Noncognitive Factors and Transfer Student Academic Success

Background: Noncognitive factors, such as students’ academic engagement and achievement emotions, may be significant predictors of undergraduate student success. Information about these noncognitive factors within the context of transfer students is lacking. Transfer students comprise about half of all undergraduate students, yet their educational experiences may differ in meaningful ways from those of traditional students. Importantly, the transfer student population is not monolithic. Understanding this group is a complex and rich area of research, as transfer student status can intersect with other salient characteristics that may impede academic success, such as off-campus employment, enrollment status, or number of previous institutions (collectively referred to as “situational challenges”). Purpose: The goal of this dissertation is to understand how academic engagement and achievement emotions impact transfer students’ academic outcomes, as measured by term GPA and persistence. Methods: Manuscript 1 encompasses two studies and explores the relation of academic engagement, both cognitive and behavioral, for transfer students. The first study, examining cognitive engagement, draws data from an institution-wide survey administered at an urban, four-year institution (N = 721 undergraduate transfer students). Regression analysis is used to study the relation between cognitive engagement and transfer student academic success. The second study, focusing on behavioral engagement, uses data from two administrations of the National Student Survey of Engagement (NSSE) at the same university (N = 1,779 undergraduate transfer students). Mediation analyses is used to understand the impact of behavioral engagement on the relation between select situational challenges and academic outcomes for transfer students. Manuscript 2 includes one study examining the impact of two types of achievement emotions (enjoyment and anxiety) on academic success for transfer students. The study draws data from the same survey (N = 721 undergraduate transfer students) as Manuscript 1, Study 1. Regression analyses are used to study the relation between achievement emotions and transfer student academic success. Each analysis across both manuscripts is also further dissected by demographic characteristics including age, gender and race/ethnicity. Results: Consistent with other studies, cognitive and behavioral engagement predicted term GPA for transfer students. Cognitive engagement was not found to be a significant predictor of persistence for transfer students. Additionally, certain types of behavioral engagement, such as collaborative learning, student-faculty interaction, and high-impact practices, mediated the relationship between situational challenges, like working over 20 hours per week off campus, enrolling part-time or pursuing a STEM major, and term GPA for many subgroups of transfer students. Anxiety and enjoyment emotions individually predicted term GPA and persistence for transfer students. However, when controlling for anxiety emotions, enjoyment emotions were no longer a significant predictor. These relations differed across demographic groups. Conclusion: This dissertation provides evidence that noncognitive factors play a key role in transfer students’ academic success and provide further insight into how these factors differ across transfer student demographics. The implications of these findings and suggestions for interventions are discussed