Academic Probation as a Measure of Performance: Contrasting Transfer Students to Native Students

While previous research has measured the performance of community college transfer students, there are some discrepancies among the results. In an attempt to examine this issue in a new manner, a novel technique was utilized to assess the academic performance of community college transfer students. Using probationary status as a measuring device, comparisons were drawn between native university students and all types of transfer students and between community college transfer students and all other types of transfer students. While it did appear that transfer students in general were more likely to be placed on academic probation than were native university students, community college transfer students were no more likely to end up on probation than any other types of transfer students. A discussion of the implications of this result is presented.