so as to be more easily located.
Step #3
After coding each interview, I then went back and extracted relevant
quotes, keywords or excerpts underlined during step two and
organized them under the appropriate corresponding theme. Each
participant in the project had their own electronic word document
that captured their individual reactions, learning and changes in
practice that reflect qualities of institutional agents.
Step #4
I then read the observation field notes twice and coded relevant
information into the appropriate three themes. Key findings
corresponding to specific participants were organized in their
individual electronic word document under the related theme. This
allowed the analysis process to be structured and systematic.
Step #5
The pre and post-questionnaires were analyzed in the same manner
as the observation field notes. The use of multiple data sources
allowed for strengthening deficiencies of any one source of
information (Patton, 1987) and also enhancing the rigor of the study
through triangulation (Denzin, 1978). According to Denzin (1978),
triangulation uses multiple sources of information to increase the
reliability of the data (Griffee, 2005 & Patton, 2002).
Step #6
Once I had a word document for every participant summarizing
their findings of all three data sources, in relation to the three
overarching themes, I was able to begin evaluating participants’
experiences in the project.

42
Lastly, chapter four contains three case studies. The cases allow the reader to
learn how participants’ experienced the project. I chose Mark, Jill and Raul for the cases
to report their experiences going through the collaborative inquiry activities and how they
attempt to make sense of their findings. The cases provide the reader with in-depth
information to better understand the chronological experiences of the participants (Patton,
2002) by highlighting their reactions to the project, new learning, and if their increased
awareness led to them becoming institutional agents. The last section of this chapter
discusses the framework used to evaluate in the study.

Kirkpatrick’s Framework
The study used Donald Kirkpatrick’s (1998) model as a framework to evaluate
practitioners’ experiences in the project. This evaluation model allowed the analysis to
identify if participants adopted characteristics of institutional agents as a result of their
involvement of the project. According to Kirkpatrick’s model, evaluations must begin
with level one and move sequentially through all the levels.
Level 1. The reaction level measured participants’ initial reactions to the project so as
to identify satisfaction (Kirkpatrick, 1998). It was important to assess participants’
reactions towards the project because a positive reaction can influence their openness to
new learning.
Level 2. The learning level measured the amount of change participants experienced
in their attitudes, increased skills and improved knowledge (Kirkpatrick, 1998). If change

43
in one or more of these areas take place it can lead to potential modifications to their
daily activities.
Level 3. The behavioral level measured participants’ changes in their daily practices
as a consequence of their new learning (Kirkpatrick, 1998).
Level 4. The result level measures the product or final outcomes that occur due to
volunteers’ participation in the project (Kirkpatrick, 1998). For example, a favorable
result would be if the project led to changes by practitioner that increased transfer rates
from the previous year. For the purpose of this study I am only using the first three levels,
reaction, learning and behavior.
In chapter four, the data is presented in two parts. The first part of the chapter
presents the findings of the study in the following three areas: reaction, learning, and
changes in practice. The second part of this chapter presents three cases of individual
participants that highlight their own experiences in the project.

44
Chapter 4
Data Presentation
This chapter discusses how participants experienced the Oceanside Transfer
Project. Practitioners at Oceanside College were able to enhance their learning about
transfer through their involvement in the project’s collaborative inquiry activities, which
included student interviews and the opportunity to collectively interpret student interview
findings with colleagues.
This chapter is divided into two parts. The first part begins by providing a brief
background description of all eleven participants. I then outline the criteria used to
analyze the data. Next, I present the study findings in the following three areas:
participants’ reactions to the project, knowledge gained, and the effect this learning had
on practice or behavior. The second part of this chapter presents three cases of individual
participants. The cases highlight a more in depth picture of the way in which practitioners
experienced the project. I chose to develop cases on Mark, Raul and Dana’s experiences
because of their high attendance in the project activities. Also, the cases of these three
individuals bring to light the experiences of a faculty, counselor, and administrator.

Part 1: Introduction of Project Participants
This section of the chapter introduces all eleven project participants by providing
a brief description of each member. Mark, a white male, was a former community college
student himself. He has been a social science instructor at Oceanside College for eight
years. Before volunteering for the Oceanside Transfer Project, Mark had no previous

45
research experience but is committed to assisting students transfer and completing a
degree. What caught his interest in joining the project was his concern that students were
not reaching their educational goals, some of which may be a result of what Mark
believes to be Oceanside College’s “transfer-to-State” mentality because of the close
proximity to the local institution. He feels that students tend to or are advised to transfer
to the state institution rather than exploring other options such as the University of
California.
Mike, a student support services professional, is a Latino male and has been a
member of the institution for the past two years. His motivation to join the project was
based on his interest to learn how to better assist students by improving his skills and
knowledge about students’ transfer experiences. He believes that developing a transfer
culture is challenging because the institution’s mission encompasses vocational training,
transfer, and programs leading to the associate degree or occupational certificates.
A recent hire to the institution is Heather, a female of Asian ethnicity. She joined
Oceanside College two years ago as a midlevel administrator. Prior to joining Oceanside,
Heather had limited experience with the community college system and its students, but
being involved in the project allows her, as she explains, to explore students’ transfer
needs. Her commitment to the project was evident by her perfect attendance to all the
group meetings and activities.
Raul is an administrator whose responsibilities include the coordination of
transfer activities for one of the two campuses at Oceanside and has been at the
institution for over five years. Raul wrote in the post-questionnaire that he knows “much

46
about transfer” and listed the following reasons why he believes students are not
transferring, which places the responsibility on students and not the institution:
• Don’t know application deadlines
• Can’t pass transferable math courses
• They are following their friends
• Tuition costs are high
Raul completed his pre-questionnaire by reporting the institution could do more to
improve the “weak” transfer culture. As the project progressed, Raul developed an action
plan on how to build a transfer culture by proactively approaching faculty members to
request their support of transfer related activities.
Patty, a female Latina, has held the positions of Department Head and instructor
for over twenty years at Oceanside College. She joined the project for two reasons: First,
she is particularly interested in conducting research regarding Oceanside’s own students;
and second, she has a personal interest in supporting the academic needs of racially
diverse students.
Jill, a white female, has been a social science instructor at Oceanside College for
more than thirty years. In the past she has been involved in projects that promoted student
transfer into four-year institutions, but felt the Oceanside Transfer Project would allow
her the opportunity to learn more about student needs by “listening to their stories.”
Paul, a Latino male, has been a counselor and instructor for the past three years.
Prior to joining Oceanside, he was a part-time counselor at three different community

47
colleges, while applying for full-time counseling positions. What piqued his interest in
the Oceanside Transfer Project was the focus on promoting student success.
Over the last twenty-seven years Dana, a white female, has held various positions
in student support services, including the position of Department Head. She has led
various counseling initiatives at Oceanside College, which has broadened her awareness
of transfer practices throughout the institution. She believes that transfer is viewed
primarily as a student service function and less so as an institutional priority. Dana was
optimistic that the Oceanside Transfer Project would produce valuable information on
how to serve students’ transfer needs, which is also a personal interest to her.
Another counselor who has dedicated herself to assisting students transfer is Beth,
a Latina. As a former community college student herself, Beth has a strong personal
commitment to support first-generation students in reaching their academic objectives.
She is currently responsible for organizing outreach efforts targeted towards high schools,
and also oversees a number of transfer related programs. Prior to joining the project she
had not participated in a research project but saw her involvement as a valuable
experience.
Fe, a female Caucasian, has been a faculty member at the institution for less than
ten years. She was a former student at Oceanside College and is glad to be back working
with students. Before beginning her teaching career she was working in the public sector
for over twenty years.
The final group member is Anna, a Latina. She has been a counselor and also a
Department Head within Student Services during her twenty plus years at Oceanside

48
College. Anna had “hunches” as to why students do not transfer, some of which included
distance from home and the high costs associated with the four-year colleges or
universities. Her interest in joining the project was to learn more about students transfer
needs, particularly for students of color.
During the five months of the project, each participant was expected to attend five
group meetings, be interviewed two times, and complete a pre- and post-questionnaire for
a total of nine possible data sources that trace their experience with the project. To
provide an overview of each participant’s involvement in the project, the table below
illustrates their attendance in the project activities. As shown in the table, a majority of
the participants participated in almost all the project activities.
Table 7

Participant Data Chart
Participants
Pseudonym
Data
Points* Questionnaires Interviews Group Meetings
Pre Post 1 2 1 2 3 4 5
Jill 8 X X X X X - XX X
Mark 9 X X X X X XXX X
Mike 8 X X X X X XX- X
Heather 9 X X X X X XXX X
Raul 8 X X X X X X- X X
Patty 8 X X X X X XX- X
Paul 9 X X X - X XXX X
Dana 9 X X X X X XXX X
Fe 8 X - X X X XXX X
Beth 6 X X X - X XX- -
Anna 6 - - X - X XXX X
* Data points refer to group members’ participation in group meetings, interviews, and
questionnaires.

49
Evaluation Criteria
I used Kirkpatrick’s (1998) model to evaluate participants’ experiences in the project.
The levels are: reaction, learning, and behavior. Using Kirkpatrick’s model allowed the
study to answer the research questions by uncovering how participants reacted to the
project, what they learned, and if there were any changes in their practices that reflect
qualities of institutional agents (see Table 8).
Table 8
Model to Evaluate Participants’ Experiences
Level of evaluation Research Question
Reaction How did practitioners react to the project?
Learning What did participants learn as a result of participating in the
project? In what ways might participant’s new learning assist them
in developing into institutional agents?
Behavior What changes did practitioners make in their practices? Which
changes reflect characteristics of institutional agents?
Note. Kirkpatrick, 1998
The first level, reaction, refers to how participants felt about the project and data. The
second level, learning, describes changes in participants’ attitudes, increased skills, and
improved knowledge. Additional themes that emerged during my analysis were: learning
about students transfer experiences; the efficiency of transfer practices; and learning
about their colleagues’ commitment to support transfer. The final level, behavior, can be
defined as changes participants made in their daily teaching, counseling or administrative
practices. The following change in behavior emerged from the analysis of the data and
they were: modification to their beliefs, equity-mindedness, and changes in practices.

50
Evaluation Findings
The Oceanside Transfer Project treated the transfer gap as a phenomenon that
needed to be examined and understood by group members. The project was based on
sociocultural learning principles that learning and change result from social engagement
in collaborative and productive activities (Bensimon et al., 2006). Group members put
this principle into action by engaging in collaborative inquiry activities designed to
increase their know-how about transfer by investigating the cause(s) that prevented
transfer-ready students from transferring. This part of the chapter presents the evaluation
findings that describe participants’ reactions to the project, new learning, and changes
made by practitioners to their transfer practices.

Reactions
Kirkpatrick (1998) maintains that if individuals have a favorable reaction to a
program they are more likely to feel positive towards it. Feeling positively about a
program increases the chances for learning and change. The participants’ reactions to the
project and data are discussed below.

Project
The chair of the Academic Senate at Oceanside College sent an invitation email to
counselors and faculty about the project. Those that replied to the email were invited to
attend an information session where they were presented with background information
regarding the Oceanside Transfer Project. At the information session participants were

51
introduced to the transfer data that was disaggregated by race and ethnicity. The
disaggregated data revealed that 20% of eligible students do not transfer (Bensimon et al.,
2006). Their comments regarding the purpose of the project are captured in the table
below which were reported during their first interview.
Table 9
Motivation for Joining the Project
Participants Position Motivation to Join the Project
Mike Counselor I thought it was a good project.
Beth Counselor It sounded like a good project because I could take action
towards transferring students.
Paul Counselor The project sounded good, it allowed us to hear from
students.
Patty Instructor I think the project was good, it allowed for interaction with
faculty.
Dana Counselor I was excited about it [the project], that is one of the
reasons why I volunteered
Raul Administrator I was excited, very excited [about the project]
Fe Instructor It sounded like a compelling project.
Jill Instructor It was a different project in a good way.
Mark Instructor It seemed like a valuable project
Heather Administrator I was excited…this kind of project will allow us to
collaborate together
Anna Counselor I think it’s a nice project

Group members were welcoming to the idea of joining the project because it would allow
them to engage with students and to hear how they experience transfer at Oceanside
College. Dana, for example, reacted favorably towards the project because it gave her the
opportunity to expand her understanding of the topic by hearing “what students had to
say about their [transfer] experiences at the institution.” Similar to Dana, Patty also
reacted positively towards the project because “It allowed the institution to closely
examine transfer by hearing the student point of view directly, which was impressive.”
Beth’s response to the project can best be understood by her commitment towards

52
assisting students, which was a primary reason why she decided to go into counseling.
The project, Beth shared, allowed her to take an “active role towards learning how to
transfer more students by listening to their experiences.” For counselors, such as Dana
and Beth, the project provided a space to engage with students and understand their
experiences. Additional group members, such as non-counselors, also expressed a
positive reaction towards the project.
For Fe, a faculty member, the project provided an opportunity to interact with
students. Before she conducted her student interviews, Fe described the interview process
as “personal, human being to human being and I think that’s where you really get
information that counts.” Other faculty members expressed positive initial reactions
towards the project. Jill, a social science instructor, had limited interaction with transfer
related processes. Her initial reaction to the project was favorable because it would allow
her to understand students’ experiences by “…listening to their [transfer] stories and
asking those students who didn’t transfer ‘where did you go?’” Raul, an administrator,
also shared similar reactions to the project as Jill. Because he was interested in
understanding how to better assist students, he felt the project would be able to “highlight
those areas that [the institution] need[s] to modify.” Moreover, Raul believed that the
project data would provide him the compelling argument he needed to secure additional
financial resources to support transfer activities. As he stated, “Finally, there’s going to
be this [research report] to show that these are some of the reasons [to invest in transfer
activities] and I can use this as a tool to bolster transfer.”

