National correspondence test reveals influence of science faculty rank on the perception of community colleges and students at research 1 institutions

Community colleges (CCs) are important American higher education institutions; however, stigmas surrounding CCs might impact the perception of CC students as they transition to a four-year institution. To profile researcher perceptions of transfer students and develop a conceptual model of the perception of CC transfer students by biology, chemistry, and physics faculty, a nationwide correspondence test was implemented at 12 United States research 1 institutions. Using recruitment to undergraduate research opportunities as a proxy for the perception of student qualifications, participants (n = 156) were provided profiles of an ostensibly real aspiring undergraduate researcher of either a CC or university transfer student and were asked to evaluate their perception of the profile’s hireability, mentoring, and competency for the given profile. Encouragingly, there was no evidence for overall bias in the perception of university students vs. CC students. However, when controlling for researcher rank, it was found that full professors tended to perceive CC students as both less qualified and less capable (p < 0.001), while associate and assistant professors tend to perceive CC students as less qualified but not less capable. Furthermore, assistant professors, who are typically pre-tenure, perceived the CC profile as less hireable and competent than did associate and full professors (p < 0.05); and assistant professors also perceived the profile of the CC student to be less hireable than the university profile (p < 0.05). In contrast to this, controlling for researcher field (i.e., biology, chemistry, physics; or, more broadly life sciences vs. physical sciences) did not indicate a significant difference. Our results suggest that academic culture may impact the perception of and interactions with CC students as they transition to four-year university science programs at R1 institutions.