HERE Project interim report 2009 10

What works? Student Retention and Success Programme: Interim report headings 2009-10

Please submit your project interim report by 1st October 2010 to: [email protected]. Each project report should be no more than 10,000 words long. Please use single space and 12 point Arial. Please use headings, so that your report can be navigated using a document map.

If you wish to make use of institutional data which is not currently available, this should be indicated in the main report, and supplied as a data annex by 28th January 2011 to: [email protected].

THE HERE Project

What Works? Student Retention & Success Programme Interim ReportThe HERE Project page 1 of 43

mailto:[email protected]


1. Introduction This should be a short section and should cover any changes (if any) to your institutional context(s) and staffing arrangements in 2009-10.

The HERE Project is a collaborative research exercise operating in three universities:

• Nottingham Trent University (NTU)• Bournemouth University (BU)• University of Bradford (UoB)

The HERE Project has concentrated on investigating two areas of work:

• What can we learn from those students who have doubts, but stay?

• What, if anything, can individual programme teams do to impact upon retention rates?

Project Team

Institution Staffing

Nottingham Trent University Ed Foster, Study Support Coordinator (project lead)Sarah Lawther, Learning & Teaching Officer, (employed to conduct research)

Two staff were engaged for short term specific tasks

• Dr Nick Foard, to conduct statistical analysis of the Student transition Survey

• Zoe Hollingsworth to conduct data analysis

Bournemouth University Christine Keenan, Learning & Teaching Fellow (institutional lead)Natalie Bates, Research Assistant

University of Bradford Becka Currant, Dean of Students, (institutional lead)Ruth Lefever, Research Associate

Changes during 2009-10


Bournemouth UniversityThe team at Bournemouth has remained the same throughout 2009-10.

University of BradfordThe last member of the core team, Ruth Lefever, joined in October 20091. In September 2009, Becka Currant was promoted to her current role as Dean of Students.

Nottingham Trent UniversityIn Summer 2010, Ed Foster and Sarah Lawther were moved as part of an organisational re-structure. However, whilst some aspects of their roles are likely to change, they are currently directly line managed by the chair of the HERE Project Steering Group, Professor Nigel Hastings. It is not anticipated that there will be any impact on project deliverables.

1 For this reason we are reporting on the 2009 UoB doubters’ survey in this interim report, whereas much of the evidence from NTU and BU has been reported in the 2008-09 report.


2. Progress

2.1 What have you done this year? (Progress against plan, additional activities, dissemination etc).

The HERE Project has focused on the experience of first year students at Nottingham Trent University (NTU), Bournemouth University (BU) and the University of Bradford (UoB).

We have investigated two areas:

Strand 1- The impact of doubting on progression

Strand 2- The impact that individual programmes can provide to support better retention

The evidence presented arises from the following sources:

a) The doubters’2 surveys (March – May 2009)• Students were asked to rate the importance to them of 17 Student

Experience Factors on a likert scale of 1-5 (for example, “my subject is interesting”) and then also how much they agreed that those statements reflected their experience. (See Appendix A for further details)

• They were also asked whether or not they had considered withdrawing from University. If so, why and what had helped them remain? Students were subsequently categorized as doubters, or non-doubters.

b) Interviews and focus groups with doubters and non-doubters (June – December 2009)

• Students were interviewed at all three institutions either in small groups or individually. Differences were noted between the two groups. Initial findings from NTU and BU were reported in 2008-09.

c) Analysis of doubters’ survey respondents’ progression (October 2009 – January 2010)

• Once progression data became available, we analysed those respondents who granted us permission to do so. The results of the doubters’ surveys were again reviewed taking into account the additional progression data. At NTU, further statistical analysis was

2 Formally known as ‘Student Transition Surveys’


conducted to test which factors were likely to have the strongest impact upon doubting.

These data sources were then used to develop a draft programme audit tool.

d) Interviews with programme staffThe draft programme audit tool was used to structure the investigation of both course literature and then conduct interviews with programme staff on programmes at all three partner HEIs. Where possible, programmes were chosen because they were either:

Better at retention than their peers Were working to overcome a particular problem/ appeared to be coping

with particular issues, for example had a high proportion of mature students.

Where possible we have tried to analyse comparable programmes at all three partners

e) Surveys with students on the same programmesWe then sought to corroborate the evidence provided by the programme staff using feedback from students on their programmes.

2.2 What has changed this year?

For the most part we have remained focused on first year undergraduate students once they have commenced their studies. The strand 2 staff and student surveys have also provided evidence for the impact of interventions pre-arrival at university. In particular, the impact of the Stepping Stones 2HE has been picked out at Bournemouth University.

We have primarily focused on full-time students. We have some data from part-time respondents to Strand 1 research, but a very low response rate. When we conduct the second doubters’ survey (Easter 2011) we will seek to get a better response rate from part-time students. The University of Bradford is currently part way through a programme audit with a programme containing a large part-time cohort.

We have conducted our research broadly along the lines set out in the original project proposal. We have however, slightly changed our approach to strand 2 research. We have found that the full process for each programme retention audit is highly time-consuming. The analysis of retention statistics, course literature and then the results of our research has created an extremely rich source of data, but one that is time-consuming to analyse. Therefore, in July 2010, we agreed with our project liaison Prof Liz Thomas that we would reduce the total number of programme audits from an ambitious 21, to a more-realistic 10-12.


2.3 What remains outstanding in your plans for 2009-10 and why?

There are three outstanding items. Fundamentally, they have been delayed for the same reasons. Some aspects of the project, particularly strand 2 research has taken longer to complete than expected.

1. Programme Retention Audit Tool (final version)A working version of the audit tool has been developed based on the Strand 1 research. We are confident that the question areas are right, however, we have not yet produced a version that can be used by organisations that have not previously been involved in the HERE Project. We are meeting on 14 & 15 October 2010 to create a final version of the tool and will disseminate it in December 2010.

2. Project websiteThis has been delayed. NTU are extending the contract of a short-term employee with web development experience to ensure that the project has a website by November 2010.

3. Project ReportsWe agreed with the HERE project steering team that we would produce a number of stand-alone reports into the different aspects of our research. Each partner HEI has produced the required reports; they will be drawn together in the Autumn term 2010.

