The Academic and Social Integration of Persisting Community College Transfer Students

This qualitative study sought to discern the applicability of Tinto's theory of the importance of academic and social integration to students' persistence by interviewing community college transfer students who had persisted for several semesters in a large, public, research extensive university. Twelve students who participated in a 2004 study about factors affecting the transfer process and their subsequent integration into the receiving institution were interviewed again in 2006 about their academic and social integration into the university. The researchers found that persisting community college transfer students' academic and social integration needs appeared to be different from those of first-year, traditional-age college students at a residence-oriented 4-year institution. The primary institutional influences affecting their integration were university size, the opportunity to join clubs in their major, and the opportunity to conduct research with a professor. Individual or situational influences were working and living off-campus and having the goal of completing the baccalaureate, but not necessarily at the receiving university.