53
Overall, group members reacted favorably to the project. By joining the project,
participants expected to learn about transfer and were all in support of the purpose of the
project. Their reactions were associated to personal reasons of wanting to learn from
students. For counselors, the project allowed them to listen to student transfer stories.
Another theme associated with participants’ views of the project was their reactions to
the transfer data.

Data
In January 2007, all project members attended an orientation where a research
analyst presented the Oceanside transfer data in a Power Point presentation (Appendix
G). The purpose of the data presentation was to assist group members to understand the
problem and also introduce participants to the purpose of the project. During my first
interview participants were asked to share their thoughts on first seeing the data.
Reactions to the data varied between counselors and non-counselors. The low transfer
rate data was especially surprising for the non-student affairs participants in the project
who were not traditionally familiar with transfer outcomes.
Mark, a social science instructor, said, “I was shocked to see how bad those
statistics were.” Mark believed the institution was transferring students “…at a better rate
than what the data revealed.” Heather, a midlevel administrator, had a similar reaction,
saying, “I was surprised [at the data]. I was frustrated. I mean, these students, they’re so
close and then not transferring. I was actually confused.” As we continued with her

54
interview, Heather believed data added a value to the project because of what it revealed
and how it engaged the participants. She stated,
I think data is very powerful especially the way in which it was presented to the
group and not just in a memo going out. I mean, we could just have all the
researchers interview the students, but I think it’s a good exercise for the
participants to go through…I would want everybody [on campus] to go through
an inquiry process like this.

Heather’s initial feelings of confusion were also shared by others in the group. After the
orientation meeting, Beth left asking herself, “Okay, so now that we know [the actual
transfer rates of the institution], what are we going to do now?” The project activities
allowed group members to examine into the cause(s) of their low transfer rates based on
evidence collected by participants to address their problems.
For some participants the data elicited surprise, shock, and a desire to do
something to correct the situation. But reactions to the date were not uniform. For
example, Paul was doubtful about the accuracy of the data presented. He said, “You have
to look at [the data] with a third eye because it depends on how the numbers were taken
and also who was reporting them.” He continued by expressing certain reservations about
accepting the reliability of the data and felt that “different factors could be skewed [about
the data].” Although Paul was skeptical about the data’s accuracy, he was not deterred
from the project.
Dana did not question the data and simply stated, “I was not surprised, I was not
surprised at all.” She came into the project believing that the institution was not doing
everything it should, “[we] could do more to assist and facilitate students’ transfer.” The
data reinforced her prior beliefs. Patty was similarly unsurprised “…transfer as a whole

55
needs to be improved.” Raul’s reaction was more pragmatic as well as personal. He
welcomed the transfer data because it reinforced what he had been trying to communicate
without much success to upper level administration. He said, “… [the data] are the type
of things that I need to be armed with when I go to budget meetings and I ask for things
to grow transfer.”
In sum, only one participant expressed doubts about the data’s representation of a
true picture about transfer. The other participants seemed to become more motivated by
the data. The realization that transfer rates were low was a surprise. The data was a shock
because they had not expected that there were eligible transfer students not transferring
which was a motivator to be proactive. The findings support Kirkpatrick’s (1998) work
that favorable reactions to a program can likely motivate participants to develop new
learning on how to improve their transfer outcomes.

What Participants Learned
All eleven participants, except for Paul, reported some level of increased learning
as a result of their involvement in the project’s collaborative inquiry activities. It will be
recalled that Paul was also the only member who expressed reactions to the data unlike
the others. The learning themes were:
• Learning about students transfer experiences.
• The efficiency of transfer practices.
• Learning about their colleagues’ commitment to support transfer.

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Students Transfer Experiences
An aim of the project was for practitioners to increase their awareness about
students transfer experiences. In order to enhance their awareness about transfer, each
team member interviewed 2-3 students. Each interview lasted between thirty to sixty
minutes. In preparation for the interviews, participants participated in a half-day training.
The interviews were important because they allowed practitioners to learn about student
transfer experiences. All the student interview transcripts were made accessible to the
group in order for all to become familiar with student experiences. Table 10 provides an
overview of the students interviewed by each group member.
Table 10
Profile of Students Interviewed by Group Members
Participants

# of
Interviews
Student Name(s)
Pseudonym Race GPA
Stud.
1
Stud.
2
Stud.
1
Stud.
2
Stud.
1
Stud.
2
Patty 2 Amy Ethan Filipina N/A 2.46 3.31
Heather 2 Sam John Black N/A 2.66 3.0
Paul 2 Cheryl Don Asian Caucasian 3.17 2.87
Jill 1 Rachel - Filipina - 3.51 -
Raul 1 Mark - Latino - 3.75 -
Anna 1 Dana - Latina - 2.90 -
Mark 2 Samuel Rick Latino Latino 3.32 3.22
Mike 4 Linda Audrey Asian N/A 3.28 3.71
Dana 1 Greg - Caucasian - 3.74 -
Beth 1 David - Latino - 2.90 -
Fe 2 Kelly Carlos Asian Latino 3.44 2.28

For members, the project provided an opportunity to listen to students’ transfer stories
and obtain a closer understanding of how they prefer to receive transfer information.
Mark, the social science instructor, explained that before the project began he only knew

57
the location of the Transfer Center and would occasionally receive emails regarding
transfer activities which he sometimes would forward to his students. After reading
student transcripts of interviews conducted by other members, Mark realized that students
prefer individual interaction with institutional representatives when receiving transfer
information. He said, “A main theme is that person-to-person contact is huge for
students.” This learning led Mark to question if existing practices provided students the
one-on-one support they sought. Mike, a student support service professional, also
learned that students want easy access to information and that they prefer getting it
directly instead of having to search for it. This finding helped Mike reconsider the
delivery of transfer information. He said,
I learned that students want [transfer] information as easy as possible and don’t
want to search for it. So, it got me thinking more along those lines while before I
was thinking more traditional means of reaching out to students through
classroom presentations.

Mike works with students on a daily basis, but his involvement in the project provided a
structure that allowed him to get to know about students’ experiences on a different level.
Rather than speaking to students in his counseling role, he was able to play the role of
listener and learn from students about transfer.
The interviews also allowed group members to learn how informed students were
about transfer. Fe, also an instructor, discovered that the interviewed students who had
frequent contact with counselors on a consistent basis were better prepared for transfer.
She stated, “The ones who saw a counselor early and regularly, knew what they were
doing. They were right on track. They felt so much more grounded. They were doing

58
much better getting where they wanted than people who were loners and kind of
stumbled across this or that.”
In the case of Raul and Heather, they learned that students were not receiving
adequate information when it came to financial aid and planning for their transfer.
For example, not knowing how to pay for college was a concern for students and often
times limited their consideration of applying to certain institutions as Heather learned
from the interviews. She said,
Students have misconceptions about financial aid and requirements to transfer
into a University of California institution. They made a lot of assumptions about it
being expensive by saying ‘I shouldn’t even apply’ or their grades not being high
enough. In fact, they were actually qualified to apply to a UC.

Heather discovered students rely on their assumptions to guide their beliefs about which
institutions to apply; however, to be misinformed, as many of these students seem to be,
limits their choices of institutions to transfer. Barriers students encountered were not just
lack of information but also issues having to do with students’ fears about the unknown
or their lack of knowledge about transfer.
As a consequence of conducting interviews with a small number of students, the
participants learned about transfer barriers they had not known about or did not fully
understand. After reading multiple interview transcripts Jill concluded that students
didn’t feel comfortable accessing transfer services. She said, “Students are intimidated
about walking into the [transfer] offices and asking questions that might seem foolish.
They’re not comfortable about approaching [transfer] services and I wonder why.” Jill
was unable to place herself in the student situations in order to attempt to understand

59
what specifically created these feelings of intimidation, but reading the transcripts did
raise her awareness about this topic.
Many important discoveries were made throughout the interviews conducted by
the participants. Most notably is the discovery that students are disconnected from
institutional services associated with transferring. Thus, the project allowed group
members to probe and elicit information from students directly, enabling them to identify
the type of practices students prefer when receiving transfer information. Students’
attempting to make sense of the transfer requirements is a challenge as noted by Dana
when she said, “Transfer is a maze and [students] don’t know how to maneuver through
that maze and it’s almost the lucky ones that make it through.” Transfer is a complex
process that requires students to collect and make sense of transfer requirements,
organize their class schedules accordingly, and apply for financial aid. As Fe noted, the
students who meet with counselors on a regular basis are better prepared. These students
access and receive information through existing transfer structures already in place. What
the institution may be overlooking is that students who are not proactive in seeking out
information may be at a disadvantage and require the “person-to-person” contact to locate
and make sense of transfer information. The following section describes what the
participants learned about the impact transfer practices have on students.

The Efficiency of Transfer Practices
Participants learned from students that transfer is a complicated process to
maneuver and may unintentionally create barriers for students. Many of the barriers

60
related to transfer practices: not being simplified for students to understand, transfer
appears to be invisible on campus, and the need to change the manner in which practices
are conducted. This became acutely evident to Heather during the interviews as she
learned more about the “information barriers” students must overcome when attempting
to transfer into a four-year institution. She said,
I could see why students would be confused [about transfer]. I mean, it took me a
year to understand the requirements to transfer between a California State
University and University of California institution. I don’t know how students
follow that. It’s very difficult.

Heather was able to sympathize with the difficult task of having to understand the
different requirements between institutions which for her, as a practitioner, took a year to
comprehend.
Jill began to comprehend the impact institutional practices have on students most
notably after realizing student’s feelings of disconnect from transfer services. Jill stated,
“If I was to come on this campus, I would be like our students. I don’t think I’d be able to
find [the transfer center]. It’s not evident where counseling is. It’s pretty invisible.”
Because transfer services are “scattered across campus,” it becomes more of a challenge
for students to locate the services they need which creates unintended barriers.
Another instructor, Mark, felt that a problem with transfer is the disconnect
between the institution and students regarding transfer priorities. He stated, “…if our top
priority is students and students’ top priority is transfer we really need to get our actions
aligned.” Mark continued by sharing that if transfer was a priority on campus the
institution would place resources in the counseling center and increase their manpower to
demonstrate the college is meeting student needs and priorities. Fe, a faculty member,

61
also felt that transfer services, particularly classroom presentations, are not often
organized or presented in a manner that allows students to understand the information
being presented. She said, “He [classroom presenter] showed them [students] how to
compute their grade point average and he was so proud of himself [the presenter] for his
quick math, and students were like duh, I’m lost. His manner was such a turn off. I was
like whoa, this is not worth the time.”
The counselors in the project also learned that practice barriers existed which
limited the support provided to students. Dana realized the institutions could be doing
more when she said, “They [students] taught me that the institution needed to do more to
assist and facilitate students’ transfer.” She went on to say that this could be
accomplished by changing their practices by being more “…intrusive with students
instead of waiting for them to locate the Transfer Center.” Other members also felt
changes in the manner in which transfer practices are done needed to be modified. Patty
believed counselors needed to “…be a little more creative. Just because it’s [transfer
procedures] been done one way forever doesn’t mean you have to keep doing it that
way.” Out of the eleven group members only one, Paul, believed transfer practices were
assisting students. He said, “…we [counselors] do a fairly good job in terms of helping
students’ transfer with what we have.” For Paul, the student interviews did not reveal any
new information. He believed that transfer services could benefit from additional
funding, but overall felt that the Transfer Center was supporting students. He stated,
“They [interviews] went as I expected. It went as I thought…consistent with what we
thought as a division and my own thoughts.”

62
Group members learned that transfer practices needed to change. Counselors
discussed that the manner in which transfer was conducted needed to be examined to stay
current with student needs, while faculty learned that transfer requirements are difficult to
understand. As a result of participants’ interacting with other group members to
understand the cause of their low transfer rates, they learned that addressing such
problems needs to extend beyond a responsibility of the division of student affairs as will
be discussed in the following section.

Learning about their Colleagues’ Commitment to Support Transfer
Participants analyzed their findings in a group setting, which allowed them to
increase their own awareness about transfer and also learn the role their colleagues could
play in promoting transfer. An example of how participants began to increase their
awareness about transfer took place during a group discussion when a member brought
up the question, “What is the counselor to student ratio on campus?” Dana, a counselor,
informed the group the institution has roughly twenty counselors who are responsible for
a student population that is approaching thirty thousand. Beyond their student counseling
duties they are also responsible for teaching classes and conducting transfer workshops.
When Heather learned of the counselor-to-student ratio and their responsibilities she
understood their frustration of “… not having sufficient time [to counsel students] and
not enough counselors to do their responsibilities.” She felt counselors need “assistance
and support if they expect [the institution] to improve transfer.” This was an important

63
discussion because it helped participants to question their own work activities to identify
if they are assisting or neglecting the support of transfer.
Working with colleagues from various departments provided members an
opportunity to learn how their peers interpret the problem of transfer. During Raul’s first
interview, he shared that after talking to his colleagues about transfer it appeared they
held to the assumption that it was the responsibility of the transfer center to improve
rates, which he viewed as problematic. He said,
Listening to folks I think there may be some who are like, “Oh [transfer] that’s
kind of a student services job. They should have interventions or programs to deal
with that [supporting student transfer].” But if you’re looking to grow transfer it
has to be throughout the whole institution.

