Date of Conferral
2019
Degree
Doctor of Education (Ed.D.)
School
Education
Advisor
Dr. Sydney Parent
Abstract
Some first-generation and low-income students enrolled in an Upward Bound (UB) program in a university in the southeastern United States are not prepared to transition from high school to college; therefore, they may need additional guidance, support, resources, and tools to help them with the process. For this reason, precollege programs such as the UB program were designed to prepare first-generation, low-income students for transitioning from high school to college. The purpose of this bounded qualitative case study was to describe first-generation, low-income students' perspectives of the UB program. The conceptual framework for this case study was Tinto's student integration model. Purposeful sampling was used to select 7 UB graduates who were enrolled in the program for at least 2 years. Opened-ended interview questions were used to gather data for open coding and axial coding data analysis process. The results of this study were used to develop an UB Report which described UB gradates' perspectives of the program. Included in the report are the findings, which revealed that UB graduates identified benefits (motivation, social exposure, and student experiences) and resources (services and guest speakers) as major components of the program that contributed to their transition from high school to college. Reporting the perspectives of UB graduates will help UB directors and secondary and postsecondary administrators better understand how the UB program positively affects first-generation, low-income students' successful transition from high school to college.
Recommended Citation
Parks, LaVasa Tiny'a, "Upward Bound Graduates Transition From High School to College" (2019). Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies. 7418.
https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/7418