2.4 Successes and challenges and implications for future work.

In order to produce this report, we have reviewed the original research questions set out in the stage 2 of the bid process. With one year to go, we have strong evidence to answer the questions we set with regards to doubting. 2010 - 11 will be used to gather further evidence about actions and strategies used by doubting students to remain.

We are not as far forwards with Strand 2 research. This is due to the following reasons:

Firstly, it is partly dependent on the data gathered from strand 1, therefore would always would always take up more time in years 2 & 3. Secondly, the audits were more time consuming than originally envisaged. Whilst institutional staff are interested in the work, it takes time to set up interviews and questionnaires as they deal with other demands upon their time


We have therefore scaled back the total number of audits from 21 to 10 – 12. We are meeting on the 14th & 15th October 2010 to review our existing data and plan how we will complete the research within the timescale.


3. Findings: impact and implications

3.1 Summary of key findings

There are four broad points below. They are slightly longer than bullet points, but we felt it would be beneficial to have an overview here, rather than broken into the different sections below.

A) Impact of Doubting on the Decision to Remain or Withdraw

Approximately 1/33 of all new students (2008-09) appear to have considered withdrawing at some point during their first year. Furthermore, analysis of the progression rates of respondents to the Doubters’ Surveys demonstrates that doubters are more likely to actually withdraw from university than students with no doubts.4

Doubters also rated their experience more poorly than their non-doubting peers5. Those who actually withdrew were even more negative about the experience.6 We feel this is useful as it suggests one way of identifying students at risk before they actually withdraw. Whilst this may only confirm commonsense assumptions, it’s useful to have it evidenced.

B) Why Students Doubt

Non-doubting students are most likely to report that they have had a positive learning experience. They were more likely to report that their tutors were enthusiastic and their subject was interesting. They were more confident that they would be able to cope with their studies. When tested, the single factor

3 UoB – 28% doubters, NTU - 37% doubters, BU – 46% doubters4 In all three institutions doubters were more likely to withdraw than non- doubters. At NTU, 98.2% of non-doubting students were still in higher education the following November. Amongst those students who had described themselves as doubters, only 90.3% were. At BU, 96.6% of non-doubters progressed, only 91.3% of doubters did so. At UoB, 100% of non-doubters progressed and only 90.4% of doubters did so. We have compared the rates of progression with the institutional benchmarks for 2007/08 (the most recent year that there is HESA data available) and these rates of progression are better than the whole institution performance, by as much as 5%. Therefore the self-selecting nature of the survey (with a higher proportion of female students) has meant that we are looking at a sample that is slightly different to the institutions as a whole.5 See appendix A. At all three institutions, doubters rated the 17 student experience factors more negatively than non-doubters in all but three instances. At BU the three factors associated with a social life and support from family and peers were rated more highly than by doubters than non-doubters. Therefore in 48 of the possible 51 responses from across the 3 partners, doubters rated the experience more negatively.6 Further analysis conducted of the NTU doubters who left, see appendix A.


most associated with confidence was feedback7. Therefore, if students felt that their feedback was useful, they were more likely to be confident that they were coping with their studies. In two of the three partners, non-doubters also appeared to be enjoying their overall university experience more than doubters.

In contrast, doubting students rated virtually all the 17 Student Experience Factors more negatively than their non-doubting peers8. There was also a greater gap between the importance they placed on individual factors and their actual experience of those factors. When asked why they doubted, the most common reasons stated were ‘course related’ in all three surveys. When the academic experience grouping was analysed further, ‘anxiety about coping’ featured heavily.

Students were asked to record how hard they had found their studies. Those who found it very hard or very easy were more likely to have doubts. Similarly when responding to how hard they were working, those working very hard or very little were more likely to have doubts. Interviews at UoB also found that students who were anxious about coping were more likely to be doubters.

Other factors that made students consider leaving included the student lifestyle, finance and personal issues.

C) Factors that help doubters stay

Although there was some variation between the partner institutions, the most commonly cited reason for staying was ‘friends and family’. It was felt that it was important to group family and friends together as they described non-professional and informal sources of support and this may have an impact upon strategies for supporting doubters.

Other reasons for staying included:

UoB – adapting to the course/ University, determination/ internal factors, support from institutional staffBU adapting to the course/ University, determination/ internal factors, support from institutional staff NTU – Future goals (particularly employment), Determination/ internal factors, Adapting to the course and University life

7 We tested the four Student Experience Factors and one question that we felt would have the strongest impact on confidence (See section 3.3.1 Organisational domain)8 BU – Doubters stated that ‘my family is supportive’, ‘my fellow students are supportive’ and ‘I have an enjoyable social life’ more highly


D) A two-strand approachWe would suggest that the evidence of the doubters’ surveys suggests that institutions need to consider a two-strand approach: tackle those factors that lead students to have doubts in the first place and develop strategies to support student doubters.


3.2 Implications for practice

3.2.1 HEI level

We would suggest that the evidence of the doubters’ surveys suggests that institutions need to consider a two-strand approach:

a) Tackle those factors that lead students to have doubts in the first place

Doubts appear to be primarily caused by academic matters. If institutions want to prevent students from doubting, then we need to help students to reduce anxiety about coping and make the transition to learning in a more adult and independent fashion.

The following all appear to have the potential to reduce doubting and have been picked out in interviews with staff and students:

• Building individual student confidence about their academic abilities• Providing useful feedback, probably earlier in the student lifecycle than

is normally the case• Helping students to learn effectively from feedback• Helping students to make the transition from learning in post-16

education to higher education• Providing supportive and accessible tutors and ensuring that the role is

properly supported. • Provide inspiring lectures who engage well with first year students.

Evidence is starting to emerge from the strand 2 research to show that students respond positively to passionate and inspiring teaching. Furthermore non-doubters appear more likely to rate the quality of teaching staff more highly. It may be that inspiring lecturers are teaching in a way that inspires around ⅔ of all students, or that not enough high quality lecturers are teaching first year students. Either way, institutions need to continue to invest in a balance of teaching and research and ensure that investing time in both is perceived as beneficial to the individual academic’s career.

