2023 Student Mobility & Pathways Conference: The Numbers Don’t Lie
The Numbers Don’t Lie
2023 Student Mobility & Pathways Conference
The Ontario Council on Articulation and Transfer (ONCAT) was established in 2011 to enhance academic pathways and reduce barriers for students looking to transfer among Ontario’s public colleges, universities, and Indigenous Institutes. Last month, ONCAT hosted their 2023 Student Mobility & Pathways Conference. From November 15-16, postsecondary education professionals from across Ontario united to share and acquire knowledge to collectively enhance their efforts in facilitating student mobility, pathways, and transfers.
Roger Pizarro Milian, Manager, Student Data & Analytics, VPSEM team & VP Students team, and his colleagues Rochelle Wijesingha (McMaster University), and Julie Peters (Academica Group) undertook an analysis of survey data capturing college applicants’ intentions to subsequently transfer into university. On November 15 at the 2023 Student Mobility & Pathways Conference, Roger presented their research documenting ethno-racial disparities in vertical transfer — meaning from college to university—intent among Ontario college applicants. Essentially, they were interested in finding out if applicants from ethno-racial minority groups seek to transfer from college to university at different rates than white applicants, as well as why those rates might differ if they did.
We caught up with Roger to hear about what the applicant survey findings suggest, and to hear about his experience presenting this research at the 2023 Student Mobility & Pathways Conference.
Our analyses demonstrated that college applicants that self-identified as belonging to an ethno-racial minority group aspired to transfer to university at higher rates than those that identified as white. Certain ethno-racial groups planned to engage in vertical transfer at twice the rate observed among white applicants. These differences were quite robust, surviving the introduction of a long list of controls for potential confounders, or variables, ranging from additional demographics (e.g., parental education to high school grades).
Given our findings, some of the takeaways for relevant stakeholders are clear. For colleges, there is a need to tailor supports to meet the needs of the communities that are aspiring to engage in vertical transfer. Similarly, for universities, it is important to recognize that transfer is not just a tool to “back fill” seats in upper year courses. Transfer doubles as an access pathway through which we can extend opportunities to students from traditionally marginalized communities.
Though we were focusing on ethno-racial disparities, our study also produced the first provincial-level estimates of student demand for vertical transfer in Ontario. Now we know that more than 1-in-10 first time college applicants in the province hope to one day transfer into university. I wouldn’t call this “surprising” per se, but it is definitely useful to finally have a reliable estimate of demand for these pathways.
I first started working with these survey data – which are collected through Academica Group’s University/College Applicant Study (UCAS) – in 2020, back when I was the Senior Researcher at the Ontario Council on Articulation and Transfer (ONCAT). In that role I produced a series of policy briefs looking at post-secondary pathways and transfer intent, but never got the chance to look at the role of ethno-racial identity.
I started evaluating the feasibility using the UCAS to generate this report last Fall while I was employed at Academica, and worked on this project on and off for about six months until I completed the first draft of the report.
All of the statistical modeling and original visualizations were completed in Stata. ONCAT did reproduce a few of the visualizations to match their branding after the report was submitted. I’m not sure what software was used for those.
I was employed at ONCAT from 2019 to late 2021 as a senior researcher. Ever since, I’ve remained involved in research projects focusing on transfer with colleagues at Nipissing University and the University of Guelph.
It was great being able to present in person! That was my first presentation to a crowd that size since the start of the pandemic. This was ONCAT’s first in-person conference since 2018, so there was a lot of built-up excitement among both presenters and attendees.