Rethinking the Curricular Complexity Framework for Transfer Students

This theory paper explores how we can extend the curricular complexity framework to better capture vertical engineering transfer students' experiences – i.e., students transferring from a community college to a four-year university. Most prior research using the framework focuses on characterizing what makes university engineering programs "complex" for first-time-in-college (FTIC) students by quantifying the interconnectedness of their prerequisite structures. These measures have been correlated with other metrics like retention, time-to-degree, and program quality. Unlike FTIC students, transfer students can enter the curriculum at multiple points in time and often bring course credit that is applied to requirements, relegated to electives, or lost entirely. As currently conceptualized, exploring transfer student pathways appropriately with the current version of the curricular complexity framework is difficult without constraining assumptions - e.g., analyzing the effects of a curriculum revision and assuming no courses are transfer-friendly. To address this gap in the literature, we adapt the curriculum complexity framework to capture challenges vertical engineering transfer students may encounter in their pathway to a four-year degree.