• At NTU non-doubters appear more likely to have taken part in extra-curricular activities such as clubs & societies. We would suggest that it’s important that a wide range of such activities are made available to students.

b) Develop support strategies to help student doubters.• The most important factor to help support doubters appears to be the

support offered by their peers and feeling part of a student community. This may be particularly important during induction and throughout the first year. In strand 2 interviews, a number of interviewees have


suggested that course reps can play an important role here. • We would suggest that institutions ensure that appropriate social

spaces are built into their estates strategies, both on campus and in accommodation

• Pre-arrival community building - Staff interviewees have suggested that this process may start with open days. As students increasingly operate online, building up pre-arrival activities will become increasingly part of the process

• Develop effective pastoral and professional support. A number of recommendations about good practice have come forward, but overall, our research suggests that the form this takes appears less important than the quality.

We would also suggest that HEIs explore making funds available from their retention allocation for staff to bid for to test out the impact of ideas they may have.


3.2.2. Department/service level

With each of the recommendations below, we suggest that departments need to both raise awareness within their own teams of the issues as well as actually carrying out these actions.

a) Staged transition

We would recommend that departments dedicate more time to considering how they are to help students make the transition from FE into and through the first year in HE. If, as our evidence suggests, confidence is important, this may mean considering strategies for providing early assessment and early developmental feedback to help students feel that they are making progress.

b) Building a cohort identity & friendships within the cohort

How much they learn is not as important as how gelled they are as a group at the end so they’ve got a mutual support system. We think that peer support is one of the key factors of retention (BU, strand 2 staff interview)

We suggest that departments need to create opportunities for students to feel that they belong to a programme, this will include both helping students to find out about one another, but also to learn about who their tutors are. Examples that have emerged from the strand 2 research include:

Ice breakers and other team building activities during induction Outdoors team building residential events - the University of Bradford

interviews found that this was particularly valuable to mature students One BU student suggested that there may be benefits from follow up

social events one month into the start of term Use of pre-arrival activities, for example Stepping Stones 2HE and

Develop Me Learning & behaviour contracts signed during induction Use of course reps and other voluntary positions to encourage social

cohesion Staff interviews at BU suggest that this process may start with the

impression given during open days

c) Pastoral and academic support

“There must always be someone that they can come to” (BU, strand 2, student survey 2)


The strand 2 interviews have provided evidence for different systems working effectively. We have seen evidence of the effectiveness of personal tutors, year tutors and programme leaders offering pastoral support depending upon the size and nature of the programme.

Whilst we would not recommend any single system, we feel that it is important to have an effective system in place. It may be that having a clear route to support and having a responsive system are particularly important. UoB have found that a rapid response to attendance monitoring may have helped improve student performance/progression.

Similarly, staff interviews have cited a number of examples of additional academic support having a positive impact upon their students. We will include guidance on these in the

d) Promote the benefits of the programmeThe evidence for promoting the long term benefits has been a little mixed. Overall it appears that seeing the benefits of the course will act to motivate some students (UoB, strand 2 interviews), but elsewhere it does not appear to be a particularly strong motivator (NTU, strand 1 focus groups).


3.2.3 Individual (staff or student) level

a) Individual Staff

We would suggest that individual teaching staff need to: Be seen to be interested in individual students, ingraining a ‘friendly

face culture’ “They provide such a friendly relationship which makes it easier to learn because I feel more confident to ask questions” (BU student survey 1)

Strive to overcome the challenges of large cohorts, in particular try to learn students’ names – “It’s nice when lecturers know you personally by name” (BU student survey 3)

Be explicit about how students are expected to work and engage with the process

Transmit their enthusiasm for the subject (particularly when teaching new students who may lack the maturity to have internalised and be motivated by that passion)

Help new students develop friendships with one another within the course

Strive to meet individual students to discuss progress early in the academic year and help students to learn the meaning of feedback and strategies for improving work. In the first year, the assumption that all first years are adult enough to seek help may not be useful

Consider adopting PAL, SI or other peer mentoring schemes to help first year students acclimatise to HE and support efforts by course reps and other student groups to build up student communities

Provide opportunities for students to actively develop the skills and aptitudes required to cope in HE

Monitor attendance and respond quickly to non-attendance

b) Individual Students

Non-doubting students appear to be more academically successful, appear to be more satisfied and tend to be more socially engaged.

Specific actions that may help individual students

Be prepared to recognise that they are learning in a new system and are required to take more responsibility

Learn how to use feedback Be prepared to engage with ‘learning to learn’ and other academic

skills teaching whether in stand alone modules or embedded within the curriculum

Be prepared to step outside personal comfort zones to build up a supportive network

Learn where and how to access support


3.2.4 HE sector level

a) Dealing with a mass higher education systemOur evidence suggests that problems partly stem from first year students feeling isolated and uncertain about how they are progressing in the system. We suspect that this may be partly due to the scale and relatively infrequent contact typical of higher education. For example, one BU student interviewee reported that

“As it is such a big course it is difficult for the lecturers to get to know us, or in some cases even recognise us” (BU student survey, programme 2)”

We would suggest that the sector would benefit from paying more attention to issues associated with teaching large cohorts: particularly creating cohort identity and engendering friendship within them, providing pastoral support and managing attendance/ engagement.

b) Transition from FE to HEThe student feedback suggests that doubters are relatively dissatisfied with the experience of learning at University. In two of the studies, NTU and BU, students who did not understand the differences between FE and HE were more likely to be doubters9. We would therefore suggest that more energy is invested in helping institutions prepare and support students to make the transition from one system to the other.

c) Providing teaching to meet a wider range of studentsWhilst the evidence from the UoB Doubters’ survey is less clear than that reported from NTU in 2008-09 it shows that students who are working ‘very hard’ or ‘not very hard at all’ appear to be more at risk of being doubters than their peers working moderately hard. This appears to suggest that there may be students at either end of the ability bell curve who may be finding the lack of challenge, or the high level challenge to be a problem.

c) Reward for good teaching and pastoral supportWhilst we don’t doubt for a moment the sincere efforts of most staff to support individual students, we would suggest that HE structures may need to more explicitly reward activities such as good pastoral care and effective first year teaching. Some staff, for example, reported recognition and reward within institutions for staff engaging in research and publications but little reward or recognition for efforts made in relation to improving the student experience, such as time invested in pastoral support.

