The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 41, No. 2 & Volume 42, No. 1 - 183

Social Integration for Lateral Transfer Students

study to examine the phenomenon of lateral
student transfer with a speciﬁc emphasis on
the inﬂuence that student living arrangements
have on social integration and adjustment.
One-on-one interviews provided a mechanism for capturing the narrative of individual
student experiences. This approach allowed us
to interpret the narrative of students who experienced the same phenomenon and to provide
context to the data (Bazeley, 2013; Finlay, 2012).
To accomplish this, participants were asked to
describe and interpret their own experience
through descriptive and reﬂective questioning. Through this reﬂective process, participants were able to connect themes within their
own experiences and process their experience
with the researcher. The principal investigator of this study is a practitioner in the area
of transfer student programming and student
success and a doctoral student whose scholarship focuses on student transfer. The coinvestigator's scholarship focuses on students
in transition and student outcomes. These orientations are important because hermeneutic
phenomenological researchers must bring an
understanding of the context in which the phenomenon occurred in order to make sense and
meaning of it (Finlay, 2012).
Interviews were conducted on campus by
the principal investigator in the student union
between January and March of 2014. Each
participant had completed one semester at
the current institution. In the fall of 2013, the
full-time undergraduate enrollment was more
than 17,000, with 44% of the total undergraduate population and 97% of ﬁrst-year students
living on campus. Of the new students who
arrive on campus each year, about 23% are
transfer students of some type.

At two-year institutions,
the classroom is the center
of both social and academic
interactions, and students
engage with one another almost
exclusively in that setting. . . . At
four-year institutions, outsidethe-classroom activities and
spaces such as residence halls
and student organizations are
important components to campus
life and student socialization.

One important contextual feature at this
institution is that housing is not guaranteed
for transfer students. They obtain on-campus
housing through a wait list process and are
placed in rooms throughout campus as they
become available. Generally, students are notiﬁed of housing placement in late summer after
all ﬁrst-year and upper-division students are
placed. In the fall of 2013, 17% of new transfer
students lived in on-campus or college-owned
housing. For students who do not request or
are not placed in on-campus housing, there
is an off-campus housing ofﬁce; however, the
availability of off-campus housing is limited.

Data Analysis
Each interview was transcribed, and member
checks occurred prior to coding and analysis. Reﬂective and thematic analysis occurred
183

The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 41, No. 2 & Volume 42, No. 1

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