Research Blog #3 - Research Question and 3 Scholarly Sources

Research Question

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has left many students worried about their academic futures. Changes in family finances have forced students to take a gap year or outright drop out of school in order to seek out minimum wage jobs. And even students in more secure financial positions have had to deal with increased anxiety and stress over college now that campuses have shifted to online instruction, pushing them further into considering taking a break from college.

During these uncertain times, it would be prudent to analyze this issue as thoroughly as possible. What are the vectors that determine why students take a gap year, drop out, or transfer to another school? How do these decisions affect the trajectory of students’ academic and professional careers, and are these changes in trajectory necessarily a bad thing? How do divisions of class, gender, and race affect this trajectory?

Potential Sources:

• Lichtenberger, Eric, and Cecile Dietrich. “The Community College Penalty? Examining the Bachelor’s Completion Rates of Community College Transfer Students as a Function of Time.” Community College Review, vol. 45, no. 1, SAGE Publications, 2017, pp. 3–32, doi:10.1177/0091552116674550.

This article analyzes the claim that community college transfer students typically suffer a penalty in terms of how long it takes to complete a bachelor's degree, compared to a regular 4-year student. The studies found that while most transfer students did not graduate in 4 years, past that time frame there was little difference between transfer students and normal students in the rate they were finishing their degrees. However, they do not provide any real explanation for why transfer students have an initial time-based disadvantage for obtaining a degree. The methodology is fascinating, but out of the sources I found this one seemed to have the weakest connection to my paper.

• O’Shea, Joseph. Gap Year : How Delaying College Changes People in Ways the World Needs . Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014. 

This research paper studies a group of students taking a study abroad opportunity between secondary and higher education. Although this technically falls outside of the scope of college students then, I think the general findings made here applies to all students. O'Shea makes the claim that taking a gap year helps students grow on an interpersonal level as they face new challenges, social situations, and differing beliefs. These experiences help students develop a sense of emotional resilience, self-confidence, and independence.

• Page, Mich. “Numbers and Narratives: What Can Schoolteachers Tell Us About College Drop-Out?” Research in Post-Compulsory Education, vol. 9, no. 2, Taylor & Francis, 2004, pp. 239–48, doi:10.1080/13596740400200177. 

This article examines the basic correlation between school performance and college drop-out, and provides three narratives from schoolteachers from different schools to further analyze the underlying issues. The main point they make is how college drop-out rates is tied to the "dysfunctional conditions" students experience in their primary education environment. When there are teachers available that actively communicate with local colleges and provide good career advice to students, they are more likely to seek out higher education and succeed. Page puts forth the idea that schools should implement a form of vertical integration where, starting from primary school, students are more well-informed of "what work is, what opportunities there are and what relevant qualification routes may look like" (246). This transmission of knowledge would be best accomplished if schools, colleges, and workplaces could integrate and share knowledge with each other so that students can be more sure of what to do past high school.

• Parker, Philip D., et al. “I Wish I Had (Not) Taken a Gap-Year? The Psychological and Attainment Outcomes of Different Post-School Pathways.” Developmental Psychology, vol. 51, no. 3, American Psychological Association, 2015, pp. 323–33, doi:10.1037/a0038667.

In a striking contrast to the O'Shea article, Parker et al. argue that while reports have shown students have reported more self-confidence after taking a gap year, it has little effect on future career prospects. This may be the case because employers have begun to place less value on preuniversity experiences. Case studies have shown that elements such as academic motivation, life/career satisfaction, etc. are insignificantly impacted by taking a gap year. A possible limitation to consider however is that these longitudinal studies were conducted in Finland and Australia, and not in the U.S.