9 (Although this was not the case at UoB)


3.3 Findings against emerging theoretical model

3.3.1 (Organisational domain)How can the learning experience be managed and co-ordinated to promote the engagement, sense of belonging and/or retention of all students (or a specific target group)?

The responses below are about the students’ academic experiences, but not specifically about the curriculum, therefore we have placed them in the Organisational domain.

The Doubters’ Surveys at all three institutions indicate that the most common reasons students gave for doubting relate to academic studies. At NTU, a factor analysis of 1610 (see Appendix A) of the student experience variables found that ‘Academic Experience’ was a common underlying factor11. When this was tested with a number of other factors12 this was found to be have the strongest influence with whether a student would doubt or not. The more positive the academic experience, the greater the odds of being a non doubter; students with the most positive academic experience were twelve times more likely to be non doubters than those students with the least positive academic experience.

Therefore, we would suggest that if institutions are to target resources to support student retention, they ought to concentrate primarily on the academic experience.

a) Anxieties about coping

In 2009-10, the academic reasons to doubt cited in the doubters’ surveys were analysed in more detail. At NTU the most common reason cited was ‘anxiety about coping’ (45 out of 137 responses), this factor was joint first at Bournemouth (7 out of 32 responses) and third at Bradford after ‘dissatisfaction with staff members’ and ‘other’ (3 out of 14 responses).

10 The variable ‘I would know where to go within the University if I had a problem’ was not included in this analysis as it did not load onto any of the 3 factors.11 As well as the underlying factors ‘Support, Resources and Future Goals’ and ‘Student Lifestyle’ (see Appendix A for full details) 12 Factors tested were; the underlying factors ‘Academic Experience’, ‘Support, Resources and Future Goals, ‘Student Lifestyle’, and the variables age, gender, whether the student was the first person in their immediate family to go to university, whether NTU was their first choice of university, whether this was their first time living independently and whether the student had applied through clearing.


Figure 1 - NTU 2009, analysis of academic reasons for doubting

These anxieties also appeared in the subsequent interviews with student doubters. Students often described feeling uncertain about deadlines, or that they weren’t capable of actually meeting the standards required.

“More than a couple of times where there was a deadline coming … I am thinking “My God, there is no way on earth I am going to get this done, why don’t I just get another job?”” (Interview with Bradford student doubter)

b) Student Experience Factor – Confidence

As well as being the most commonly cited reason for doubting, confidence also appeared to be highly important amongst the 17 Student Experience Factors (see appendix A). At UoB, the second largest gap between importance and experience is in response to the statement “I feel confident I can cope with my coursework” (Importance = 88.9%, experience = 28.6%)13. At NTU, confidence coping was the second largest gap amongst doubters14 and at Bournemouth it was the joint third (as reported in 2008-09).

13 The largest gap was in response to the statement “the feedback I receive about my work is useful”14 After the statement “I am confident that I have enough money to complete my course”


Figure 2 – NTU the relationship between the statement ‘I feel confident that I can cope and the impact upon progression within the sample.

The box plot (Figure “”) illustrates how the scores given by NTU students in answer to the statement “I feel confident that I can cope with my studies” (rated from 1-5 where 1= strongly disagree and 5= strongly agree) vary according to their progression status, recorded in the following four groups: . - No doubts and stay- Have doubts but stay- Have doubts & leave- No doubts but leave-

The box illustrates the middle fifty percent of cases. The thick black line across the box illustrates the median value. The vertical lines either side of the box (with a T at each end) indicate the remaining cases except the outliers which are indicated by a dot (with the reference number of each case alongside).

We have used the box plots to show where there is a correlation between a negative score and an increased likelihood of doubting and withdrawing. This correlation occurs frequently amongst academic related factors, but not always for other factors. See Appendix A for examples where the relationship is less clear.


You will note that in this box plot, the group ‘No doubts but leave’ has a higher overall level of satisfaction. This group only contains four respondents and so the score needs to be treated cautiously. We suspect that these students withdrew after a period of being blithely unaware that there were any problems, or due to a sudden problem (as described in Ozga & Sukhnandan, 1998).

c) Strategies for improving student confidence- Feedback

We then sought to identify which factors had a relationship to confidence. Further statistical analysis15 at NTU looked at whether there was a correlation between student responses to the statement ‘I feel confident that I can cope with my studies’ and their responses to following statements;

‘Lecturers are accessible’, ‘The feedback I receive about my work is useful’ ‘I would know where to go within the university if I had a problem’ ‘My fellow students are supportive’ ‘Do you have a personal tutor?’16.

The strongest association related to useful feedback.

Higher Education often uses a different feedback paradigm to that students have encountered beforehand. Whereas in FE, formative feedback is often available, it is rarer in HE, where instead greater emphasis is placed upon high quality written feedback at the end of the piece of coursework. Feedback from student doubters suggests that this model is failing to meet their needs.

For example:“Although I’m trying very hard, my marks aren’t great, and I don’t know where I’m going wrong” (BU doubter (answering between March & May 2009))

We would suggest that institutions consider how the provide feedback early in the student lifecycle. It appears that students are searching for reassurance from their feedback and we would suggest that gold plated of high quality written feedback may be of less use than other speedier forms. Our work outside the HERE project would also lead us to suggest that students are used to having opportunities to discuss and engage with feedback. It may be particularly important during the first year to replicate this practice, even if only for the first few assignments.

15 A standard entry multiple regression analysis16 This analysis looks at the link between confidence and these factors and does not indicate impact upon doubting/persistence.


d) Strategies for supporting student confidence- Supportive students

The second strongest correlation to confidence was the variable ‘my fellow students are supportive’ (see Social Domain for further details). This was followed by having ‘accessible lecturers’. ‘Knowing where to go if there is a problem’ has a far lower correlation and oddly ‘having a personal tutor’ appears to have no correlation at all.

Perhaps because of the historic success of Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) at Bournemouth University, a number of respondents described PAL as beneficial to the process of reassuring and building confidence.

“They love the PAL leaders. Having the PAL leaders to guide them through the challenging times” (BU strand 2, staff interview)

“I think it’s invaluable because they can touch base with someone who’s been there and done it before…they see them as their peers and look up to them. It’s fantastic.” (BU strand 2, staff interview)

e) Strategies for supporting student confidence- Relationship and communication with staff We also looked at whether there was a link between the statement ‘I feel valued by teaching staff’ and student progression. The box plot below shows the analysis of those students who granted us permission to track their progress at NTU.


