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Abstract
The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center (2015) reported that there were 2.4 million student transitions from one institution to another over a six-year period between 2008 and 2014. According to the Student Achievement Measure (SAM, n.d.), which uses National Student Clearinghouse Snapshot 20 data, only 11% of students who transfer from a four-year to another four-year institution completed their bachelor’s degree. In addition, Jenkins and Fink’s (2016) analysis indicated that of the 33% of community college students that transfer to a four-year institution, only 42% earn a bachelor’s degree within six years of entering postsecondary education. Given the low levels of success that transfer students have at four-year institutions, this study aimed to better understand the post-transfer student engagement experience. The NSSE is a widely used survey instrument designed to collect information from four-year college students and their level of engagement with respect to their learning and personal development (NSSE, 2014). For the purposes of this study, it was important to investigate the use of the survey to provide data on student engagement for varying student demographics, particularly transfer students. In 2013, NSSE updated the survey (NSSE 2.0) based on feedback from participating institutions, research on the survey, and much needed terminology updates (Pike, 2013a). The survey transitioned from having five benchmarks to four themes with ten underlying engagement indicators (NSSE, 2014).The purpose of this study was to explore the model fit of the 2013 NSSE (NSSE 2.0) engagement indicator model as applied to persisting transfer students at a single four-year higher education institution using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Specifically, the primary research question of the study was: How well does the model of the NSSE engagement indicators organized by content themes fit to the empirical data for persisting transfer students at a public urban research university? Further, the study examined the fit for all transfer students, then for transfer student subgroups including two-year institution transfers (vertical), four-year institution transfers (horizontal), and transfer students that attended both a two-year and another four-year institution (swirling).The findings of this study suggest that none of the subgroups necessarily demonstrated overwhelming good model-fits across the four engagement themes. Based on the CFA results for each of the themes, only one of the four engagement themes showed a good model fit for the all transfer student group and the subgroups. A closer look shows each subgroup did not demonstrate a good fit across two of the four themes. Anecdotally, the vertical transfer subgroup did not meet any of the fit indices for the Campus Environment engagement theme and can be viewed as the subgroup with the worst model fit. However, indication of which subgroup shows a better model fit cannot be determined.