When asked if he had any ideas on how to cultivate transfer buy-in from practitioners he
replied by saying, “I don’t know how or where to begin.” As the project progressed, Raul
learned that faculty members could be a resource to help him gauge the effectiveness of
existing transfer practices and also support transfer activities by being mentors for
students. He stated during his second interview,
That’s one thing that has definitely changed for me, which is getting more of their
point of view and I think also getting their points of view on different types of
[transfer] interventions we have or even just their views of transfer on the
campus….I learned that I need to reach out more to instructional faculty, in any
way I can, and I think it can be as easy as sending out updates over the email. We
want them [faculty] to take on kind of a supporter role to maybe be mentors for
students and to kind of move them towards highlighting transfer.

Raul’s realization that he needed to be more proactive in reaching out to faculty would
not have come about without his participation in the collaborative inquiry activities
provided by the project. Raul welcomed the opportunity to interact with faculty and learn

64
how he could further engage with them. Other group members also believed that faculty
could be a valuable resource.
Patty and Paul both believed that faculty could play a role in supporting transfer
related activities on campus. Both perceived a “lack of buy-in” from instructors existed
and their role in transfer could be improved. Beth, a counselor, also shared a similar
opinion to Patty and Paul about faculty needing to be more involved with transfer. She
said “…instructors could be a strong supporter [of transfer] since a majority of them are
familiar with transfer practices.” The project meetings allowed group members to share
their thoughts that faculty needed to be involved in transfer.
Participation in the project helped faculty to view transfer from the student
perspective and led them to realize they could be doing much more to assist students.
Mark, a social science instructor, recognized that faculty played a limited role in
supporting transfer. He remarked,
[The project] really brought to my attention how little [faculty] really talk about
transfer…you’re usually just so into teaching your subject that you don’t spend a
lot of time talking about transfer and so I think a lot of the students are a bit lost,
not only in terms of getting through the hoops of transfer, but also just in terms of
just figuring out their way in life.

As he began to think about the problem of transfer and students needing additional
support, Mark believed instructors are in a key position of assisting students because of
the close contact they have with them during the school year. He believed faculty needed
to be much more purposeful in promoting transfer in their classes. He explained by
saying,

65
I think maybe a lot of faculty think if they’ve [inspired students to enjoy
education in their courses], they’ve done their job with regards to transfer. If they
put out a good course students will be motivated to succeed in their course and
they’ll want to go on and accomplish their transfer…I think faculty is the main
point of contact, so I think there does need to be a big culture change among
faculty in their teaching. Informing students about transfer is just as much a part
of the job as teaching your discipline.

Jill, a social science instructor, also became aware that faculty could contribute
towards assisting students transfer after listening to counselors talk about the challenges
of getting students to see them for appointments. She said, “Faculty are the touch point
[for students]. This is where the students can all be reached in the classroom…So I think
the primary issue is faculty buy-in and supporting the counselors at our school.” Jill
learned that faculty may not be aware of the ways in which they can assist counselors in
promoting transfer. She felt that faculty may be disconnected from transfer altogether,
which she associated with their practices of working in “isolated little pods” that limits
their interaction with members outside of their department. As a result of limited
communication among practitioners, Jill stated, “Individuals who have similar interests
and goals for our students aren’t talking to each other.” Fe, a faculty member, also felt
that the project provided an opportunity to learn about her colleagues, particularly
counselors, whom she had minimal interactions with. By working with counselors she
learned of their workload which surprised her because she was under the assumption that
they had “more time to sit and chat with students, but they’re on quite a schedule. I just
thought that must be frustrating for them. I bet they’re good at getting a little deeper into
a student’s actual needs and desires, but they have to keep a quick pace.”

66
Interacting with members outside of their department and talking about transfer
was also a welcoming experience for student service representatives such as Mike who
learned, “There were more people [faculty in particular] that cared about the issues [of
transfer] than I thought and that was nice. Hopefully that will continue and there will be
some incentives for faculty to be more involved in the [transfer] process and assist.” Prior
to the project, participants had limited interaction with colleagues outside their
department when discussing the topic of transfer. In the case of Mark, Jill and Raul, they
reported changes in their practices to influence transfer outcomes as a result of their new
learning.

Changes Made by Practitioners
The third level of Kirkpatrick’s (1998) model, behavior, refers to changes made as a
consequence of new learning. Since the participants were interviewed over the life of the
project it’s possible that changes are still occurring or that the changes reported by
participants continued after the project. The participants reported:
• Changes in their beliefs.
• Equity-mindedness.
• Changes in practices.

Changes in Beliefs
Participating in the project led Mark to increase his understanding of transfer. The
notion of transfer was not just a distant concept, but he now understood it in terms of

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institutional barriers and students’ perspectives. Mark’s new insight about transfer
influenced his beliefs to improve transfer directly when he concluded that, “I suppose I
always had some faith in my ability to [assist students], but I think [the project] made me
more conscious about transfer and so I think it’s more likely that I’ll improve transfer
rates.” Improving transfer outcomes was not seen by Mark as a concept that was out of
his control. Instead, he believed he could do something to assist students.
Like Mark, Jill’s participation in the project led her to change her thinking about
transfer. During her first interview Jill believed the institution had a particular “status
quo,” which she saw as being “really very sad.” She went on to say, “There will be a
certain number of students that you know really aren’t ever going to be transfer ready.”
During her second interview, Jill reported a change in her beliefs regarding her ability to
proactively support students in her classes. She said,
It’s just awfully easy to make it somebody else’s problem [low transfer rates]. The
whole issue of what students do outside of your classroom can be put as someone
else’s problem. [Transfer] really belongs to all of us. Our students come from
such varied backgrounds with such different experiences, and the institution can
be pretty intimidating…they [students] really need to be supported more
constantly.

Jill became convinced that transfer is an institutional responsibility and faculty members
can be a key “touch point” for all students. She went on to explain how faculty can be a
powerful influential transfer resource for students because of their daily interactions in
the classroom. The classroom offers faculty a forum to talk about transfer, which
instructors may not be aware of. Jill said, “I think that the first touch point is the
instructor. The classroom is the only place you really can capture everybody at some
point.” Her participation in the project led her to “think outside of the box” and is

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optimistic about being able to make the “invisible transfer services visible for students.”
The outcomes of Mark and Jill were the ones the project hoped to obtain.
In the case of Raul, he didn’t experience a similar level of awareness as Mark and
Jill to directly influence transfer outcomes. His interactions with faculty members in the
project made him realize they could play a valuable role in transfer. Prior to the project,
he had reservations about contacting faculty to inform them of transfer related activities
because he felt “instructional faculty are already inundated with emails.” As Raul began
to engage with faculty in the project he had the opportunity to work alongside them and
saw them as a resource when he said, “It’s been great to have more contact with the
instructional faculty here [in the project] and get their opinions on transfer.” The project
created an opportunity for more collegial relationship building between faculty and
student service representatives who do not typically collaborate with each other because
there are few structures for it. Moreover, there has always been a separation between
academic affairs and student affairs that is difficult to bridge. The project provided a
structure that made it easier for the participants to collaborate on activities and to address
an important institutional problem.
Bringing practitioners together allowed certain participants to change their beliefs
about influencing transfer outcomes. For example, Mark and Jill learned they could take
specific steps to support transfer in their classes and that simply teaching does not
automatically translate into motivating students to continue their education. Even though
most participants reported some level of learning and change, they all fell short of
assuming personal responsibility for addressing inequities.

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Equity-mindedness
The Oceanside Transfer Project derived from the findings of the Equity for All
project and was prompted by the concerns with the transfer rates of students of color. The
researchers defined equity-mindedness as individuals who “attribute unequal outcomes
among Black and Latina/o students to institution-based dysfunctions… equity minded
individuals reflect on their own and their colleagues’ role in and responsibility for student
success” (Bensimon, p. 446, 2007). Equity-minded practitioners not only are able to
identify inequities, but are also motivated to question them in order to eliminate
inequitable outcomes (Peña et al., 2006).
Participants in the project were asked the following question during their second
interview: This project derived from the Equity for All project, and the goal of the
Oceanside Transfer Project was to promote more equitable outcomes for African
American and Latino Students. What can you do specifically to support Latino and
African American students’ transfer? Table 11 highlights the responses by the group
members who answered the question.
Table 11

Participants’ Responses to Promoting Equitable Outcomes

Participant Position Response
Mark Faculty
I had a hunch [prior to the project] that their numbers
[African American students] are the worse off than any
other ethnic or social group. I don’t if anyone is doing
anything about it.

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Table 11

Continued, Participants’ Responses to Promoting Equitable Outcomes

Participant Position Response
Mike Counselor
Sometimes they’re not aware of the services or they’re
uncomfortable with people they feel who might be from a
different background…might consider some of us like
authority type figures. Also, maybe they don’t feel
comfortable or embarrassed to ask questions because they
think everybody else knows and they don’t.

Beth Counselor
It didn’t occur to me [what I do to support Latinos and
Black students]. I didn’t think about that particular issue in
regards to ethnicity, I just see all students the same. All the
students, I see, I serve the same and tell them how to
transfer…To me a student is a student.

Jill Faculty
So many of our students are first generation college
students. They’re just not familiar with the whole college
process and getting through. I think that’s true for all
students and not just one group.

While the topic of equity may have been explicit for the research team, it was not made
as clear to the group members. Beth and Jill framed their answers to the question by
being color-blind and compartmentalizing all student experiences and needs as the same.
It appears that conversations and focus of equity were not talked about in the group
meetings. Even though participants did not report experiencing new learning that
increased their sensitivity to equity, the project provided a structure to examine transfer
processes from the perspective of students. The inquiry activities led to increased
learning about transfer and enabled participants to identify areas that created barriers for
students. As a result of new learning, three participants reported making changes to their
practices to better support students.

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Changes in Practice
At the last group meeting nine out of eleven completed a post-questionnaire. The
first question was, Since you began your involvement in the Oceanside Transfer Project
have you engaged in any of the following behaviors? Please check all that apply. The
behaviors listed in the questionnaire are provided below in Table 12. The second question
in the questionnaire asked group members, To what extent, did you do these [transfer
behaviors] prior to the project? Participants were asked to report their answer on a scale
of one-through-ten the extent to which they participated in transfer behaviors prior to
their involvement in the project.
Table 12

Reported Engagement in Transfer Behavior

Transfer Behaviors

Participants
Mark
(F)
Jill
(F)
Heather
(A)
Raul
(A)
Patty
(C)
Mike
(C)
Paul
(C)
Dana
(C)
Beth
(C)
Spoke to class about
transfer

X X X X X X X X
Had an individual
conversation with a
student about transfer

X X X X X X X X X
Disseminated transfer
information to your class

- - - X X X X X X
Attended transfer fair

- - - X - X - X -
Printed email from the
Transfer Center and
presented to your class

X X - X - X X X -

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Table 12

Continued, Reported Engagement in Transfer Behavior

Transfer Behaviors

Participants
Mark
(F)
Jill
(F)
Heather
(A)
Raul
(A)
Patty
(C)
Mike
(C)
Paul
(C)
Dana
(C)
Beth
(C)
Spoke with a colleague
about transfer issues

X X X X - X X X X
Shared information about
transfer with other
committees

- - X X - X X X -
Invited a speaker to
present transfer
information to your class

- - - X - X - X X
Attended a conference on
transfer

- - - X - X X - -
Question 2: To what extent
did you do these activities
prior to the project?
5 3 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Anna and Fe did not complete the questionnaire
Position: (F)= Faculty (A)=Administrator (C)=Counselor
Engagement in transfer activities scale: 1= Frequently 5=Sometimes 10=Not at all

As one might expect the table shows that counselors engaged in transfer behaviors
frequently prior to the project, which is not uncommon due to their daily responsibilities
counseling and advising students. For faculty members, their involvement in the project
provided an opportunity to learn they played a limited role when it comes to transfer.
Mark and Jill reported “sometimes” engaging in transfer related activities prior to the
project, but during their second interview shared their commitment to change their
practices as a result of new learning about transfer.
Although all the counselors, except for Paul, reported new learning as a result of
participating in the collaborative inquiry activities, none of the counselors reported

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making changes to their daily practices. Dana, a counselor, felt it was too “premature” to
decide if she would make any changes on how she counsels students and needed
additional time to reflect on the project findings. A second counselor, Beth, stated that
she would not make any changes to her practices even though she reported in her first
interview that counselors need to “…think of creative ways to get students out there
informed about transfer.” It’s unclear if Beth felt her daily practices were creative and
effective in supporting students so she did not feel the need to make modifications. Patty
was another participant who believed that transfer needed to change prior to the project
beginning. When asked if she considered making changes to become more involved in
promoting transfer Patty stated, “I’ll not be making changes in my class or in what I do.”
Patty felt that her regularly scheduled meetings with her students provided the proper
support. Out of the eleven participants only Mark, Raul, and Jill reported some form of
modifications to their practices.
Mark learned from the student interviews that a disconnect exists between the
institution and students’ priorities. As the group members analyzed the student interview
transcripts during the fourth group meeting, Mark interjected by saying that the
institution’s priorities were not aligned with students’ transfer goals. He believed the
small size of the Transfer Center and the extraordinarily high rate of students to
counselors symbolized the low priority of transfer on campus. His increased learning
about transfer led him to report that he was already making changes in his practices.
Mark explained the project made him “consciously aware” of transfer and as a result
began to make “…an effort to read [transfer related] flyers and emails” to his classes.

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As the project progressed Mark learned that students prefer “person-to-person”
contact when receiving transfer information. He felt the flyers did not “create that big of
an impact” for students since no one was reading the information to them. After
reflecting on his findings Mark realized he was “…not doing as much as he could to
prepare student for transfer” and began to think of activities to introduce transfer in his
classes. He described an example of a new activity he used to stimulate student thinking
about transfer. He said,
I forget how it came about, but it came about this semester, so it was probably in
some way related to the project. I did a little research on pay differentials, you
know, the average pay in America with a high school education versus a BA,
versus an MA, versus a Ph.D. I found a nice little chart on that, printed it out, and
gave it to everybody in my class. I know that money motivates them, and as a
result of that a couple of students came to talk to me about their future and asked
what sort of career they should go into. It sort of piqued their interest.

