What Higher Education Has to Say about the Transition to College
By Sara Goldrick-Rab, D. Carter, R. Wagner. Teachers College Record, 2007
121 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Background Higher education researchers have much to say about the transition to college. This field focuses primarily on inequities in college participation and completion, the relative importance of high school preparation, and the utility of financial aid in promoting enrollment. This literature's strongest conceptual emphasis is on theoretical models of student retention. Less is known about other facets of the transition to college, including different postsecondary pathways and college outcomes. Purpose This paper describes the major findings of research on the transition to college contributed by higher education, and how further research might be improved. The specific areas covered are college preparation, college access, persistence, and college outcomes. The reviewed literature covered extant research on the transition to college as conducted by higher education researchers. Research Design This essay is an analysis of extant research on the college transition in the field of higher education Conclusions/Recommendations This review highlights the field's major shortcoming as undertaking insufficiently rigorous, empirical testing of theories on the transition to college. Existing research on postsecondary pathways is often compromised by data or methodological limitations, failure to be critical in attributing causality, and not differentiating effects occurring at different measurement levels (i.e., individual vs. institution).
Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Education
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ee6cce9182723eff81eebe28e38ab91ef6a7646e
How researchers see this paper
The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.
In Economics and Econometrics
In Education
- M. Gaertner
- Jeongeun Kim
- Jennifer G. Cromley
- Yasuko Kanno
- K. McClarty
- Stephen L. Desjardins
- Rong Chen
- Terry T. Ishitani
Citations in the corpus
- English Language Learners' Access to and Attainment in Postsecondary Education. (2013, background): “7 We are aware that minority students sometimes delay entry into college beyond a few years after high school graduation (Goldrick-Rab, 2007).”
- Preparing Students for College and Careers: The Causal Role of Algebra II (2014, background): “For example, a variety of studies suggest positive college outcomes are associated with advanced mathematics course-taking in high school (Wyatt et al. 2011; Wiley et al. 2010; Goldrick-Rab et al. 2007; Perna 2004), and our results echo those researchers’ conclusions.”