Organisations are often faced with many challenges when they attempt to implement an entire workforce to a technologically advanced and complex platform that will alter the skill-set requirements for performance. Training can be ä very effective intervention strategy to implement this organisational change. However, theorists have proposed that training can also enhance organisational effectiveness, and it is believed that individual outcomes from training that emerge upward to achieve organisational objectives vertical transfer would strengthen the link between training effectiveness and organisational effectiveness. Using these theories as a foundation, this case study examined the effectiveness of an organisation's training to achieve performance objectives. Expansion from these theories was possible as this case study presented the multiple influences involved during successive interdependent team training to support the performance of safety-critical operations for a new working platform. In achieving interdependent team vertical transfer in emergency management during this training, results have revealed that training must first focus on individual level skill proficiency and collective enabling process skills horizontal transfer as they are a critical antecedent to ensure cohesion in interdependent team performance. Findings have further identified that the training content and methods must both support and determine the achievement of individual required skills. While simulation training that reflected the working platform benefits both learning and performance. Conclusions can also be drawn from this exploratory case study that the efforts by individuals upward through to teams and across teams has enhanced training performance outcomes. This empirical case study has shown that a multitude of factors and cumulative events that occurred prior to training and during training influenced the effectiveness of team training from multiple levels. Thus, this case study has been able to verify and expand current postulated models to provide foundation support for the design and delivery of interdependent training.

Students who attend community colleges often transfer to 4-year universities seeking to earn a degree typically not offered at the community college level. Tennessee has 2 programs: the Tennessee Promise and the Tennessee Reconnect programs that offer students tuition-free access to the state’s community college system. Previous studies have been conducted to compare transfer students’ performances to that of native students and typically compared the students in all disciplines. This study seeks to compare transfer students (students who enter the participating university with 40 or more credit hours) to native students (students who initially enrolled or transferred into the 4-year participating university with fewer than 40 credit hours) the engineering technology major (ENTC) to determine if transfer students are doing as well as or better than native students. The present study used archival data from student records from fall 2008 through fall 2017. The data were provided by Institutional Research at the participating university. The dataset included 416 transfer students and 900 native students. Students were classified as transfer or native based on study criteria. They were then divided into subgroups by gender, Pell grant recipient status, first-generation status, 3000 and 4000 level GPA, high-school GPA, ACT composite scores, age, and whether the student graduated or not. The data were analyzed quantitatively seeking to find differences between the native and transfer students’ graduation rates and differences in the subgroups. The 3000 and 4000 level coursework GPA were examined for transfer shock. There were significant differences between transfer and native students in graduation rates, percent who were first-generation, Pell grant recipient status, and age. Overall, graduation rates for transfer students were 38.8% and 21.8% for native students. The findings indicated that 48.8% of female transfer students persisted to graduation compared to 17.3% of native female students. Male transfer students and male native students graduated at a rate of 43.1% and 22.0%, respectively. There were no significant differences in 3000 and 4000 course level GPA, high-school GPA, or ACT composite scores between the two groups.

Community colleges are an increasingly important component of the higher education systems in the United States. Community college as a pathway toward a better educated workforce has been emphasized at a national and state level. Virginia’s policy makers set a goal of producing 100,000 new baccalaureate degrees in the Commonwealth by 2025. Critical to meeting this goal is Virginia’s Community College System. In 2005, Virginia passed the Higher Education Restructuring Act which granted students graduating from Virginia’s community colleges with an associate’s guaranteed admission into any state-funded, four-year institution. Building on this earlier policy, Virginia passed The Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2011. This act expanded the role of the community college and placed a greater emphasis on articulation policies and baccalaureate attainment. The effectiveness of articulation policies on community college transfer and baccalaureate attainment has been debated in the academic literature. Some have suggested to measure policy effectiveness, academic outcomes and not transfer rates, must be compared before and after policy implementation. To gauge the effectiveness of Virginia’s guaranteed admission policy, this study examined archival student data for native and transfer students who achieved a junior standing at a single four-year state-funded institution. Furthermore, transfer student baccalaureate attainment rates and time to degree baccalaureate completion were compared before and after policy implementation. The study results showed native students graduated in greater percentages and have lower mean time to baccalaureate completion than transfer students; high school and college GPA are predictors of baccalaureate attainment for transfer and native students; transfer student baccalaureate attainment rates and mean time to baccalaureate completions were lower following policy implementation, or simply, fewer bachelor’s degrees were awarded but those completing a baccalaureate did so in less time after policy implementation. The findings of this study suggest transfer students with baccalaureate aspiration are negatively impacted for attending community college prior to transfer and Virginia’s articulation policy at the study institution had little impact on academic outcomes for transfer students following policy implementation. These single institutional results may suggest modification to Virginia’s articulation policy is necessary to improve academic outcomes for community college transfer students.