Mark’s positive experience with the project led him to collaborate with the Transfer
Center in the development of a new transfer power point presentation to be shared with
faculty. The presentation was intended to be shown in class to inform students of transfer
activities and workshops taking place on campus. As a consequence of participating in
the project, Mark noted that “…the topic of transfer was now on [his] mind.”
Jill, like Mark, also began to incorporate changes into her practice. Recalling her
first interview, Jill stated that her participation in the project allowed her to reflect and
“think more about what I do in my classroom about transfer.” As the project progressed,
Jill identified activities she could do to support student transfer in her class. She stated, “I
need to make sure that the announcements coming from the transfer center get to students
and I need to talk to them about their college experience and what they’ll do next.” Jill

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felt that by announcing transfer information in her class and asking students to talk about
their experiences would counteract any perceptions they have about faculty “…being
behind closed doors and not caring about this issue.”
Raul shared two examples of changes he made as a result of new learning. In the
third and fourth group meeting, Raul identified a recurring theme centering on the “the
lack of transfer visibility” which participants attributed to poor campus signage. Raul
learned that existing transfer signage needed to be improved and as a consequence
purchased “mobile easels” counselors could place in areas with high student traffic. The
portable signs would be able to provide a quick fix solution towards improving transfer
signage on campus.
Raul also learned that students were not familiar with the financial resources
available on campus. He learned during his student interview that, “A reason why he [a
student] didn’t apply to a UC or private institution was because of their high [tuition]
cost.” The student interviews led Raul to conclude that students were “…not informed
about the financial resources available.” As a result of his new learning, Raul met with a
financial aid representative to discuss students’ experiences and the outcome of his
meeting led to the development of a new workshop that focused on informing students
how to financially plan for their transfer.
Mark, Jill, and Raul reported changes in their practices as a result of their
involvement in the project activities. Mark and Jill’s involvement in the project led them
to realize they were not taking advantage of their classroom as a resource to promote
transfer to students. In the case of Raul, he acted on his new learning by developing a

76
new transfer workshop to inform students how to financially plan for their transfer. These
three examples demonstrate the success of the project in creating new awareness about
transfer and various ways in which instructors, staff, and others can make transfer a more
integral aspect of their work. Additionally, the project had an impact on the development
of new practices that responded to the needs identified in the student interviews.
To complement the findings presented thus far, the second part of this chapter
presents three cases of project participants: Mark, Raul, and Dana. The purpose of the
cases is to highlight a more intimate picture of participants’ experiences in the project and
the impact it had on their views about transfer. In the case of Mark, who was the most
changed participant, the project made him conscious about transfer. Raul understood the
low transfer rates to be a result of not enough resources and applied his new learning
towards the development of new services. Finally, Dana’s participation in the project
validated her assumptions about transfer needing to change, but her learning did not
persuade her to change her practices.

Part II: Three Cases of Practitioner Member’s Participation
Mark, Social Science Instructor
After completing his academic graduate work nine years ago, Mark, a white male
in his forties, taught his first class as a part-time instructor at Oceanside College. At the
end of his first semester he was hired on a full-time basis. During his tenure at Oceanside
College, Mark volunteered as an advisor/mentor to multiple student groups because he
felt they allow students to be “…connected [and] learn how to get the most out of the

77
system.” His support of student groups influenced him to accept the invitation to
volunteer as a participant in the Oceanside Transfer Project.

Motivation to Join the Oceanside Transfer Project
When Mark was asked to share his initial reactions about the project, he said, “It
looked interesting and seemed like a valuable project.” By volunteering for the project,
Mark was hoping to increase his understanding about transfer at Oceanside College.
A week prior to receiving the invitation to participate in the project he read an
article in the LA Times that increased his curiosity regarding the national problem higher
education is facing regarding transfer. He shared:
Maybe a couple of weeks earlier, if I remember it correctly. I remember reading
that about 86% of community college students in California have the goal of
transfer, and as I recall, it’s about 24% who actually do transfer, and that’s pretty
disturbing. I think I was shocked to see how bad those statistics were, and then I
think our statistics [at Oceanside College] lined up with that pretty well.

In the pre-project questionnaire Mark articulated his belief that Oceanside College has a
predominantly “transfer-to-State” mentality, which may unduly influence students to
transfer to the neighboring feeder institution rather than other more selective institutions.
This worried Mark because he felt it limited students’ academic opportunities. He said,
“I’m concerned about students reaching their educational goals and fulfilling their
potential. I’d like to see as many as possible transfer and complete their degree.”

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Group Meeting Notes, January-April 2007
In order to learn how students experience the transfer services at Oceanside
College, the group members collectively reviewed a draft of the student invitation letter
requesting their participation in the Oceanside Transfer Project. Mark’s approach towards
having an open mind about the project was immediately noticed, particularly in the
collaborative group meetings.
During the first group meeting, Mark made an important observation regarding
the content of the student invitation letter. He directed the group members to a specific
sentence that read “we would like to hear your transfer story.” Mark believed this
sentence was inappropriate because it did not take into consideration whether students
had a bad experience at the institution and they might feel too embarrassed to talk about
it. Mark’s observation demonstrated a strong level of sensitivity to how students would
interpret the letter. This observation prompted the group to more thoroughly examine the
letter and remove anything that may be offensive to students.
To assist the project members prepare for the student interviews, they participated
in a one day workshop that consisted of a mock interview led by an experienced research
team member who modeled interviewing techniques with a volunteer student. This
activity allowed team members to observe effective interviewing methods and also learn
about students’ educational choices. An issue discussed during the student interviews was
financial aid, particularly the limited knowledge students possess regarding the various
types of loans and scholarship opportunities available. This discussion led Mark to

79
announce that he did not know the institutional transfer and financial aid processes. He
informed his colleagues:
That was one of the most striking things for me. We need to do a lot more. It
seems that maybe we are doing a better job of getting them ready to transfer, but
then sort of cutting them loose, where we need to do more hand holding. I don’t
know, maybe it’s because I’m ignorant to what we do. But she [the student
volunteer] seems pretty well connected and she needs a lot more hand-holding
through the transfer process even if it’s just connecting them with people at the
universities. She was really ignorant about somebody needing to run her through
with an estimated FAFSA and say “Here is the kind of money you can probably
expect.” The student could start to think about “Well, could I afford to live at
college or do I have to live at home?”

For Mark, a senior faculty member, to admit his own lack of knowledge regarding
existing practices placed him in a vulnerable position given that he did not know whether
other were as uninformed. His admission helped to establish an environment of comfort
among the group that allowed members to similarly share their feelings without fear of
being judged.
Mark later served as a promoter of personal interaction with students, especially
after he had a conversation with one of his students from class regarding the FAFSA
deadline, which happened to be the following day. Mark questioned how the institution
disseminates information to students by asking the group: “As faculty we get that
community bulletin through email. I wonder if students get an email sent out to them with
important deadlines. I think a lot of students just don’t know.” The two student interviews
he conducted only solidified his opinion about students being unaware of financial
information deadlines. He shared in the group meeting that he was unfamiliar of the
student financial aid opportunities his own department offered:

80

Students are horribly misinformed about financing which came up in the student
interviews. Students mention that others don't apply to a local private institution
because it's expensive. Some students right off don't apply to UC or USC because
of financing. One student did not apply because of the application fee. They could
probably get a fee waiver, but students don't know. There is a scholarship for
social science majors which I didn't know about.

Group members reacted to his statement by listing numerous financial aid services and
opportunities available to students. Mark gently interjected, noting that institutional
services were everywhere to practitioners because they could identify them and knew
their intent, but to students they were “invisible.” As the group paused for a moment to
process Mark’s observation, Anna shifted the topic of conversation by questioning
students’ maturity, “We didn’t discuss the development maturity or cultural mindset with
these students. At the end it is a phenomenal job [counselors] have to do and the ultimate
responsibility lies with them to motivate themselves to perform.” Anna’s comment
unfortunately shifted the focus of conversation on students and away from the institution.
Mark’s participation in the project introduced him to various counseling courses
and personal skill workshops offered to assist students. As Mark thought about all the
courses mentioned and their purpose, he shared an idea with the group of taking portions
of all the support courses and creating a new class that infused all the resources into one.
This class would be divided into three parts with “…counselors teaching a third, faculty
teach a third and library personnel teach the last third of the class.” This new course
would be able to provide students an overview of a majority of the resources available on
campus. The group suggested that this new course idea be forwarded to the curriculum
committee.

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First Interview, April 2007
As I walked across the campus bridge to reach the north side of the college to
interview Mark, I noticed the buildings were labeled by alphabetical letters and not by
names, as is typical in four-year college campuses. I could feel my anxiety beginning to
rise because I didn’t know the location of the Business, History/ Social Science building
to meet Mark. I picked up my walking pace and followed the student traffic that led me to
the administration, or “A,” building. When I asked for directions I was fortunate that
Mark’s office was located next door to the administration building. As I walked over to
the building, I began to ask myself if students experienced the same sense of confusion of
having buildings labeled by letters, while campus representatives referred to buildings by
discipline.
I arrived a few minutes early and sat in a small stiff wood desk outside of Mark’s
office. The desk was not made to accommodate a person over six feet tall with a large
body frame, such as myself, which made it uncomfortable for me to sit. When he arrived
we both walked into his office, and I was surprised to find Mark sharing a small office
with another instructor. Mark’s desk was covered with stacks of student papers and
books, which made me believe he was a busy professor with limited time to catch up on
his class-work.
I began the interview by asking Mark to share his initial reactions to the project.
He felt the project would add value to the college by exploring how to support student
transfer. I continued the interview by asking him what student support mechanism exists

82
in academic affairs to support student transfer. Mark paused to reflect on the question. He
replied by identifying faculty as an additional source of support who are able to
disseminate transfer information. Mark added that faculty tends to have a “general
assumption” that a large portion of students are transferring and obtain information
outside of the classroom. He stated:
I think over the years I haven’t talked to my classes all that much about transfer.
You pretty much stick to your subjects and I don’t find students coming to me to
discuss transfer all that much. I sort of think that I need to make a change.

Mark felt faculty held misconceptions that transfer occurs outside of the classroom alone.
He realized this was not the case and that instructors could be a resource for students. The
challenge, however, is getting general faculty to consider their own role in teaching and
incorporate transfer information into the content of their courses. He said:
I think if we raise it as a topic, really get people thinking about [transfer], I think
we probably are of the same mind about it, but it gets lost in the shuffle. We all
get into doing our little piece and I think most of the faculty slip into thinking
their job is just to teach their subject. If we’re encouraged to rethink that and think
of enabling these students to achieve their educational goal, which in most cases
is transfer, then it has to go beyond teaching.

Being a member of the Oceanside Transfer Project allowed Mark to re-think his own
teaching responsibilities, and to consider including transfer in his daily classroom
routines. He believed students enter Oceanside College with aspirations of transferring,
but institutional services are fragmented throughout the campus and make it difficult for
students to access.
We discussed today [in the project group meetings] that I think what is even more
important than the signage is the location of all our student services, like
counseling, the career center, and financial aid. I think they need to be in a more
prominent place all together so that every student knows and say well of course,
that’s where [the transfer service] is.

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Mark felt the lack of integration of transfer services could also be seen in the teaching
philosophy of faculty members.
The point I mentioned at the end of this evening is that I think when faculty and
administration think about it we’ve got to say that preparing for transfer is job
one, since most of our students that’s their primary goal. It should be our most
important task. But I think if you look at the money we spend on counseling or
location and so forth, I don’t think we’re really practicing our values. If that
really is our most important value, I don’t think we’re really following through,
and I could say the same as a faculty member. You get so focused on your
courses, but if you’re really enabling students to transfer as your top priority than
we probably need to be talking more about that process [student services],
FAFSA deadlines, and all of that much more directly, more often.

According to Mark, “transfer really isn’t a top priority” for the institution at this point
because of the lack of alignment between what students and the college feel their
priorities are regarding transfer. He said, “If our top priority is students, and students’ top
priority is transfer, we really need to get our actions aligned with what I think we say is
our vision.” This clash in priorities between institutional perceptions of what students
need may hinder them from reaching their transfer objective. When asked if the
institution was serving the transfer needs of students, Mark had reservations to take full
ownership for students and felt that students may also be part of the problem. However,
after pausing half-way through his answer, Mark shifted his reply by recognizing that
practitioners can play a role in promoting transfer.

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I mean, the statistics are bad. Part of that you can’t blame on the institution. I
think a big part of that is just basic skills. We’ve got a lot of students who come
in who just aren’t prepared for college. But, I think we’re losing a lot of students
who have what it takes to make it. The biggest area is a greater need for academic
counseling, which includes the visibility issue and not having enough
counselors…And then I think financial issues are huge for our population, and
often needlessly so because they’re just misinformed about options. There are
these financial options and students feeling like they can’t afford to take out loans
when, in fact, maybe they can’t afford not to, and we need to help them navigate
that whole issue.

Supporting students to maneuver through the transfer systems is a complicated process
that Mark believed he could directly influence by making changes to his daily practices.
Mark reported an increase in the frequency of his engagements with students regarding
transfer by speaking to his class about transfer information, having individual
conversation with a student about transfer, and finally spoke with a colleague about
transfer issues. Mark felt the project was a success because it allowed participants the
ability to work together.