Figure 3 - NTU relationship between the statement “I feel valued by teaching staff” and retention

From this, we can see that there was least variance among students who had no doubts and stayed and that these students were also more likely to say that they felt valued by teaching staff. As is the case in the previous box plot, there is an increasingly negative score from non-doubters who stay, to doubters who leave. We can infer from this that by increasing how valued students feel by teaching staff the number of doubters who leave can be reduced as can the students who have doubts.

Focus groups with doubters and non-doubters also indicated that a relationship with a member of staff was a factor in non-doubting; all non-doubters in the NTU focus groups said that they had a member of staff they could go to if they needed to.

f) Adapting to learning at UniversityThe BU doubters’ survey shows that students who did not understand the differences between HE and their previous education were more likely to have doubts. 32% of students who understood the differences in detail had doubts, 50% of those who did not understand the differences had doubts. Similarly if a BU student did not feel that the information they had received prior to arriving was accurate, they were more likely to have doubts (80% doubted, against 45% who though the information was accurate).


The UoB doubters’ survey shows that students who were finding their studies more difficult were more likely to have doubts than those who were not. Furthermore, when the average grades of UoB student respondents were monitored it appears that, overall, doubters had achieved lower grades than their non-doubting peers (approximately 10% lower).

Figure 4 University of Bradford (2008-09) First year grades of students who took part in the Doubters’ Survey

We aim to explore this further in 2010-11.


3.3.2 (Academic domain)How can the curriculum be designed and delivered to promote the engagement, sense of belonging and/or retention of all students (or a specific target group)?

In writing this section, we found it difficult to identify themes that were curriculum-specific that were not also associated with the wider academic experience. We have found disaggregating the two a little difficult, therefore we would suggest that the two sections ought to be read as a single whole.

a) Relevance of the curriculum to future goals

The UoB student doubters’ survey shows that the highest score in the 17 Student Experience Factors (see appendix A) relate to achieving future goals. 93.3% of non-doubters believed that completing their degree would help them achieve their future goals. It appears that it is important to promote the long term benefits to students of their degree. However, it must also be noted that 82.9% of Bradford doubters also believed that the course would help with their future goals (the joint first highest factor). We suspect that this indicates that whilst it is important, other factors such as boosting student confidence may be more so.

Interviews with staff at UoB suggest that for those students with a less-clear motivation for choosing a particular course, reiterating the importance of career and future goals may be particularly important.

Interviews with the student doubter focus groups suggest that amongst students we have labeled ‘endurers’ (see discussion in ‘other findings’), future goals may be very important. However, students in this category were not particularly well motivated when compared to the group we labeled ‘adapters’ and appeared at times to be rather grudgingly persisting with their studies.

“I stayed because of the placement, the third year. It is just like I am going to go for the next year and take the placement and come back and that is all.” (NTU doubter)

b) Using the curriculum to support transition into HE

Staff and student feedback for the strand 2 research cited a number of examples of practice that had been felt to be useful. These included:

The use of an effective learner module to help students to start to develop effective strategies for learning in HE. In interviews at UoB this is seen as especially beneficial to mature students and those with low tariff points


Offering clear guidance on academic processes and the amount of work students will have to put in outside of contact time – helping students to understand the differences between HE and previous study.

Both staff and students suggested that variety of modules, teaching methods and assessments may help stimulate students. For example “I like that it is a mixture of group work, presentations, exams or written coursework. Because this course allows us to work in a variety of ways, I find it a more interesting way to learn” (BU, student survey 1). However, we would caution that if confidence is a problem for doubters, a wide range of assessment types may actually leave them feeling more confused or uncertain about what is expected of them.


3.3.3 (Professional service domain)How can the professional service system be designed and delivered to promote the engagement, sense of belonging and/or retention of all students (or a specific target group)?

The nature of the research has meant that we have spent relatively little time looking at professional support services.

The evidence we have suggests that the existence of professional services (and here we include personal tutors) make little difference to the cohort about the likelihood of doubting. However, we have found evidence in interviews of students being particularly grateful for support offered by tutors. This may suggest a sense of denial or feeling of invulnerability amongst our students until they encounter a problem. It may also provide a partial explanation to some of the problems that professional services have getting students to engage with them proactively instead of reacting once a crisis has taken place.

a) The personal tutor

Overall, having a personal tutor makes little or no difference to the incidence of doubting (a 2% difference at best)17. Although at BU, those students who did not actually know whether they had a personal tutor or not appear to be twice as likely to have doubts. It does appear that BU students who see their personal tutors weekly are less likely to have doubts and at NTU, seeing the tutor very infrequently appears be associated with an increased incidence of doubting, but the general relationship between the frequency of visits and doubting is not quite so clear.

Doubters also appear more likely to be disappointed in their relationships with staff and cite problems such as perceived anonymity, difficulty accessing tutors and a lack of clarity about the role and expectations from tutors.

That said, many positive statements were made about tutors and other support staff from students.

Interestingly is that the presence of a personal tutor is unimportant, what does appear important is a good quality relationship between the student and a staff within the programme/ at the University. Our programme audits have shown that different tutorial systems can successfully provide support to students.

17 NTU 36% of students with a personal tutor were doubters, 38% for those without one


b) Student Experience Factor - “I would know where to go within the University if I had a problem”

Knowing where to go for help appears to be a relatively unimportant factor in preventing students from doubting. When NTU student responses were analysed, answering this question negatively was least likely to lead to a student having doubts. In other words, not knowing where to go for help was unlikely to cause a student to have doubts.18

That said, we aren’t arguing that professional services don’t have a role to play, just that it may be hard for such services to make much impact on doubting.

c) Students with disabilities

Students with disabilities were more likely to have doubts than students with none.19 However, the progression rates were actually better than their non-disabled peers. At NTU, 95.8% of students with disabilities were still in higher education.20 We believe that this therefore supports the case the professional services targeted at students with disabilities are making a positive impact upon retention.

