ILLUMINATING INVISIBLE LABOR AND ORGANIZATIONAL HYGIENE IN COMMUNITY COLLEGE-UNIVERSITY TRANSFER PARTNERSHIPS
The symposium featuring PROSPECT-related talks and activities related to illuminating invisible labor went really well. The group really appreciated Dr. April Ström, one of the advisory board members, serving as a moderator for the symposium and posing reflective questions. The team shared information about the nature of invisible labor (Michelle), the stages of invisible labor across a partnership (from before the partnership through sustaining the partnership) (Chris), and the extra invisible labor entailed in ensuring one’s own institution is partnership ready (Mindi).
A key implication of the presence of invisible labor is the need to make it both visible and valued. The broader invisible labor team crafted a set of reflective questions for institutions and invite readers to engage with them. The questions are divided into three sections, or transfer-receiving institutions, transfer-sending institutions, and all institutions partnering to support transfer students. In considering the set of reflective questions, your team may want to discuss:
- Which of these areas does your institution already attend to?
- Which of these questions are easier or more difficult to answer?
- Which ones might be urgent priorities?
- Who all should be involved in these conversations?
- How often should various discussions be revisited?
Here are a few photos from this symposium:
Michelle introducing the concept of invisible labor
Chris describing the stages of invisible labor
Mindi describing what organizational hygiene looks like in practice
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EMERGING QUALITATIVE RESEARCH METHODS TO ELEVATE COMMUNITY COLLEGE NARRATIVES
The Alternative Methodologies group led a workshop at the Council for the Study of Community Colleges in Salt Lake City in April 2026, where the team shared several methodologies the group has been investigating that challenge traditional research methods. Conventional methodologies are often a product of academic power dynamics and have historically marginalized certain voices. The shared goal of these methodologies is to hear from and lift up underrepresented voices in education research. The methodologies presented were the Partnership Profile Template, the Transfer Grid, Collective Vignettes in Reflexive Analysis, and Poetic Transcription.
After a brief group presentation, members spread out across the room and invited participants on a "gallery tour," where they could pick up printed artifacts, interact with them, and ask questions. The feedback was generous and participant interest was high throughout.
Several members of the group reflected on the experience afterward. As a first-time conference attendee and presenter, Camilla Morone found the event exciting and welcoming, which made the experience much easier than she had anticipated. She was able to gather valuable feedback to bring back to her research team as they continue to advance that study.
The group had invited Dr. Vilma Mesa, a member of the advisory board, to serve as the moderator for this symposium. In her discussion, Dr. Mesa shared how she had initially approached the set of work through a more traditional methodological lens. She shared that she had to shift her mindset to think about the purposes of alternative methodologies as highlighting participant voices, particularly those often silenced by traditional reductionist research approaches. The group appreciated this perspective: it does take re-learning research methodologies for those those trained in traditional methods to shift to using and appreciating alternative approaches. They also valued the attention Dr. Mesa paid to the connections between the research questions posed and the methodologies enacted.
As a returning presenter at the Conference, Camila Monsalve found the audience’s enthusiasm refreshing as they engaged with the tensions that arise when using the artifacts of the Alternative Methodologies. The discomfort of engaging with this tension, openly discussed with the audience, is one the research team navigates as well, working to balance the need to create usable data while also representing the student voices the group wishes to honor.
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DEVELOPMENT OF A STEM SELF-EFFICACY SCALE FOR STEM TRANSFER STUDENTS
According to Social Cognitive Career Theory (Lent et al., 2013), self-efficacy is an important antecedent to career interest, satisfaction, and persistence. Thus, it is important to measure self-efficacy in students aspiring to a STEM career. However, Bandura (1977) conceived of self-efficacy as context-dependent. In other words, an individual has varying levels of self-efficacy for different endeavors and situations. Thus, it is important to develop a specific measure for self-efficacy in STEM, which is what we set out to do. The S-STEM Self-Efficacy group's presentation detailed the team's activities in following DeVellis’ (2012) seven-step scale development process up to and including Step 6, collecting data with the proposed scale and analyzing it. The group hopes to complete Step 7, refining the scale, by the end of May 2026.
Jake Marszaleck's reflection on the conference concerns a question from the audience at the group's presentation about why they wanted to have a single total score for STEM self-efficacy. His response was that it would be a matter of convenience, since it is easier to talk about a single STEM self-efficacy score than eight subscale scores. Reflecting later, Jake noted he wished he had thought to refer to the facet of validity labeled "usability," which is recognized by the Standards for Testing and Measurement (AERA, APA, & NCME, 2014). Simply, usability refers to practicality: is the test easy for both the researcher to administer and the participant to complete? Having the option to use a single total scale score would increase the usability of the scale by allowing administrators to increase ease of interpretation, communication, analysis, and benchmarking.
See the full reference list.