Second Interview, May 2007
Mark’s experience in the project allowed him to realize the institution could do
more to encourage transfer. The project made him “more conscious of transfer, and more
proactive in mentioning transfer-related items in his class.” It also allowed him to
recognize that he could play a larger role in improving transfer. As a result of reading the
interview transcripts and participating in the collaborative inquiry group meetings, Mark
realized that students “didn’t feel comfortable” accessing the transfer services. He felt
faculty could be a resource for students by providing assistance through their transfer
journey. He said:

85
I definitely feel like I’ve been doing more of that [informing students of transfer
services/opportunities]. I feel like partly that’s my renewed vigor, but I’ve always
to a certain extent tried to keep my students informed of important memos and
stuff coming through. But I do feel like I’ve received more transfer-related items
this semester, so I wonder if it’s because of the project.

His invigorated spirit and belief to directly improve transfer led him to proactively
promote transfer information to his classes relating to upcoming college fairs, college
field trips, and scholarship opportunities.
Mark’s increased knowledge about transfer not only led him to make changes to
his practices to better support students, but led him to question his formal learning on
teaching.
I think people have a tendency to teach in much the ways that their professors
taught them. I don’t remember any of my university professors talking much
about transfer, so it gets kind of ingrained in you. You teach your discipline, since
you’re kind of on your own, I mean somebody next door to you might be talking
about transfer every other day, but you’ve got no idea, so I think that makes it
harder to change. I think most of the faculty, if they really think about it, are
committed to the importance of transfer, and would easily come to agree that they
could play a big role. So I think, you know, their hearts are in the right place, but
old habits are sometimes hard to change.

As a former community college student himself, Mark’s increased awareness
about his teaching style made him see the valuable role faculty play when it comes to
informing students of transfer information. As mentioned earlier, a characteristic of an
institutional agent, which Mark demonstrated, was to break down information barriers
student encounter. After our interview, he developed a transfer power point presentation
with the Transfer Center. The presentation consisted of twelve slides, with the first slide
reading “University Transfer Begins Here!!!” Following the introduction, each slide was
dedicated to a particular transfer workshop hosted by a private or public four-year

86
institution. The slides informed students the focus of each workshop and where to sign up
in order to attend. The final slide provided the contact information for the Transfer Center
and read, “Let Us Help You Get to Your University of Choice!!!” Mark’s story is
important because it provides an example of the learning that can occur by participating
in collaborative inquiry activities.

Raul, Administrator
Raul began his career at Oceanside College nine years ago when he was hired as a
student support specialist. After two years he was promoted to an administrative position.
His career path appears to be a traditional one of moving up the ranks, but what is not
known about Raul is that education is a second career.
Raul began his postsecondary career when he enrolled at a UC institution. His
first year was spent, as he described, “searching for my major.” Throughout the process,
he found support and direction at the counseling center. Raul said:
He [the counselor] had been an influence on my life, and even though I didn’t go
into counseling, I went into business administration and I worked in industry for
years, but that [counselor] had always impacted me. At one point, I just asked
myself if I wanted to do this for the rest of my life and it really wasn’t something I
wanted to do for the rest of my life. So I made a switch and I went back to
graduate school and got my master’s degree in higher education counseling.

Raul’s decision to change careers was a choice he felt would fulfill his long-term
ambition of assisting students because of his positive memories of interacting with
counselors during his undergraduate year.

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First Interview, April 2007
I arrived at Raul’s office five minutes early for his interview only to be notified
that he was called into an unexpected meeting and would be a few minutes late. As I sat
patiently outside of his office, I was overwhelmed by a mural of flyers posted outside of
his office advertising upcoming transfer events. The bulletin board stretched close to ten
feet in length, five feet in height, and no space was untouched by a flyer. When I closely
examined the flyers, there was no order to their posting. The private and public institution
flyers were peppered throughout the bulletin board, with expired events still posted. As I
looked at the remaining walls of the Transfer Center, none had such a dense volume of
advertisement postings as this particular wall in front of Raul’s office. I was curious as to
why this particular wall was sentenced to be the advertisement wall for the center. During
my twenty minute wait for Raul to arrive not a single student who walked in front of the
bulletin board stopped to view upcoming college events. It appeared as if students had
become immune to the wall’s purpose.
When Raul arrived he apologized for being late and asked if I was still willing to
conduct the interview, to which I replied “yes.” When I entered his narrow office, I was
surprised to see a room with bare walls, a clean desk, and two chairs. The only color in
his office came from a window which acted as a landscape portrait of the lush green grass
outside. His office did not resemble the offices of the other counselors I had seen. I
interviewed three counselors who were also participants in the Oceanside Transfer
Project the week before and their offices were a colorful mosaic of college posters. Their
desks were full of the student files whom they counseled.

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I began the interview by asking him to walk me through a typical day as an
administrator, which he described as being “…bogged down with everyday coordinating
from getting sign-ups for tours, answering other counselors’ questions, and being on
committees. My day is really, really packed. I would say five percent of it is to see
students, out of 100%.” Before he continued describing a work day, he paused and told
me that he had been groomed in a sense for his current position by his predecessor. He
said, “The person training me was Dr. Susan. She was, at that time, the current
administrator as well as the department head. She kind of trained me and mentored me to
pick up the torch after she left.” Raul admired Dr. Susan’s leadership ability to exercise
the power delegated to her by virtue of her position to obtain additional funding for part-
time counselors. He said:
There were about six or seven part-timers doing classroom presentations. This
was under the auspices of Dr. Susan, who at that time had a little more control. So
she was able to allocate resources for overload or part-timers to do classroom
presentations. When I came on board, that very same year the monies pretty much
dried up … Not only that, but I had no control over allocation of resources. Dr.
Susan did have that power because she was the department head and also an
administrator, which was a very nice arrangement.

Since Raul took over the administrative position he expressed a level of frustration with
not being able to have the same influence and power that Dr. Susan exercised.
For the other coordinator, Dr. Susan, I think she had an “in” with the faculty. She
was on curriculum. She was on a number of different committees on campus
where she had contact with the faculty. At one point the classroom presentations
got institutionalized. So instructors were used to asking for them. Every year
those instructors and other instructors would know that there are transfer
presentations. But when the resource pool dried it was just basically me…My
position was to manage things and not to actually go out and do everything. That
would have been under my old hat, being a student support specialist.

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His inability to continue the same level of activity as Dr. Susan, and his limited resources,
did not allow him to provide the services he was used to providing as a specialist. When
he first heard about the Oceanside Transfer Project Raul felt this was the type of project
he wanted to conduct, but because of his limited resources, could not. He said:
That has been something that we never had the resources for. Before, I don’t
know if we had strong enough resources to pull the data together at this scope or
do this type of in-depth research. I know I didn’t have the time to do it. So when I
heard that someone was actually going to do the work, throw money and
resources into it, in terms of manpower, I was really excited about it. That’s why I
jumped onboard, to also give those folks that were doing the research a
perspective from someone who’s been trying to get the word out for the past five
years or so.

Raul mentioned that for a number of years he had preached to the administration
and his colleagues about the importance of transfer. When asked to describe the transfer
culture at Oceanside College, he replied by saying it was “weak.” Raul explained that
transfer has been the responsibility of counselors instead of it being an institutional effort.
When asked to hypothesize why the transfer culture was “weak” he replied that it was not
emphasized on campus. He explained by saying:
I think at one point the other administrators and I were the only ones that were
saying transfer needs to be a priority. It’s one of our missions. But two transfer
administrators cannot get the word out. Craig and I, that’s the other administrator,
we always say we are not the transfer center. The campus is the transfer center.

Though the institution does have its share of transfer supporters, Raul believes that
overall, individuals have the misconception that transfer is a non-academic responsibility.
By Raul volunteering to be a member of the Oceanside Transfer Project, he was
hoping to gain a political advantage and use the project results to lobby for transfer
resources. When asked to describe his reactions to the project, he said:

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I was excited, very excited. I think some folks were saying “Well, they might find
some real weaknesses in transfer.” To me, I was fine with that. Those are the
types of things that I need to be armed with when I go to budget meetings and I
ask for things to grow transfer. I want to be able to say “These are some of the
things that we need to improve on. This is a study that even spotted some of these
things. How can you help me now?” A lot of times when you go into budget
meetings or meetings where you’re asking for resources, they’ll ask you “”What
proof do you have? What evidence do you have?” So I was very excited to hear
about this study.

Raul explained that an additional value of the project was to identify institutional changes
that needed to take place. Overall, he was curious as to what the project would reveal and
felt, as he shared, “…more excited, I think, that we’d be able to dig up some stuff to
really improve transfer.”
During his student interviews, Raul learned from a student about a transfer
scenario he had not considered. This particular student had attended Oceanside College in
the past and had already transferred to a local state college, but decided to change careers
and return to Oceanside to eventually transfer again. Raul described her as a student that
came back to “gain her footing again.” He had only considered transfer as a linear
process from two-year to four-year institutions.
Even though Raul began to think of transfer processes from a student perspective,
he still believed transfer responsibilities should fall on the shoulders of students. He
described the transfer process as “fluid”, which requires students to do more than just see
a counselor. For example, Raul shared that in one particular academic year:

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The local state college was saying “We’re going to definitely be closed.
Applications for the fall are due November 30
th
.” That was their mantra--
November 30
th
. All the counselors were telling everyone they’re closing on
November 30
th
. Then the day came and they say, “Oh, we’re going to extend it.”
Then, all of a sudden, it seems like the counselors are giving misinformation. The
students are not following up on that information. So I keep warning students.
Even though we’re talking about this now, transfer is so fluid.

He continued by discussing that changes need to take place in the manner in which
transfer requirements and deadlines are disseminated to students. A question he wanted to
address was “what is working well [in transfer practices] and what is not.” He felt
feedback and support from his colleagues would be beneficial to address his question.
Raul believed transfer support was sporadically offered by his peers, but
consistent institutional buy-in had been missing. This he hoped to increase with the aid of
the project findings as Raul strongly felt that financial support by the institution would
equate to transfer success. During the time of Raul’s interview, the transfer center was
receiving soft monies for transfer activities which he felt “…could go away.” He
continued by saying, “To me, that wasn’t going to spell commitment right there until I
see a budget money commitment.” If the institution is able to support transfer changes
with permanent budget allocations, this would allow Raul the freedom to implement
changes he feels would benefit the institution.

Group Meetings
During the first three group meetings Raul had limited interaction with other
group members. If asked to describe Raul’s role in the group meetings, I would
characterize him as an observer rather than active participant. He sat in the same seat

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during all the group meetings, which was located on the south end of a long rectangular
table. To his right sat a counselor who had been at Oceanside College for over five years
and to Raul’s left sat another counselor. During the group discussions, the two counselors
became the voice of the transfer center, while Raul patiently observed.
It wasn’t until the fifth group meeting that Raul began to play a more active role.
During a conversation about transfer center activities, Raul interjected by informing the
group members he had conducted a college field trip with over forty students to UCLA.
He went on to remind everyone, “This is the first year administration has not had to beg
for money for transportation, but I can’t tell if it’ll be there next year. It’s been a great
year for tours since we have doubled them.”
By participating in the project, Raul wanted to increase his awareness of what
modification in transfer services needed to take place to improve transfer outcomes.
Processing the student interview findings and group discussions led Raul to identify
specific changes that needed to take place. He said:
When I started hearing about the signage issue, I started looking into buying more
mobile easels that could be wheeled out in the quad and so forth. When students
started talking about finances being a big issue, I started having conversations
with financial aid about having them be a part of the transfer workshops on how
to finance your future education. So I’m going to try that out in the fall… All
these things are kind of spurring some ideas for me for the upcoming school year.
I’m hoping that I’ll find out even more after we start looking at the results.

After learning about particular transfer needs by participating in the project, Raul began
to make changes in the manner in which transfer announcements and financial resources
are presented to students.

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Second Interview, May 2007
The project findings were valuable for Raul because it equipped him with “ideas
about what [they] could do differently.” During his interview, Raul once gain held firm to
his original diagnosis of needing additional funding to create any substantive changes. He
explained by saying,
Stuff like signage that can be pretty much, in my opinion, be easily fixed. Other
things such as marketing, getting more counselors into the classrooms, holding
more classroom presentations, offering more college tours really takes—it boils
down to money.

His participation in the project reinforced his belief that additional funding would yield
transfer success. What Raul didn’t expect to learn was the value of faculty in the transfer
process.
Raul’s involvement with the project facilitated an increase in his interactions with
faculty and a greater awareness of how faculty experience the transfer process. Prior to
the project Raul had limited interaction with faculty, had very little knowledge as to their
opinions on transfer and no real opportunity to discuss how they would like to receive
transfer information. For a number of years Raul had reservations about sending faculty
transfer information through emails because he felt he would be “bugging” instructors.
He said:
I learned that I need to reach out more to instructional faculty, in any way I can,
and sometimes it’s as easy as sending out updates over email. I think there was a
little bit of hesitancy in me before because I felt that, okay, instructional faculty
are already inundated with emails, but a lot of them have responded very
positively after getting the emails from me, and keeping them in the loop, but I
think there’s a lot more in terms of what I can do to kind of spread the word. You
know, there was a mention of flex day, which is faculty training, getting onboard
with that.

