Summer Bridge Reflection: A Study of Socioeconomic Status and Transfer Student Factors in Active Learner Recruitment

• In Event: Building Bridges: Community Engagement and Social Capital in Student Success

Abstract

Serving an area as large as New Jersey, California State University Bakersfield offered a Summer Bridge (SB) program to foster academic readiness for all students. In this study, indicators of active learning are identified by a survey of 93 students to represent the SB program engagement in summer 2023. Pell Grant recipients are identified as a proxy for low-income status. In addition, transfer students are considered as another financially disadvantaged group for having to pay more courses. The data analyses confirm SES and transfer status as significant factors impacting the active learning attributes in student recruitment. Implications of the findings are examined from the constructivist epistemology in the SB program context.

Authors

• Jianjun Wang, California State University - Bakersfield

• Rabia Sohail, Islamic Education Institute of Texas

• Debra L. Jackson, East Carolina University

• Joseph Florez, California State University - Bakersfield