For example:

“I…have a dyslexia tutor and he is brilliant, he will look over my work and help me if I am struggling…that really helped me.” (UoB interviewee, strand 1)

18 Only 53% of those who disagreed with the statement were doubters, whereas 93% of students who did not find their course interesting were likely to be doubters.19 (NTU, 50% of students with disabilities had doubts, at UoB, 47%)20 (The progression rate amongst all doubting students was 90.3%. It must be noted that only one disabled student withdrew and so we perhaps ought to be a little careful with such a small sample.)


3.3.4 Social domainHow can the institution promote the social engagement and sense of belonging of all students (or a specific target group)?

The HERE Project research suggests that amongst doubters, the support of friends and family is the most important factor in helping students to remain at University.

a) Friendships as a reason to stay – qualitative evidence

We reported in the 2008-09 interim report that for NTU students, the most important factor was ‘friends & family’. When further analysed, friends formed at University were the largest single element of this group. The same analysis has now been completed at Bournemouth and Bradford, and in both of these surveys, ‘Friends & family’ came out as the strongest factor.

Figure 5 Student Transition Survey (March – May 2009, University of Bradford), What factors have helped student doubters to stay?

Responses from UoB include:

“My new friends have been able to help me get through many hardships, so they are part of the reason why I have been able to stay”

“My fellow students have helped me a lot. They have been very supportive and are always helpful”


At BU, students also talked about the quality of friendships as being important. Those students who described forming ‘solid’ or ‘good’ friendships felt that it had helped them to stay. We also noted that the inverse is true: those students who had failed to make what they perceived to be high quality friendships appeared to be more likely to doubt.

Thirteen of the student respondents to the Bradford Transitions Survey were interviewed during February and March 2010. Once again, the importance of friendship and family featured highly amongst students’ reasons to stay.

“I can’t imagine what would have happened if I had not got on with the people I live with”

“I am quite a home girl anyway, I like being at home you know, and without my friends I couldn’t have done it, definitely couldn’t have done it… I wouldn’t be here definitely; I would have just gone home”.

“Without friends...I would feel unsafe as well so...I think I would not stay...I think because I have all the friends here that is why I am staying”

Friends appear to act more as a comfort/ reassurance that there’s someone around to talk to and share the experience with, perhaps someone who can empathise with the student doubter.

b) Family as reason to stay

It is interesting to note that family includes both parents and partners, perhaps reflecting that some of the respondents are mature students. Reasons to stay cited by Bradford students included:

“My friends and family continually encouraging me to continue with my studies” (UoB Transition Survey).

Non-doubters who were interviewed at Bradford also talked about family support as a reason to stay.

• My husband [is supportive] massively because he has never queried it, and never competed for my time and the kids in their own way...they are old enough to understand...it is almost like it has always been there, oh mum is doing a course, mum’s at the computer and you can’t have the computer...it is my family unit that...got me through it... (Bradford interview)

c) Quantitative data relating to an enjoyable social life

The initial evidence (as reported in the 2008-09 interim report) suggested that student doubters were less likely to have an enjoyable social life than their non-doubting peers. In January 2010, the data was re-analysed to


take into account the student progression. Once again broadly, there was the expected relationship between a lower score in the factor and the increased likelihood of withdrawing early (with the same exceptional response from non-doubters who left).

Figure 6 - NTU Student Doubters’ Survey (March – May 2009), impact of having an enjoyable social life on progression

This was not the case across all three institutions: at Bournemouth doubters appeared to have a more enjoyable social life than non-doubters and found that their fellow students were more likely to be supportive than their non-doubting peers.

In the Academic Domain section, we noted that the main reasons for students doubting related to academic matters, particularly confidence about coping. The Student Experience Factor (see appendix A) with the strongest association to confidence was ‘useful feedback’, the second strongest factor was having ‘supportive peers’. It is therefore important to note that supportive peers do not just create a more pleasant environment for students to study in, but also appear to give students the confidence to actually participate in the learning process.


d) Friendship-making opportunities

The following have all been suggested as possible approaches to supporting better social cohesion by staff and students in the strand 2 interviews:

Use ice-breakers during induction and create opportunities for students to learn one another’s names

Consider residential events during semester one – for both building friendships and boosting confidence levels

Students have suggested that Universities ought to consider providing refresher social activities a few weeks into term

Use course reps to provide course social events

e) Using groupwork to help create bonds

Problems with group work can be a particularly stressful aspect of the student experience, nonetheless, we would strongly recommend it as a more natural way of encouraging students to start to develop friendships. Our experience during Welcome Week at NTU suggests that early group projects do need structured ice-breaker elements to overcome initial reserve; otherwise the opportunity is not always fully utilized.

Interviewees at Bournemouth made the following observations:

“Whilst they [the students] would argue that [group work] can have its weaknesses, it does allow them to engage with each other and I’m sure that friendships and social support comes out of that” (BU Strand 2 staff interview)

“The group work we were set in our seminar group is very good for getting to know people. I am now friends with people who I probably wouldn’t have been friends with had I not had to work in a group with them.” (BU strand 2, student interview)

At NTU, students described that smaller group work had helped them to make friends

“Being in groups for coursework has created good friends” (NTU Programme 2 student survey).

“During tutorials and research methods class, that’s where I met my friends” (NTU Programme 2 student survey).

f) Use peer support schemes for example PAL

PAL student facilitators may be able to play a particularly useful role helping to develop a social milieu within the programme.


“What brought our seminars together most was PAL sessions because it wasn’t a session purely for academics and we got to mingle on a social level” (BU strand 2 student survey programme 1)

g) Curriculum designed to incorporate group work

A number of both staff and student respondents suggested that group work provided an important opportunity to engender a sense of belonging amongst the group.

The group project was great for friendship building and was an enjoyable task (BU, strand 2, student survey 1). Staff at UoB worked hard to mix up students during group activities early in order to break up cliques formed within programmes where many local students already know one another from college.

3.3.5 (HE Structures & processes)How can the structures and processes of the English higher education system be improved to facilitate institutions to promote the retention and success of all students?

We feel that we have stronger findings in other section and so for reason of space have not added anything here.


3.4 Further findings Any additional findings that do not fit into (or challenge) the emerging theoretical model.

a) Classifying Doubting

When considering the of doubting on student progression, it would appear that there are four possible positions for the student.