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During his interview, Raul used a metaphor to describe how alone he felt in
promoting transfer on campus by describing it as “pushing a big stone up a hill.” After
the project, however, he felt much more supported and described pushing the transfer
stone up the hill as a collective effort. He shared, “I’ve got a few more people rolling that
stone up the hill with the project, because there’s more instructional folks involved,
administrators involved, and I think in general, transfer is a hot topic.” As a consequence
of participating in the project Raul began to make modifications to his daily practices.
After reading student transcripts, Raul learned that financial aid information was a
common topic of interest in students’ transfer process. This re-occurring theme led Raul
to take action and meet with a financial aid counselor to discuss the possibility of
merging transfer and financial aid services into a new workshop for students. After
several meetings, a new workshop would be offered called “financing transfer” which
began in fall 2007. The objective of the workshop was to assist students to financially
plan their educational transfer path. This project sparked a great deal of interest with a
number of his peers inquiring about transfer, particularly among faculty. Raul stated,
“More faculty are reaching out to me for information…There’s also, people actually
voicing that transfer’s a top priority at the school now.” Prior to the project, Raul had not
considered reaching out to faculty and is now considering asking faculty to take on a
supporter role of student transfer in their classroom. This potential new partnership
between faculty and counselors allowed for increased discussion to promote transfer in
the classroom. Raul was optimistic of increasing transfer rates and described the new
collaboration among departments as “planting the seeds of a transfer culture.”

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Dana, Counselor
Dana has been a counselor at Oceanside College for over twenty years. She was
initially hired under a split assignment to be a counselor at both campuses. After three
years, Dana decided to focus her counseling services on the campus that focused on
vocational and remedial education. The student population she counseled was typically
enrolled in the technical trade areas such as aviation, mechanics, and welding.
When Dana first received notice of the Oceanside Transfer Project, she was
“excited” to learn a transfer research project was taking place at her institution and
immediately volunteered for the project because of two reasons. First, the project allowed
her an opportunity to interview students which Dana found interesting because it would
allow her to learn “…what students had to say about their [transfer] experience.”
Secondly, her own research focused on the topic of improving transfer practices.

Pre-Questionnaire, January 2007
Before the project began, all the participants were asked to complete a pre-
questionnaire during the orientation meeting. The questionnaire asked participants to
provide background information regarding their area of specialization and thoughts about
equity. The seventh question asked: “This project is about finding out why students who
could have transferred to four-year colleges did not and why students who could have
transferred to a UC campus did not. Do you have any hunches about why? Could you

96
share them with us?” Dana reported the following four reasons, she believed, students
were not considering transferring to a UC campus:
1. Location: They want to stay close to home and live with their families
2. Cost may be high
3. UC may not compliment students life-style
4. Conflict in major or programs
Dana’s responses focused on reasons that had to do with students’ life that could lead
them to not consider applying to selective institutions. She did not consider if institutional
factors played an influential role in students transfer decision. Dana also reported in the
questionnaire that transfer was not embraced as an “institutional priority or goal,” but
instead is seen as a student service function alone.

Group Meeting Notes, January-April 2007
During the first two group meetings Dana observed and listened to the group
discussions with minimal engagement with her colleagues. As the project progressed into
March and participants began to analyze their findings, Dana increased her involvement
in the group dialogue. She started by answering transfer related questions group members
brought up. For example, when Heather shared that students recommended having a
transfer checklist and asked if a general guide existed, Dana replied by going into details
about the Counseling 1 course that comes close to providing an overview of institutional
support services, which include transfer processes. She concluded by saying that this

97
course is not mandated and because of this “there is no mechanism to require students to
be informed of the services in the College.”
It wasn’t until the last group meeting that Dana began to share her thoughts on
how to provide students additional transfer information. She learned from the student
interviews that they did not receive sufficient transfer information in the classroom and
believed the “…more informed students were [about transfer] the better.” Due to her
involvement in the curriculum committee Dana informed the group members that English
1 and Math 130 would be required for an Associate Degree. She then shared her thoughts
about using this new English course requirement towards their advantage to disseminate
transfer information to students. She explained by saying:
I’m thinking that in every English 1 course we may want to have a transfer
information presentation. I think we need this type of broad brush to reach
students since such a low number of students are involved with clubs [which the
group agreed was a valuable resource for students to receive information]. English
1 is a common course everyone must take.

Dana demonstrated an increased level of awareness by applying her new learning of
students need for transfer information in the classroom. She suggested the college take
advantage of this new upcoming requirement and promote transfer information in all
English 1 courses.

Interview, April 2007
Dana and I had to re-schedule her interview three times because of last minute
changes with her schedule. She suggested that we attempt to schedule her interview
before a group meeting. When we met for her interview she explained that her schedule

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was typically busy this time of year due to her responsibilities of teaching, counseling
students, doing classroom presentations and attending to other campus commitments. In
order to have a better understanding of how much time each job task demanded from her
I asked her to break down, into a one hundred percent scale, how much time she spent
with students, teaching, classroom presentations and other commitments? She replied by
saying:
I'm probably more atypical as I teach more classes than probably most... I have a
counseling load of 32 hours a week and I will never teach more than 16 hours.
But, I actually do teach 50% of the time. Then I have workshops and other things
that take another 15%... I guess that 50% is teaching, maybe 10% to 15% with
classroom workshops, and then 35% to 40% counseling.

Dana concluded by reminding me that the counselors in the project are dedicated towards
assisting and supporting student needs, which can be seen through their commitment of
completing all the project requirements of interviewing students after work hours. We
continued discussing the topic of counselors’ workload and I asked her what the
counselor-to-student ratio was? She paused for a few seconds and said the institution has
20 counselors who serve 30,000 students, which is a ratio of one-to-fifteen hundred. Dana
mentioned that even though the counselor-student ratio was high, the institution provides
a number of courses, taught by counselors, which is an additional support mechanism.
She continued by naming numerous counseling courses on topics ranging from
mentoring, life planning, and studying techniques.
In addition to the courses, Dana informed me counselors also facilitate various
workshops, such as the Early Intervention Workshop in which “counselors go into basic
skills courses to go over basic information about the college policies, how you go off

99
probation, how grade point averages work and discuss student services.” Dana felt the
institution provided a variety of services through different formats, classes or workshops,
to assist students, but concluded that somehow transfer processes needed to be more
“intrusive” in order to make students aware of their presence.
Years before the project Dana conducted her own study to examine best transfer
practices at other community colleges. Reflecting back on her own study findings and
what she learned in the project, Dana believed, “Comparing us with other community
colleges we probably don’t have a real culture of transfer on this campus.” Dana felt
Oceanside College doesn’t compare well to other institutions because of the minimal
financial resources allocated towards counseling. Dana mentioned counseling at
Oceanside College receives $40,000 a year compared to $1.2 million a particular
institution receives that has a reputation of high transfer rates. With this said, she believed
the institution was “ripe” for improving transfer and the College has “all the makings for
[change] if we really want to make it.” After reflecting on students’ experiences at
Oceanside College, she felt the institution could be doing more to support students
transfer.
Dana believed interviewing students was a valuable experience because she was able
to learn of student needs and could sympathize with their stories. Dana learned that
transfer structures were a “maze” for students. She recommended other counselors
consider interviewing students in their classes and talking to them about transfer as a
form of early intervention to assess their needs. Dana believed this process would support
students, especially those that may not know where or how to access transfer services.

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Overall, Dana believed the institution needs to be “more intrusive” in order to
reach out to students instead of waiting for students to seek out information. Dana also
thought the project findings would allow the Counseling Department to learn what was
working and not working effectively. When asked if she had made changes to her
practices as a result of her new learning, Dana replied by saying it was too premature to
decide making changes, which she did not disregard and felt that she needed more time to
process the project findings. Instead of jumping into making immediate changes in her
practice she decided to examine the project findings with the Counseling Department first
and then decided if she would modify her practices.

Conclusion
The study highlights the experience of the eleven participants in the project but
does not speak to the experience of all educators. Mark, Raul and Dana’s case studies
highlighted practitioners’ different experience in the project. Mark and Raul learned that
students were disconnected from transfer information. Mark believed that informing
students of transfer could be done in the classroom and developed an in-class
presentation to announce transfer related activities. Raul learned from interviewing
student that a new workshop could fill the transfer information gap. As for Dana, her new
knowledge about transfer practices did not lead to modifications to her daily practices.
She reported the need for additional time to reflect on the projects findings. The
collaborative inquiry activities of the project allowed practitioners to construct new
meaning within their context and use new knowledge, in certain cases, to influence their

101
practices (Bray et al., 2000). The following chapter will further discuss significant
findings of this evaluative study and conclude with recommendations for future research.

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Chapter Five

Discussion

Inequalities in transfer outcomes continue to exist despite avowals by the
community colleges, as evidenced in their mission statements, to prepare students to
transfer into a four-year institution and attain the baccalaureate degree (Cohen & Brawer,
2003; Dougherty, 1994). The problem of low transfer rates is particularly daunting for
minority students who attempt to navigate the challenges of community colleges. The
purpose of the study is to evaluate if practitioners become institutional agents (Stanton-
Salazar, 1997) as a result of participating in the collaborative inquiry activities aimed at
examining the critical issue of low transfer rates.
In this chapter, I begin by discussing the findings of the study. I then explain the
implications a collaborative inquiry approach can have on professional development in
education. I conclude by addressing the limitations of the study and provide
recommendations for future research.

Findings
I used Kirkpatrick’s framework (1998) to analyze and make sense of the data
outlined in chapter four and summarized below (see Table 13). The findings show
participants favorable reactions towards the project and more importantly, all the group
members (with the exception of Paul) reported acquiring new knowledge about transfer
that led to changes in practice in three members.

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Table 13

Participants’ Reaction, Learning and Changes

Participants Reactions Learning Changes in Practice

Positive Negative Yes/
No
Example Yes/
No
Example
Patty X - Yes
Need to be creative in
how we counsel
students, practices are
not effective.
No -
Raul X - Yes
Need to inform students
of financial
opportunities to support
their transfer.
Yes
Developed a new
workshop to inform
students how to
financially plan for
their transfer.
Heather X - Yes
Transfer requirements
between institutions are
difficult to understand.
No -
Mark X - Yes
Students prefer one-to-
one interaction with
representatives when
receiving transfer
information.
Yes
Developed an in-
class presentation,
with consultation of
the Transfer Center,
to announce transfer
activities to students.
Mike X - Yes
Students do not want to
search for transfer
information.
No -
Jill X - Yes
Students do not feel
comfortable accessing
transfer services.
Yes
Promoted transfer
resources in her class,
talked to students
about transfer and is
exploring how to
include transfer in her
curriculum.
Paul X - No - No -
Dana X - Yes
Transfer processes area
a maze for students.
Need to be more
intrusive.
No -
Fe X - Yes
Students who meet with
counselors improve their
chances of transferring.
No -
Beth X - Yes
Need better transfer
signage across campus
No -
Anna X - Yes
Need better transfer
signage
No -

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New Learning and Changes
The collaborative inquiry activities of the project provided a model for
practitioners to conduct research that has been shown to develop new learning (Bensimon
et al., 2004), but has not been widely promoted in higher education (Kember & Gow,
1992). This manner of doing research on one’s practices as well as those of the institution
developed a deeper awareness among Mark, Jill, and Raul who took ownership of the
findings and applied their learning towards making a change in the manner in which they
interact with students. The three cases highlighted in chapter four also provide a more in
depth picture of the manner in which a faculty, counselor, and administrator experienced
the project and as a result of their participation developed new learning about their
institution and students. These results concur with those of Bensimon et al. (2004) who
found that the practitioner-as-researcher model to be effective in generating new
knowledge among practitioners that “make a difference” (p.124).
An important finding is that the faculty members developed a heightened
sensibility about students’ transfer experiences and they understood the importance of
transfer which in turn yielded changes in practice. For the counselor in the project, none
of them reported making changes to their practices. All of the counselors expect for Paul,
shared new learning about students or transfer practices, but it was not compelling
enough to modify the manner in which they conduct their daily activities. A potential
explanation is that because transfer is such a close and intimate topic to counselors, that
acknowledging that their practices may create obstacles for students may be difficult to
acknowledge. In the minds of counselors, the challenge was not in what was revealed by

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the data, but rather how to make students aware of existing transfer services. Yet, the
presence of counseling courses and workshops offered at Oceanside College does not
automatically equate to student success. According to Cohen, Raudenbush and Ball
(2003), the availability of institutional resources does not guarantee their use. They argue,
“The effects of resources depend on both access and use...the resources they do have are
not self-acting. Simply collecting a stock of conventional resources cannot create
educational quality, for quality does not arise simply from such attributes” (p.122).
Students have to be made aware that transfer services exist, their purpose, and
practitioners need to ensure that the services are delivered in a manner that encourages
their utilization. As such, connecting students to these resources requires practitioners to
consider the voices of their students, reexamine their practices, and identify how to
bridge access and understanding of institutional services so that students are empowered
to seek them out.

