Validating the Transfer Journey: How Faculty and Peer Validating Practices Shape Belonging for Transfer Students in Engineering

Abstract

Abstract

Transfer student retention and support represent a critical pathway for diversifying engineering. Establishing a sense of belonging is a mechanism through which institutions can provide that support and help engineering transfer students persist. Yet, limited research has examined how classroom interactions and faculty and peer practices can foster an engineering sense of belonging among these students. This study investigates how validating practices enacted by engineering faculty and peers, guided by Rendón’s validation theory, influence transfer students’ sense of belonging in the engineering classroom and major. Using multiple linear regression, we analyzed survey data from 160 engineering transfer students across 8 four-year institutions, including 5 Hispanic-Serving Institutions. Our findings showed that interpersonal validation practices, those that conveyed empathy, accessibility, and genuine investment in students’ learning, were the most consistent predictors of belonging across both contexts. Academic validation practices produced more complex and contingent outcomes, with their effects on belonging differentiated based on students’ gender and racial/ethnic background. Notably, practices such as connecting coursework to future careers had divergent effects, bolstering belonging for male transfer students while undermining it for their female peers. We introduce the concept of perceived validation, a theoretically distinct form of validation that operates not through direct validating actions, but through students’ interpretations and beliefs about what faculty and peers think and feel about them. We conclude with implications for faculty practice, professional development, and institutional design aimed at fostering more equitable and inclusive engineering environments for engineering transfer students.