State OutcomeNon-doubter Staying/ progressing

LeavingDoubter Staying/ Progressing

LeavingFigure 7 – outcomes of doubting/non-doubting

Using the largest sample (NTU), we reviewed the Student Experience Factors of those 370 students who granted us permission to track their progress. We found that the four groups typically presented the following characteristics:

1. Non-doubters who stay (the largest group of students) These are fundamentally satisfied with the experience and appear to be more likely to enjoy the learning experience and feel confident that they can cope

2. Non-doubters who leave (the smallest group of students) As they appear to be satisfied with the experience, we suspect that these students may have withdrawn because of external crises (as described by Ozga & Sukhnandan 1998) or are blithely unaware that they are not performing as well as perhaps they ought.

3. Doubters who stay (Persisters) Whilst less satisfied with the experience, these students have remained because of (primarily) positive reasons such as the support of friends or adapting to university, or negative ones such as being trapped by the opportunity cost of moving. We would suggest that these students can be supported and potentially moved from being doubters to non-doubters

4. Doubters who leave (Leavers) These students have the most negative experience of all, but the gap between them and doubters who stay is smaller than the gap between doubters and non-doubters. We believe that these students can be supported to remain.


Non-doubters who stay(Our ultimate goal)

Non-doubters who leave(We would suggest investing minimal resources here)

Doubters who stay(We need to support students here and move them to being non-doubters)

Doubters who leave(We need to help support these students and try to move them away from doubting)

Figure 8 - Supporting doubters

b) A typology of doubting Following the interviews and focus groups with doubters at NTU, it was noted that although there were many specific reasons for doubting and staying, two patterns were of note.

Firstly, most doubters who had decided to stay described facing problems and then either overcoming, re-evaluating the scale of the problem or had enough support from others to deal with the problem. They described a range of behaviours that we have tentatively described as ‘adapting’.

A second, smaller, group explained that they were unhappy about aspects of being a student, but instead of having overcome or accommodated the problem, they were enduring the situation. What appeared to motivate this group were the long-term goals such as career, or not wanting to let down family members. They appeared to feel more negatively about the experience than those adapters.

One important difference between the two groups is that adapters were all able to describe support and communication from a member of staff.

The researchers at BU and UoB found a slightly more nuanced picture. Students in interviews were describing both types of approach at the same time. Or would describe having felt trapped, but had with help and support, often overcome the problem.

We would tentatively suggest that there are broadly two types of behaviour associated with doubting:

Adapting Enduring

We will seek to find ways of further exploring this during 2010-11.


c) Student Doubting - Demographic Differences

Analysis of the NTU sample using logistic regression revealed that there was not a statistically significant link between doubting and the following variables:

living independently for the first time being the first person in the family to go to university applying through clearing

There was, however, a link between doubting and whether NTU was a student’s first choice of university, but this was the reverse of what was expected.

Students who said that NTU was their first choice of university were twice as likely to have doubts as students for whom NTU was not their first choice.

Female students appear more likely to have doubts than male students at two of the institutions (BU & NTU). Nonetheless, doubting still meant that a doubting student was more likely to subsequently withdraw. For example 1% of male non-doubting students withdrew at NTU, compared to 15% of male doubters.

Students with disabilities appear to have more doubts than non-disabled students although they appear no more at risk of actually withdrawing. This may reflect the level of support available to them at Universities.

Part-time students appear to be more likely to have doubts and actually more likely to withdraw, although the overall number of respondents are low.

Age appears to affect the likelihood of doubting differently at each of the partner HEIs and it is difficult to see an overall pattern.

Ethnicity also provides a mixed picture, but it appears that at UoB, Asian or Asian British Indian and Pakistani students have a lower rate of doubting than their peers.


4 Dissemination of learningPlease provide a bulleted list of how you have disseminated the learning from your project in 2009-10 (e.g. events, publications, institutional visits). Please limit this section to no more than 1000 words. Please indicate those which are action focused as well as information sharing.

Dissemination Events

2009

18 June 2009 Aimhigher West Yorkshire Students’ Writing in Transition

July 2009 HE Academy Conference Contributed to What works? Research and evaluation of interventions to improve student retention and success. Initial outcomes of the Retention Grants Programme

July 2009 22nd International First Year Experience Conference, Montreal, Canada Support Me! Develop Me! Retain Me! How a Reflective Skills Activity has Increased Student Engagement, Motivation and Success

15 September 2009 Students Writing in Transition, Nottingham Trent University “It will all be different” Supporting Student Writing in Transition

23 September 2009 Retention Summit, Bournemouth University HERE! Higher Education Retention and Engagement.

15th October 2009 Research Seminar Series: Access and Success for All, University of Bradford Learning from the Data: Using institutional data to develop an audit tool to enhance student success

2010

24 February 2010 Keynote at Greenwich Staff Development event

3 March 2010 4 March 2010 Retention Convention: What works? Student Retention and Success, Leeds Here Project

23 March 2010 ELFYSE conference, online

29 March 2010 Nottingham Trent University Annual Learning & Teaching Conference, presentation & poster presentation From


Fresher to First Year: what is it that helps students to stay?

29, 30, 31 March 2010, Celebrating Partnerships in Learning 7th Annual LDHEN Symposium, Nottingham Trent Uuniversity HERE to stay? Why do students persist and how can we support them to do so?

7 May 2010 UK Transitions Conference workshop, University College London “I’ll be there for youuuuuu” The role of friendships in supporting transition

27 May 2010 European First Year Experience Conference, Antwerp

7-8th June 2010 9th Annual Teaching & Learning Conference, University of Bradford

10 June 2010 Flying Start NTF Symposium

16 June 2010 First Level Assessment Practice conference, Leeds Metropolitan University

17 June 2010 keynote at ICG network, Leeds

18 June 2010 Flexible Degrees conference, Plymouth

25 June 2010 Community of Engagement, Higher Education Academy, York

6 July 2010 Higher Education Academy, Male access and success in higher education, York

8 July 2010 keynote on what students stay at university, Bolton

14 September 2010 Students’ Writing in Transition Symposium, Nottingham Trent University The HERE Project: learning about transition from student doubters

Dissemination Publications

HERE brochure ‘What works? Student retention and success programme Interim findings September 2009’. Disseminated to HEI’s detailing research so far.