Equity
Even though participants did not report experiencing new learning that increased
their sensitivity to inequities in student outcomes, the project did allow Mark, Jill, and
Raul to reflect on their daily roles and assume responsibility for student transfer success
by demonstrating caring characteristics, which is a quality of equity-mindedness
(Bensimon et al., 2007). Equity-mindedness was understood as practitioners who
“attribute unequal outcomes among Black and Latina/o students to institution-based

106
dysfunctions… equity minded individuals reflect on their own and their colleagues’ role
in and responsibility for student success” (Bensimon, p.446, 2007).
The project allowed group members to increase their learning about students and
institutional practices as a result of reflecting on the problem of transfer and assuming
responsibility for student outcomes, but the project fell short in leading participants to
become aware of inequitable outcomes among racial groups. Qualities of equity-
mindedness not evident in their learning by participants were being color-conscious of
inequitable outcomes among minority students, being aware that practices can be
racialized, and assuming responsibility to eliminate inequities (Bensimon et al., 2007).
After analyzing the data, the topic of equity was not emphasized in group meetings even
though it assumed a prominent role during the project orientation. According to Pollock
(2004), ignoring race topics by not speaking about them in public can “…reproduce the
very racial inequalities that plague us” (p. 4). The failure of the project to not emphasize
discussions focused on equity demonstrates the ease with which individuals can
unconsciously ignore the topic altogether and maintain the status quo. Unsupportive
racial climates at institutions of higher education have been associated with poor
academic performance and high dropout rates among African American students
(Solorzano, Ceja & Yosso, 2000).
Reflecting back on the project activities, I learned that certain opportunities were
overlooked that could have been used to discuss issues of equity. For example, during the
first group meeting participants were responsible for developing the student interview
protocol. Research members could have used this opportunity to ask practitioners

107
questions about inequities in transfer during the creation of the student interview
protocol. Questions directed towards the group members could have been:
• Does race matter in relation to transfer outcomes?
• What implications, if any, do low transfer rates of minority student have on their
long-term social opportunities?
• Does race matter on campus?
Questions such as these could have raised the interest of the participants to think of
inequities in transfer and possibly prompt them to include questions in the student
interview protocol to explore how race is implicated in transfer processes such as
deciding which colleges to apply.
Race discussions among participants could have also occurred during the third
group meeting when members shared their student interview findings. During the
meeting participants were not asked if their interview findings led them to better
understand how to increase minority student transfer outcomes. If practitioners were
asked questions of race and equity during the project, they could have learned
collectively by questioning their assumptions which may have led to new learning.

Institutional Agents
The findings of this study reveal that when practitioners engage in
collaborative inquiry activities it does not immediately lead to them becoming
institutional agents. However, the participants demonstrated qualities that could
eventually lead to them becoming institutional agents. Stanton-Salazar (1997) defines

108
institutional agents as, “Individuals who have the capacity and commitment to transmit
directly, or negotiate the transmission of, institutional resources and opportunities”
(p.26).
I drew on the work of Stanton-Salazar (2001) to understand how the changes
reported by Mark, Jill, and Raul are those of institutional agents. Mark and Jill changed
their practices to promote transfer activities in their classes and created new in-class
activities to get students to think about transfer. These actions demonstrate a quality of
institutional agents Stanton-Salazar (2001) label as being a human bridge. He describes
the process of being a human bridge as a form of support that bridges institutional
resources and opportunities to students who may not have access to them.
Other qualities of institutional agents found within the modifications made by
Mark and Raul can be summarized by their role of advocating (Stanton-Salazar, 2001) on
behalf of students. Stanton-Salazar (2001) describes this form of support as promoting
the best interest of students by advocating on their behalf. In the case of Mark, he met
with representatives from the Transfer Center to discuss students’ transfer experiences.
His meeting led to the development of a new Power Point presentation to announce
transfer activities in his classes. Raul also advocated for students by meeting with
financial aid representatives to create a new workshop that would inform students of
financial resources available. Creating this new financial aid workshop can assist students
overcome economic barriers associated with transferring by informing students of
existing financial support for school. By advocating on behalf of students, Mark and Raul

109
engaged their colleagues in problem solving discussions to address students’ transfer
challenges.
Also, Jill realized she could provide students emotional and moral support
(Stanton-Salazar, 2001) in her classroom. This form of support is described as promoting
emotional and moral reassurance to students to show them that they not only belong on
campus but practitioners care about their educational well being (Stanton-Salazar, 2001).
Jill wanted students to see her as a “visible [transfer] resource” and a “mentor” especially
after learning they were “uncomfortable accessing transfer resources on campus.” Jill
shared in her second interview that she would begin to ask “students about their transfer
stories to learn how to assist them.”
New learning by participants was transferred to assist students to overcome
barriers found within the transfer system at Oceanside College, which can potentially
help to create a new transfer culture on campus. Raul’s labeled the transfer culture as
“weak” and believed transfer was seen as a counselor responsibility during his first
interview. His original belief was challenged when faculty members in the project
realized they could play a proactive role in promoting transfer in the classroom and
support counselors. Realizations such as these can create a culture on campus that views
transfer as a campus wide responsibility.
The changes reported by Mark, Jill and Raul – creating new resources and
informing students of transfer announcements – addressed information barriers
encountered by students. With this said, a critical role in helping students to transfer,
which was not evident in the changes reported, was to demonstrate a commitment to

110
educational equity by adopting the role of a transfer champion who advocates for
administrative practices that promote transfer access and student success (Dowd et al.,
2006). Examples of changes in administrative practices can consist of shaping policies
that allow student transfer cohorts to form that will support the transfer needs of diverse
students or creating a mentorship program to assist students’ maneuver successfully over
transfer barriers. Participants failed to discuss more long-term solutions to issues such as
plans to change policies and teach students how to decode the institutional system that
may limit their access to resources. The study only evaluated participants during the
duration of the project and it is uncertain if group members demonstrated subsequent
behaviors of challenging transfer barriers.

Implications for Practice
The knowledge gained by practitioners reflects a deeper appreciation of students’
transfer experiences. Oftentimes practitioners work alone and seldom engage with
colleagues in problem solving activities. The study reveals that the use of collaborative
inquiry activities can be used as a form of professional development (PD) in
postsecondary education. Professional development is seen as a process designed to alter
practitioners’ practices and beliefs in order to improve student learning (Lieberman &
Miller, 1999). The collaborative inquiry activities utilized in the project contain important
elements of PD which are key to new learning. According to Lieberman and Miller, it is
important to create a community of support among individuals engaging in PD activities.
The group meetings in the project provided the space for participants to get to know one

111
another and the safety to discuss their findings without judgment. For example, Mark felt
comfortable sharing his limited knowledge regarding financial resources with other group
members when he discussed a departmental scholarship he was unaware of. His
willingness to share his limited knowledge set a tone of trust and openness within
successive group discussions.
Second, PD should allow individuals to reflect on their “inside and outside
knowledge” (Lieberman & Miller, 1999, p. 63). Inside knowledge is described as existing
knowledge or beliefs regarding practices educators believe are effective in their daily
routine. Outside knowledge is new learning developed as a result of educators
participating in PD activities. For example, when I interviewed Jill, she reflected on her
inside knowledge of believing that transfer was a counselor responsibility alone before
the project started. As a result of learning of the low transfer rates and working with
counselors to address their transfer gap, Jill realized, “Faculty are the touch point. This
[classroom] is where the students can all be reached…” Jill felt her classroom could be a
forum wherein to promote transfer information saying, “I need to be more available [to
students] and not behind closed doors, but being more visible by doing more outreach
handholding things to support students.”
If college administrators are considering conducting a similar collaborative
inquiry project and question how their institution can benefit from such an approach, this
study reveals that when practitioners inquire into students educational experiences they
can develop new learning about students and institutional practices. This type of inquiry
approach adds value to participants who are able to enhance their learning and also to the

112
institution that can benefit from the changes in practices which are able to reach out to the
community at large.
An additional benefit of such an approach is that collaborative inquiry activities
can be used as a form of accountability. Higher education has experienced an increased
emphasis on performance accountability in order to understand the “…quality [of
education] and getting a return on investment for public dollars” (Dougherty & Hong,
p.1, 2005). Dougherty and Hong (2005) analyzed statistical data of nine institutions and
conducted interviews with community college representatives to examine the impact
performance accountability systems have on two-year institutions. The top-down
approach of accountability systems expect all institutions to perform at a certain level on
pre-selected indicators which has had a “moderate impact on the behavior of community
colleges” (p. 2), but surprisingly the long-term impact on student outcomes is still
“unclear” (p.2). This study demonstrates that collaborative inquiry activities can have an
impact on the learning and behavior of community college practitioners. Their actions
demonstrate a heightened level of responsibility and accountability towards improving
student outcomes. This attitude of ownership and commitment to address a problem is
absent in accountability systems. Collaborative inquiry activities can benefit community
colleges by providing practitioners a framework for monitoring their performance that is
based on research conducted by educators in their own setting. An inquiry process can
lead practitioners to connect to their findings because they will be able to learn first-hand
from students about the efficiency (or lack thereof) of their practices.

113

Limitations of Study
In this section I discuss how my own limited experience as a researcher played a
role in the data collection process. In many ways, I felt that my limited interviewing
experience was a restriction on the study, which was evident after reading the transcribed
interviews. In the transcripts I located areas where I could have probed further to gather
more in-depth information. Joining the project from the beginning would have been
beneficial as I would have attended the second group meeting that prepared and trained
participants for the student interviews. In this group meeting I would have been trained
alongside the participants by being introduced to interviewing techniques and would have
observed a mock student interview conducted by an experienced research member.
An additional limitation is that participants did not know they would be
interviewed a second time. Many found the second interview to be repetitive and too
close to their first interview, which were a month apart. Scheduling a time for their
second interview was challenging because I was rushing to conduct them before the end
of the semester. For this reason, I was unable to interview three out of the eleven
participants, which limited the data collected by the research team and left an information
gap in the study. Also, the audio recordings of four participant interviews could not be
transcribed due to the poor quality of the audio file. The missing information from these
three participants and the incomplete interview transcripts would have provided valuable
information to identify if new learning was developed. The project interviews could have

114
been planned ahead of time, in consultation with the participants, to identify dates that
complemented their work calendar. Lastly, the interviews could have been separated
throughout the project to avoid a last minute rush to complete them before the end of the
project.

Future Research
The study reveals that a collaborative inquiry activity is an effective process to
increase practitioners’ learning about their students and their practices. This study only
evaluated practitioners’ experiences during the project and no long-term outcomes were
examined. Only three out of eleven participants reported making changes to their
practices during the five months of the project, but it is unknown if other group members
made modifications to their daily roles afterwards. It would be beneficial to conduct a
follow up study to learn if other members in the project made changes to their practices
and if the changes made by the three participants are ongoing. I further recommend that
future inquiry projects be extended to a full-year to allow participants additional time to
reflect on their findings and experiences.
Also, the study did not evaluate level four, results, of Kirkpatrick’s (1998) model
to learn if student transfer outcomes improved from the previous year. Future evaluations
should consider using all four levels of Kirkpatrick’s model to understand the long-term
results of such an intervention. That said, there are limitations to using Kirkpatrick’s
evaluation model. Research has shown that a new fifth level, evaluation, could be added

115
to examine the long-term social contributions an intervention can have on society
(Watkins, Leigh, Foshay, & Kaufman, 1998).
Lastly, since the project fell short in having group members become aware of
inequitable outcomes, in this chapter I highlight missed opportunities in the project that
could have been used to discuss issues of equity. These missed opportunities could have
been beneficial to assist practitioners in becoming equity-minded institutional agents. It is
uncertain what factors influenced the project and the research team to not emphasize the
topic of equity in all the group meetings and analysis of their findings. Pollock (2004)
believes that it is much easier to ignore race talk than attempt to have dialogue and make
sense of unequal racial patterns. If institutions consider using a collaborative inquiry
project to address issues of equity they should remember that facilitating such an
approach demands a great deal of attention, particular expertise, and assistance from
trained researchers who possess a strong research background to implement such an
intervention (Pollock, 2004). Also, future studies may want to rely on academic journals
to introduce the topic of equity-mindedness to make this topic explicit among project
participants.

Conclusion
Postsecondary institutions throughout the country are presently producing
inequitable educational outcomes across various racial groups (Bensimon, 2005);
however, the challenge lies in how to hold these institutions accountable (Peña et al.,
2006). The project activities did alter participant perceptions and increased their

116
understanding concerning the potential causes to their low transfer rates. This learning
was a result of the social interaction opportunities facilitated by the project such as
interviewing students and participating in dialogue with peers from across the Oceanside
community.
Research suggests that learners construct their own knowledge through their
social interactions and experiences (Tharp & Gallimore, 1988). As a result of
practitioners’ involvement in the collaborative inquiry activities, certain members
developed new attitudes, beliefs and values about transfer. A key component of the
project was the role of the research team who assisted practitioners to develop a new
awareness of the transfer problems impacting Oceanside by modeling appropriate
interviewing techniques and asking thoughtful questions to push participants to address
difficult issues.
Had the project not taken place and practitioners had only been presented with the
data on low transfer rates without collaborative reflection, it is unlikely they would have
possessed the knowledge or the urgency to address the problem. For example, if Mark did
not learn he could play a more active role in promoting transfer in his classes there is a
high probability he would have not met with the Transfer Center to create the in-class
transfer presentation. Also, if Raul did not participate in the project he would have held
close to his original beliefs (listed on page 50) that students were responsible alone for
their transfer outcomes and not the institution or practitioners. The absence of the project
may have left practitioners to rely solely on their assumptions on how to improve
transfer, which in the end would not have addressed the needs of students.

117
By evaluating participants’ experiences with the Oceanside Transfer Project, this
study reveals the benefits associated with conducting a collaborative inquiry project to
address a local problem. The outcomes of such an approach led to new learning and
changes among educators. A value of the project activities is that participants went to the
source – students – to learn first-hand how students experience transfer practices on
campus. Involving practitioners in collaborative inquiry activities provides practitioners
with new learning opportunities that can potentially shift their perceptions about their
ability to support students. This study contributes to the understanding of how
practitioners can learn, change, and become more responsive to the realities of students.

118
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Appendix A

First Interview Protocol

1. How long have you been at Oceanside College (OC)?

2. Why did you become a counselor?
Could you tell me what you do as a counselor (transfer, academic)?
In what capacity do you interact with students (inside or outside the office)?
Can you walk me through a student meeting?

3. Why did you get involved in this project?
Did you volunteer or appointed?
Would you recommend others to participate in a similar project?
What was your initial reaction to the project?

