Negotiating belonging: a constructivist grounded theory of transfer students' experiences in STEM.

Background: A sense of belonging has been identified as a crucial predictor of persistence in undergraduate degrees. This construct is especially significant within the chilly environment of STEM fields since students' sense of belonging and recognition as rightful members of the academic community ultimately shape their educational trajectories. However, it has rarely been studied among community college (CC) transfer students attending highly selective universities. This population is of interest because CCs enroll students from underrepresented backgrounds at higher rates than four-year institutions, making transfer students a critical component in efforts to diversify the STEM workforce. Additionally, these students often face unprecedented challenges as compared to their "traditional" peers. We addressed this research gap by conducting semi-structured qualitative interviews with thirteen community college transfer students one and two years after transferring. Analyses applied constructivist grounded theory methodology to examine how these students described a sense of belonging and what experiences they drew from to assess their level of belonging in academic environments. Results: Transfer students described their sense of belonging as a negotiated process involving internal motivators, values and perceptions, and the messaging received from external institutional, familial, and social factors. Particularly, participants' experiences of belonging were first marked by an orientation toward building it with some more concerned about their level of fit than others. Conclusion: By theorizing belonging as a negotiated process, this study shows how community college transfer students in STEM actively interpret academic environments, drawing from both internal motivation and external signals to negotiate a sense of belonging, with students' orientations toward belonging and internal alignment comprising a major contributing paradigm in the process. This work emphasizes the need to include opportunities for disciplinary exploration in transfer students' academic trajectories. Potential implications include the design of transfer pathways and advising structures that recognize belonging as dynamic, supporting students' identity work as central to academic success.