A second edition of the HERE brochure is planned for later this year

December 2009 Research Seminar Series: Access and Success for All Briefing Paper Learning from the Data – using institutional data to develop an audit tool to enhance student success


5. Next stage

Please briefly report on your future plans. Please limit this section as a whole to no more than 1000 words.

Approach to future work (including an overview of planned work and identifying any significant variations from earlier plans).

How is this informed by a) progress to date and b) findings to date

Strand 1 - Student doubters

In our original project submission we planned to produce a second doubters’ survey in 2010 – 11. We feel that we have enough information about doubting and so will not repeat some of the core questions from the first survey. We will concentrate much more on the actions taken by doubters and their suggestions about structural support that would help. As this process will take place relatively later in the project (Easter 2011), the survey will be much shorter than the 2008-09 one.

Strand 2 – Programmes

As conducting each programme audit requires a considerable amount of work, we will be conducting fewer audits than originally planned. However, in the audits conducted so far, we are finding broadly similar answers. We are satisfied that conducting 10 – 12 audits will produce a range of responses broadly the same as our original 21. We also feel conducting fewer audits will provide more time to fully analyse data for emerging patterns.

Dissemination ideas or plans for 2010-11. Please include any dates of events etc to be included in the Calendar.

Forthcoming Dissemination Events

There are a number of key conferences that the group has presented to in previous years. We intend to present end of project findings at a range of these in the forthcoming year. These will include:

Our own institutional learning and teaching conferences The UK transitions conference (May 2011) The European and International First Year Experience conferences

(June 2011)


Students’ Writing in Transition (early September 2011, Nottingham Trent University). After Sarah has presented a seminar for the past two years about the HERE project, we’re lining her up to deliver the keynote.

Furthermore a paper from the Bradford team has been accepted at the Society for Research into Higher Education conference 14 – 16 December 2010

Website

We have a test site uploaded (http://web.me.com/ed.foster/) to test the structure. In October/ early November 2010, this will be replaced by a full project website.

Publications

We refer to HERE Project research in FOSTER, E., LAWTHER, S., MCNEIL, J., 2010. Learning Developers Supporting Early Student Transition. In: HARTLEY, P., HILSDON, J., SINFIELD, S., KEENAN, C., eds. Learning Development in Higher Education. Palgrave Macmillan, 2010 (to be published 5 November 2010).

We will make reference to HERE research when we contribute to the HEA discussion paper in December 2010

We will submit at least one academic paper in the 2010 – 11 academic year and are discussing approaches to maximise publication opportunities.

Support required next year. Please identify any ways in which the Support and Co-ordination Team can assist your work next year.

Contribution to programme outputs. Please indicate what potential contribution your project team would like to make to the broader outputs for the programme as a whole.

We are very happy to be involved in dissemination activities. Obviously after the life cycle of the project we may have less time to support such activity, but will be keen to help where we can.

Please note that you are also required to send a financial report to [email protected] at HEFCE on 30th September 2010.



http://web.me.com/ed.foster/

Appendix A

List of the 17 Student Experience FactorsPresented to students as part of the Student Transition Survey (March – May 2010)

1. My subject is interesting2. My course is well organised3. I have enthusiastic lecturers teaching on my course4. My taught sessions (such as lectures and seminars) are interesting5. Lecturers are accessible6. I feel valued by teaching staff7. The assessment on my course is what I expected it to be8. The feedback I receive about my work is useful9. I feel confident that I can cope with my studies10. My fellow students are supportive11. My family is supportive12. I have easy access to University resources (e.g. Computers, library

books that I need)13. I would know where to go within the University if I had a problem14. I like the house/ flat/ halls that I am living in15. I have an enjoyable social life16. I am confident that I will have enough money to cope17. Completing my degree will help me achieve my future goals

Nick Foard conducted a number of statistical tests on the NTU data; both on the initial, larger data set (of 656 students) so looking at doubting/non doubting and on the smaller data set (of 370 students) of those students that gave us permission to monitor their progress so looking at their subsequent progression.

Larger data set (656 students): doubtingA factor analysis (using KMO measure of sampling adequacy, Bartletts test of Sphericity, Principal Component Analysis and a Rotated Component Matrix) was carried out that provided us with three component factors:

A. Academic Experience Variables

1. My subject is interesting2. My course is well organised3. I have enthusiastic lecturers teaching on my course4. My taught sessions (such as lectures and seminars) are interesting5. Lecturers are accessible6. I feel valued by teaching staff7. The assessment on my course is what I expected it to be8. The feedback I receive about my work is useful9. I feel confident that I can cope with my studies


B. Support, Resources and Future Goals

10. My fellow students are supportive11. My family is supportive12. I have easy access to University resources (e.g. Computers, library

books that I need)17. Completing my degree will help me achieve my future goals

C. Student Lifestyle

14. I like the house/ flat/ halls that I am living in15. I have an enjoyable social life16. I am confident that I will have enough money to cope

Item 13. “I would know where to go within the University if I had a problem” did not fit in well with other factors and is therefore not included as part of any further factor analysis.

Smaller data set (370 students): progression

Box plots were created to illustrate patterns between students progression status and their factor analysis scores. A very clear pattern emerges for the academic experience factor. Students with no-doubts who stay have a higher score than doubters who stay. In turn, doubters who stay have a higher academic experience score than those who doubters who leave. As is often the case with the analysis of individual factors, we note that non-doubters who leave actually have a very high level of satisfaction. However, we are only dealing with very small numbers of students (4 at NTU and 1 each at BU and UoB) and so have not particularly focussed on these sets of answers.


Figure 9 – NTU Academic Experience box plot

The pattern is far less clear for B. Support, Resources and Future Goals and C. Student Lifestyle. There is a general trend towards lower satisfaction in factor B amongst doubters, but is only marginal and in factor C “Student Lifestyle Factors” students who have doubts and leave actually score higher than students with doubts and stay. Although clearly one might be tempted to raise a hypothesis that for these students partying got in the way of studying.

Figure 10 – NTU Support, Resources & Future Goals box plot


Figure 11 – NTU Student Lifestyle box plot