4.How did you learn (or what specific training did you receive) to advise students?
What academic program did you attend to prepare for counseling:
Master's Degree: Counseling, Rehabilitation Counseling, Clinical Psychology,
Counseling Psychology, Guidance Counseling, Educational Counseling, Social
Work, Career Development; Marriage and Family Therapist (MFT); or
California Community College Counselor Credential?

5.When you saw the data report on transfer for OC, how did this make you feel?

6. How would you describe the transfer culture on campus?
Do you talk to other colleagues about transfer issues?
Did anything student say in the interviews contradict your perceptions about
transfer?

7. How many students did you interview?
Were did the interviews take place on how long did they last?
Can you tell me about the first interview, what did you learn from it?
Were the students eligible to transfer from those you interviewed?
Were there any themes that emerged from the interviews?
Did they go as you expected?

8. From what you learned from the interviews, what is the college doing well and
what could be done differently?

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9. What would you consider the benefits are of participating in the project
(interviews/group)?
Are there any possible disadvantages?
How does this project (inquiry base) compare to others you may have been
involved with?

10. If another counselor asked you if this project was a good idea what would you
tell them?

11. Was there anything you learned as you progressed through the project?
Have you learned anything new from what others in the group have said?

12. Can you describe any new insights gained about transfer at OC?

13. Based on what you learned, how well is the institution serving the transfer needs
of students?

14. As a result of what you've learned, have you considered adapting your practices?

15. Was there anything else you would like to add?

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Appendix B

Second Interview Protocol

I want to talk to you about the project…

1. What were your initial impressions of the project?
• What are you impressions now?

2. Has this process made you think differently about transfer outcomes?

3. If someone at OC asked you about what difference this project has made
to you, what would you say?

Now I would like to talk to you about what you have learned from the project…

4. What did you learn about existing practices at OC as you progressed through
this project?

5. Was there anything you learned about yourself as a result of this project?

6. This project derived from the Equity for All project. The goal is to promote more
equitable outcomes for African-American and Latino/a students. What can
you do specifically to support Latino and AA students transfer?

7. Reflecting on the project and your own beliefs, do you think that this project has
had an effect on your beliefs about your capability or potential to increase transfer
rates?
• What was the catalyst for change?

8. If someone not familiar with the campus came to OC, what do you think their
impression of the transfer culture would be? Transfer culture being defined as the
language used by faculty, staff and students, visibility, and shared knowledge.
• Do you think this person would have the same impression of both campus?
• How do you see yourself in the transfer culture?

Finally, I would like to talk to you about actions and behaviors…

9. On the final survey you stated that since this project began you have engaged in (Fill in
for each individual) activities related to transfer. Please elaborate on what caused you
to engage in those behaviors.
• There were some items that you did not check. Please elaborate on why you did
not check them. Are there barriers that prevent you from taking those actions?

126
10. Given what you have learned, are there things that you might do differently?

11. Given what you have learned from this project, what are three changes you would
recommend to the President?
How likely is it that your recommendations will be adopted?
What would you like to see different five years from now regarding transfer?

12. In your opinion, what, if any, changes have you observed since the beginning of
this project?

13. Was there anything else you would like to add?

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Appendix C

Letter of Invitation

January 15, 2007

NAME
COLLEGE
ADDRESS 1
ADDRESS 2

Dear NAME,

Professor David Morse has informed us that you are interested in participating in “The
‘Missing 87’: A Study of ‘Transfer-Ready’ Community College Students Who Do Not
Transfer.” We want to thank you for your interest and look forward with great
anticipation to collaborating on this project. The purpose of this letter is to give you
more information on the project.

Over the past year LBCC has been one of nine campuses participating in the “Equity for
All” project which involved a team of your colleagues: Dr. Fred Trapp, Hannah (Oh)
Alford, Dr. Linda Umbdenstock, Lee Douglass, Kevin Ryan, Shauna Hageman, and
Delia DuRos led by Dr. Leticia Suarez, Dean of School Resources. The purpose of
Equity for All was to examine data to identify gaps in educational outcomes and
construct an “equity scorecard.” Information on LBCC’s Equity for All work is available
in LBCC’s web site [INCLUDE ADDRESS]. One of the most compelling findings
from the team’s work in the Equity for All project was that more than 20% of eligible
students at LBCC do not transfer. There is also a group of students who met the criteria to
transfer to UC but instead transferred to a CSU campus. However, we do not know why
students who qualify to transfer do not, or why students who qualify for transfer to UC
choose a CSU institution. Needless to say, there are probably a variety of reasons for this
phenomenon and the purpose of the “Transfer Gap Project” is to find out.

We decided that the best way of understanding this problem would be by talking directly
to the students who did not transfer or who transferred to a CSU even though they could
have gone to a UC campus. Fortunately, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation felt
that this project has the potential of shedding insights into a problem that is likely to have
implications for transfer-related policies and practices at other California community
colleges and decided to support it.

The “Transfer Gap Project” will involve you in the conduct of semi-structured interviews
with students and ethnographic observations on your campus. The purpose of the
interviews is to learn first-hand from students why they didn’t transfer to a four-year
college even though they were eligible. The observations on campus will be conducted as

128
part of a cultural and resource audit of transfer advising practices. The interviews and
observations will begin in February and end in May 2007.

We will hold an orientation to discuss the Transfer Gap Project and your role in further
detail on January 25, 2007, from 4:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m., at the LBCC Pacific Coast
Campus. Dinner will be provided. Additional details about the orientation will be given
once we have received your confirmation of attendance.

We would like to emphasize that, should you agree to participate, your work on this
project will dovetail with your current work on other initiatives and various committees
at LBCC. In fact, this project will benefit LBCC in the following ways:
Assist with meeting important measures of institutional accountability,
particularly student transfer;
Serve as a natural extension of ongoing equity initiatives at LBCC (e.g., the
Equity for All project);
Benefit the upcoming Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC)
accreditation, as well as future internal reviews of various departments such as
counseling, financial aid, and EOP&S;
Help LBCC further achieve its goal of equity, as stated in the 2005-2010
Master Plan;
Strengthen relationship to student learning outcomes, as outlined in the Title
V cooperative grant with CSU Long Beach;
Increase campus-wide discussion to promote transfer for LBCC students,
particularly those from underrepresented groups; and
Develop a better understanding of the “transfer gap” among faculty, staff, and
administrators and make corresponding changes.

We also envision several professional and personal benefits for the faculty and staff
members, who will comprise the “Transfer Gap” inquiry team, including:
Develop an understanding and awareness of transfer stories and experiences
of LBCC students with implications for effecting teaching and advising
practices;
Exposure to inquiry practices that can be applied to situations that require
problem-defining (e.g., retention, improving outcomes of particular groups of
students);
Engage in further research, publishing, and presentation opportunities with
researchers from the Center for Urban Education at USC; and
Apply this project to graduate coursework, master’s theses, and doctoral
dissertations.

Additionally, your colleagues who participated in the Equity for All inquiry team can
give you a good sense of their experience and whether they found it worthwhile.

We are thrilled about the possibility of your participation in this exciting project. We
hope you will take some time to review the enclosed Executive Summary. To facilitate
your response to this invitation, we have provided a response form in which you can
indicate your interest and conveniently return by e-mail to Edlyn V. Peña, CUE Research
Assistant, at evallejo@usc.edu. We would appreciate hearing from you no later than
_____________. If you prefer to talk more in-depth about the project, you can contact
me at (213) 740-5202 or via e-mail at bensimon@usc.edu.

Sincerely,

Estela Mara Bensimon Alicia C. Dowd
Professor of Higher Education Assistant Professor
Director, Center for Urban Education University of Southern California
University of Southern California

Fred Trapp Hannah Alford
Administrative Dean Research Analyst
Institutional Research and Academic Services Long Beach City College
Long Beach City College

David Morse
Academic Senate President
Long Beach City College

129

130
Appendix D

Dinner Orientation Survey

We are looking forward to working with you and would like to know more about you
before getting started. Please take a few minutes to answer these questions, writing as
much or as little as you like.

1. Your name
2. Your position at OC
3. Number of years at OC
4. What interested you in this project?
5. What other research projects have you been involved in at OC or elsewhere? Tell
us about your role and the methods that were used.
6. Have you heard about the Equity Scorecard project? If you have heard about it, do
you have any impressions about it?
7. This project is about finding out why students who could have transferred to four-
year colleges did not and why students who could have transferred to a UC
campus did not. Do you have any hunches about why this may be so? Could you
share them with us?
8. What do you know about how OC does “transfer”?
9. How would you describe the transfer culture here at OC?

131
Appendix E

Post Project Survey

Name:___________________________________ Title:__________________________

Since you began your involvement in the Oceanside Transfer Project have you engaged
in any of the following behaviors? Please check all that apply.

_____Spoke to your class(es) about transfer

_____Had an individual conversation with a student(s) about transfer

_____Disseminated information to your class about a transfer fair

_____Attended a transfer fair (not as a part of data collection for the project)

_____Printed out an email you received from the transfer center and presented the
information to your class

_____Spoke with a colleague about transfer issues

_____Shared information about transfer with other committees

_____Invited a speaker to present information about transfer to your class

_____Attended a conference on transfer such as Ensuring Transfer Success conference

_____Other: Please Describe

To what extent, did you do these things prior to the project?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Frequently Sometimes Not at all

In your opinion, what facilitated the success of the Oceanside Transfer Project?

In your opinion, what were the challenges of the Oceanside Transfer Project?

132
Appendix F

Consent Form
Verbal Recruitment of Subjects

Bensimon, Dowd, Harris, James, Rivas and Peña

My name is __________ and we are interested in having you participate in a small
research study of your role in the project at Oceanside College involving assessments of
transfer-ready students’ experiences and transfer resources on campus. Specifically, we
are interesting in the understandings you gain about the transfer process from conducting
these assessments. Upon your permission, I would like to interview you and observe you
during your project meetings at Oceanside Colleges. These events will be audio-taped.
Your participation is voluntary. But if you wouldn’t mind talking to me two times this
year for about forty-five minutes at a time, your participation will be greatly appreciated.
I will hand out a sheet of paper for you to sign up for interviews. If you decide to sign
up, I will contact you via email to set up an appointment for me to talk to you. Thank
you!

133
Appendix G

Fast-Track Transfer Data Disaggregated by Race and Ethnicity, 1999-2002

UC-Eligible Asian/PI African
American/Black
Hispanic/
Latina/o
White Other Total
Transferred to
UC
6
(15%)
6
(15%)
11
(28%)
9
(23%)
8
(20%)
40
(100%)
Transferred to
CSU
20
(19%)
9
(9%)
27
(26%)
35
(33%)
14
(13%)
105
(100%)
Transferred
elsewhere
2
(13%)
1
(6%)
3
(19%)
7
(44%)
3
(19%)
16
(100%)
Transferred
nowhere
6
(16%)
1
(3%)
7
(19%)
17
(46%)
6
(16%)
37
(100%)
Unduplicated*
UC-eligible
Total
34
(17%)
17
(9%)
48
(24%)
68
(34%)
31
(16%)
198
(100%)
CSU-Eligible Asian/PI African
American/Black
Hispanic/
Latina/o
White Other Total
Transferred to
CSU
47
(22%)
16
(7%)
61
(29%)
63
(29%)
27
(13%)
214
(100%)
Transferred
elsewhere
9
(27%)
3
(10%)
9
(27%)
7
(21%)
5
(15%)
33
(100%)
Transferred
nowhere
17
(23%)
2
(3%)
18
(24%)
25
(33%)
13
(17%)
75
(100%)
Unduplicated*
CSU-eligible
Total
73
(23%)
21
(7%)
88
(27%)
95
(30%)
45
(14%)
322
(100%)
Note: Fast-track students are those eligible within three years to transfer.
Source: (Bensimon, Dowd, Peña, Alford & James, 2007)

Abstract (if available)

Abstract In this study I evaluated the experience of eleven practitioners who participated in a collaborative inquiry project at an urban community college. The aim of the project was for practitioners to participate in an alternative model of knowledge development to increase their learning regarding their institutional practices and students by engaging in research activities that examined the cause(s) of their transfer gap (Bensimon, Dowd, Trapp, & Alford, 2006). The gap was defined as the difference between the number of students meeting California eligibility for transfer and the number who actually transferred. The purpose of the study is to evaluate if practitioners' become institutional agents (Stanton-Salazar, 1997) as a result of participating in the project. To evaluate participants' experiences in the project, I used Kirkpatrick's (1998) four-level evaluation model as a framework to analyze the data collected during the five months of the project. Through the project activities of interviewing students and analyzing their findings in group meetings, practitioners were able to heighten their understanding of students' transfer experiences at Oceanside College. By enhancing participants' understanding about transfer three group members were able to draw on new knowledge in making changes to their practices to better support students.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Rivas, Salvador, Jr. (author)

Core Title Reframing the role of transfer facilitators: using action research methods for new knowledge development

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Education

Degree Program Education (Leadership)

Publication Date 02/21/2009

Defense Date 11/04/2008

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag action research,community college,OAI-PMH Harvest,transfer,transfer agent

Place Name California (states)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Bensimon, Estela Mara (committee chair), Peña-Vallejo, Edlyn (committee member), Rueda, Robert S. (committee member)

Creator Email rivass@usc.edu,srivas68@hotmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-m1981

Unique identifier UC1310341

Identifier etd-Rivas-2561 (filename),usctheses-m40 (legacy collection record id),usctheses-c127-149094 (legacy record id),usctheses-m1981 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-Rivas-2561.pdf

Dmrecord 149094

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Rivas, Salvador, Jr.

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Repository Name Libraries, University of Southern California

Repository Location Los Angeles, California

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu