Student retention grant programme – stage two application process

A.  HERE! Higher Education Retention & Engagement

B. Lead Institution C. Partner Institutions

Ed Foster Study Support CoordinatorCentre for Academic Standards & QualityNottingham Trent University Burton StreetNottinghamNG1 4BU

Ed.foster@ntu.ac.uk

0115 848 8203

Christine KeenanLearning & Teaching FellowSchool of Design, Engineering & ComputingBournemouth UniversityFern BarrowPooleDorsetBH12 5BB

ckeenan@bournemouth.ac.uk

01202 965307

Becka CurrantHead of Learner Development & Student EngagementUniversity of BradfordRichmond RoadBradfordBD7 1DP

rcurrant@bradford.ac.uk

01274 236821/ 07971 724214

The HERE! Project will revolve around the twin cores of why some first year students have doubts, but stay, and why some first year programmes perform better than their peers.  This project is important because it concentrates on retention rather than withdrawal, wellness rather than illness. We will develop a retention audit tool by modelling those programmes most successful at retaining students within our own institutions. One of the partners, Nottingham Trent University, has been cited by both the National Audit Office and Public Accounts Committee for its good practice in retention. Our practice-based approach will help make our findings widely transferable. It will build on the partners' expertise in a range of student experience issues, including transition into HE and induction processes. The three institutions will develop their existing collaborative work and will draw upon one another's expertise to shape the research, assist in the investigative process and peer-review our work. 

1. Background & Contextual InformationThe three partner universities are all medium-to-large multi-disciplinary institutions (Nottingham Trent University has 23,595 students, Bournemouth 16,000 and Bradford 10,000) with excellent track records in employment, and strong emphases on learning and teaching and Widening Participation (WP).  Each institution shares a large number of similar academic programmes, therefore enabling comparative analysis across all three, but also making the project potentially transferable to many UK HEIs.  The three institutions sit within three different student retention benchmark bands (91.0-91.9%, 90.0-90.9% & 89.0-89.9%): these bands comprise 52 of the 119 institutions surveyed in Staying the Course (2007).  Findings from the HERE! Project therefore have the potential to be highly transferable to a large number of institutions.

Of the seven institutions within the 91.0-91.9% benchmark (2004-05), NTU has the second highest continuation rate (the highest for a large multidisciplinary institution), and is consistently one of the strongest post-92 institutions for retention.  The Universities of Bournemouth and Bradford, both perform consistently above their benchmarks and have a range of expertise working with mature and Black & Minority Ethnic (BME) students.

The coordinators at each institution have a successful track record working collaboratively on the Learnhigher CETL and have worked on related areas of First Year Experience (FYE), student

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transition (Foster, Bell & Salzano, 2008) and induction activities, for example Welcome Week at NTU (Purnell & Foster, 2008) Stepping Stones 2HE at Bournemouth (Keenan, 2008) and Develop Me! at Bradford (Currant & Currant, 2008).  This work has been evidence-led and evaluation has shown a positive influence in improving early student commitment at our institutions.  The HERE! Project will provide us with the resources and time to further develop our preliminary research into first year retention and make recommendations to share with the sector.

2.     Level of support from Senior ManagementAll three institutions have the support of the relevant Pro-Vice Chancellor, Professor Jones at NTU, Dr Astin at Bournemouth University and Professor Layer at Bradford University.  The work will be integrated into the relevant learning & teaching strategies and support institutional objectives in student transition & induction, widening participation and the broader first year experience.  The support from the Pro-Vice Chancellors will ensure that the relevant professional services and programme teams will have the necessary time and resources made available to complete the project.  It is important to note that each of the partners has developed the effective working relationships with both Registry and Management Information Systems (MIS) necessary to complete the project.

D.        Themes/issues to be addressed

3.      Please describe the practice(s) in student retention that you propose to evaluate. This research is important to the sector because it concentrates on enhancements that teaching staff can implement within the domain of everyday learning & teaching.  We have identified two strands in which we believe it is possible to analyse what makes students stay rather than what makes them leave.  We will evaluate two complementary strands of the student learning experience:

Strand A: First year students who have considered withdrawing, but subsequently remained

All students over the course of their studies will face disappointments and challenges.  In some students, this leads to early withdrawal, in most it does not.  Different studies have shown that between 21% (Rickinson & Rutherford, 1995) and 46% (Ozga & Sukhnandan, 1998) of students have considered leaving their programme.  In 2004-05, 8.4% of UK students did not progress into the second year (NAO, 2007).  Clearly the decision to withdraw, and process of doing so, is more complex than a simple binary "yes/no”; and we believe that there are many lessons that can be learnt from analysing these doubters. For example, Mackie (2001) found that the only significant difference between leavers and doubters was that doubters had the drive and self-confidence to overcome adversity.  However, Roberts et al (2003) also found that doubters stayed when they could perceive the benefits, particularly employment benefits, of remaining on the course. These studies were both conducted with business studies students and we aim to test these and other hypotheses on a wider student population.

We will use this opportunity to undertake a deeper analysis to look at doubters amongst different groups of students, for example BME and mature students.  If factors such as self-efficacy, traits such as optimism or confidence are identified as having an impact, we will trial these in first year induction programmes.

Strand B: Different rates of retention between individual first year programmes

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Some subject areas have lower rates of retention than others, for example STEM subjects, business studies and modern languages have all been cited as having greater problems with retaining students (NAO, 2002, 2007).  But there is still variation amongst the actual rates of withdrawal across broadly similar programmes. NTU made a preliminary analysis of student withdrawals across all first year programmes (2005-06) and the differences between ostensibly similar programmes, were, at times, significant.  For example, amongst programmes with an entry requirement of 240 UCAS points the rate of withdrawals varied between 0% and 21%. As might be expected many of the programmes with high retention were from the School of Art & Design, but programmes with low withdrawals rates included BSc (hons) Financial Mathematics and BSc (hons) Biology.  

We propose therefore to analyse those programmes that are performing excellently at retaining students.  We will analyse three years of withdrawals data and identify those programmes performing well at retention, in absolute terms, but also in strategically important areas, for example STEM subjects or those recruiting a high number of widening participation or clearing students.  Programme teams and students will then be audited to identify practices, relationships and processes that appear to be making a difference to retention.  Where possible, audits will be undertaken with comparable programmes across all three HEIs.

4.      How widespread are these interventions in the 3 HEIs? Strand 1: student doubters All three universities have effective management information systems and a good track record at working with their students to understand needs and motivations.  It is these systems that will provide the core information to the project.  In 2007, NTU was visited as one of 10 case study institutions by the National Audit Office and was cited for “carrying out in-depth research including surveys as well as interviews with early leavers” (pg 29, NAO, 2007). This good practice was subsequently picked up by the Public Accounts Committee Report (2008) and in an interview with the Guardian newspaper “How to hang on to students” (26th February 2008).  Bournemouth has conducted student interviews with doubters on a number of programmes to understand better why students stay.

Strand 2: Rates of withdrawal across programmes Within all three institutions, there are programmes with very good rates of retention.  Therefore, practices of good retention are present, but not yet universally adopted, across each institution.  For example, at NTU in 2005-06, 15 of the 105 undergraduate programmes had 100% retention, (12 of which were BSc, FDSc or BEng programmes and 10 had recruited students through clearing).  

5.   Are these practices effective? Strand 1 – Doubters Interviews conducted with doubters at Bournemouth University suggest that for those students, factors such as interest from staff, a good degree of social interaction within the curriculum, friendship groups and peer mentors made a difference to their decisions to withdraw.  Funding would allow us to test the impact of these factors more thoroughly.

Strand 2 – Programmes Our data shows that some programmes perform better than their peers at retaining students.  Clearly, some differences will be due to demographics and the nature of the programme, but differences remain amongst similar programmes.  The retention literature cites a number of reasons for this, for example social milieu (Yorke & Longden, 2008) and problem-based learning

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(Wolff, Severians & de Crom, 2008), attendance monitoring and early intervention, Smith & Beggs (2002); we will talk to the appropriate staff, analyse the curriculum and course handbooks and speak directly to students to see if these factors are perceived to make a positive difference.

Strand B: Programmes

6.   Relevance to NAO & PAC recommendations Staying the Course (2007) Recommendations

Recommendation How this proposal will meet it

Management Information

The proposed project will use management information to target those programmes with good rates of retention. We will share our methodology with other institutions to help them identify and learn from their own successful programmes.

Strategic commitment to retention

The proposed project has evolved from actions taking place at all three partner institutions to improve the FYE and support the transition into HE. We will share any policy documents developed.

Commitment from students

By looking at the experience of student doubters, we will seek to identify those practices and motivations adopted by students who succeed, despite concerns. We will disseminate these findings to students through routes such as students' unions.

Support through academic provision

We will use an evidence-based approach to identify those programmes that appear to have successfully tailored their academic provision to suit the needs of their students.

Provide specialist support

Leavers are less likely to access support: we will test whether doubters access support, and if there are lessons to learn.

Public Accounts Committee Conclusions & Recommendations (2008)

Conclusion & Recommendation

(direct quotes are italicised below)

How this proposal will meet it

1. Improve overall retention

“Universities need to concentrate their efforts on actions most likely to be successful”.

This project will work in areas in which students have chosen to stay, either because of the individual student characteristics, or the design and delivery of the curriculum. We aim to learn from these existing successes.

2. Meet the needs of widening participation students

“Universities need to understand the needs of their changing student populations.”

In our student focus groups we will ensure that a number are comprised of students from WP backgrounds.  We will also review at least one programme in each HEI with a high proportion of students from a WP background.

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3. Wide variation in continuation rates “Funding council should encourage universities with better retention to share good practice”.

NTU has been cited for its good practice in the NAO and PAC reports. We will disseminate findings through publications, conference papers and workshops.

6. Support for STEM subjects We will review programmes with good retention, both in absolute terms and particularly within STEM subjects.

7. Academic & Pastoral Support

“Universities should give personal tutoring a sufficiently high priority, with training and support to help tutors to be fully effective in their roles.”

All three institutions are part of Learnhigher, the collaborative CETL engaged in learning development. We will seek to identify academic and pastoral practices that support student success particularly induction, transition and learner development.

7. Hypotheses & success criteria We propose to test two hypotheses:

Strand 1: Student Doubters - Why do some students have doubts about their studies but stay, when others leave?  Can institutions use this information to help more students stay?  

Given that so many more students actually have doubts than actually leave their programmes, what can we learn from doubters about the way they adapt to the pressures of higher education? We will use the large-scale opportunities made possible by this proposal to identify:

Why do some students have doubts about their programme? What keeps doubters on their course, why don’t all doubters leave? Are doubters actually any more likely to subsequently leave? Can we learn anything from how doubters have coped with university that can prevent

other students from leaving early?

We will be successful if we better understand why doubters stay, learn lessons that can be transferred to help prevent more students leave and make effective recommendations for institutions to embed into first year working practices.

Strand 2: Differences between first year programmes - What do programmes with excellent rates of retention do that keeps students at university, and how do these make a difference?

Some subject areas have lower rates of retention than others, for example STEM subjects, business studies and modern languages have all been cited having greater problems with retaining students (NAO, 2002, 2007).  But that does not sufficiently explain variation within these programme areas.  Researchers are increasingly suggesting that good learning & teaching experiences can support student retention (Crosling, Thomas & Heagney, 2008).  By looking at programmes that already have good retention, we will test some of the hypotheses.

Is good retention: Due to good learning & teaching?

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Related to good induction practice? Due to motivational factors such as promoting the benefits of employability? Due to effective learning scaffolding? Due to discipline and pedagogic differences and epistemologies?

We will succeed if we are able to accurately demonstrate the factors that actually impact positively on student retention and produce an audit tool for programmes to review their own practice.

E.   Proposed evaluation methodology 8.   Evaluation methodology

Strand 1: Student Doubters

Strand 2: Variable rates of withdrawal across programmes

Review relevant literature, concentrating particularly on US work into persistence

6 large quantitative surveys of all first year undergraduate students (2008-09 & 2010-11), we will use the data to profile students with no doubts, doubters and then compare them with subsequent leavers. In 2010-11, we will also survey students before they arrive at university to test the impact of expectations against subsequent satisfaction and doubts. This data will create benchmarks to contrast with our programme research and influence the design of the audit process.

18 qualitative group sessions using appropriate group methodologies: nominal group technique, Customer Value Discovery (McKnight & Berrington, 2008), etc, working with approximately 10 students each time (180 students in total).

Findings will further strengthen institutional policies.

Review relevant literature

We will conduct a statistical analysis of differential rates of withdrawals across programmes. We will review data over at least a 3 year period to identify programmes performing consistently well, or demonstrating significant improvements. Literature will be used to identify different risk factors, these findings (along with evidence from doubters) will be used to create a programme retention audit tool.

21 in-depth audits of individual programmes will be conducted, using both quantitative and qualitative analysis, e.g. staff & student interviews, student surveys, analysis of timetables, support mechanisms, induction, pre-entry activity, scaffolding of learning.

Where particular trends are identified, for example the impact of induction activities, further interviews and surveys will be conducted.

Each of the three co-ordinators will work within their institutional ethics guidelines. We also understand our ethical responsibilities as outlined in the British Educational Research Association Revised Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research (2004) and the Statement of Ethical Practice for the British Sociological Association (March 2002).

Each of the coordinators has a strong commitment to developing and maintaining an evidence-based approach to understanding student experience and have successfully brought about

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institutional changes based upon such approaches.  The evidence to support and underpin change and on-going enhancements derives from a sound understanding of the theoretical base of a range of first year student issues including transition and induction, incorporating theories of habitus, self-efficacy, self-theorising and motivation.  Our goals are to achieve "value commitment" rather than "instrumental compliance" (Trowler, Saunders & Knight 2003:17).   

Our evidence base is underpinned by a range of qualitative and quantitative evaluation methodologies and we have experience in research and evaluation design.  Furthermore we will draw upon internal expertise and recruit external support.  We will design an evaluation methodology to provide for the range of approaches to be undertaken.  For example the coordinators are experienced in the use of RUFDATA (Saunders, 2000) and the Enabling, Process and Outcome Methodology, both of which allow for on-going formative evaluation to add value to the change processes (Trowler, Saunders & Knight 2003). This is particularly important in the context of this proposed collaborative project in order to ensure evaluation is on-going, contextual and fit for purpose.  We feel this action-based evaluation process will prove particularly useful in this project where there will be a range of inter-relating outcomes (Blamey, A., Judge, K., & Mackenzie, M: 2002).  

9.    Evaluation - will it be valid and relevant? The three key coordinators have all recently published work in the fields of student retention and engagement.  Our involvement in the Learnhigher CETL has given us opportunities to validate our current work amongst peers. Project staff will be recruited from an appropriate research background, e.g. social sciences or education. We will utilise expertise from within our own institutions in both research and related learning & teaching pedagogy.  Two experienced evaluators with expertise in evaluation in HE and student transition have been approached; both have expressed interest in being critical friends. National Teaching Fellows have been involved in the development of this proposal and will be involved in all three partners.

 F.         Benefits to the higher education sector

10.  Sharing practice We will share learning within our own institutions by embedding findings into staff development events, staff manuals, presenting at learning and teaching conferences and developments in the curriculum (particularly in transition and induction policies).  Our research will be shared nationally through dedicated web pages and a blog.  We will set up a Student Experience Special Interest Group (SIG), produce interim reports, produce a final report, present at conferences, write papers for publication and provide a number of staff development sessions addressing ways of using the audit tool. We will work in partnership with appropriate organisations such as Action on Access, the Learning Development in HE JISC group, the European First Year Experience network and the Association of Learning Development in Higher Education.   

11.  Impact - institutional & sectoral, within the project's lifespan & beyond Our strand 1 research will be embedded into our own institutions' working practices, particularly in the pre-entry and induction stages of the student life cycle.  We will work with other agencies to disseminate practices across the sector. Our strand 2 research will allow us to develop a better understanding about the impact of programme-level activities on the motivation, engagement and retention of students.  We will produce reports and an audit tool for programme staff to embed into their own working practices.  At the end of three years, we will have a tested product (the audit tool) shared throughout our institutions.  We would ensure that it is used by our quality assurance units, particularly if there are programmes with problems in retention.  We feel that our emphasis on learning from programmes which are performing well will mean that the learning will be accessible and actionable to most teaching staff. 

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G.        How the project will be managed

12.  Project team At NTU, 1/3 of Ed Foster’s time will be spent working on this project.  He will be supported by a new position, a 0.5 FTE researcher recruited specifically to work on the project; administrative support will be provided by the University. Bournemouth University will recruit a researcher to support Christine Keenan. Bradford University, will reallocate staff resources within the Learning Technology Team.

13.  Risks

Risks Mitigation

1. Staffing changes2. Change of institutional priorities 3. Communication between partners 4. Engaging student doubters

5. Identifying factors that impact on retention

1. Senior management commitment 2. FYE is part of each institution's strategy 3. Experience working collaboratively4. We will work through our student

communication teams and SUs, teams with experience engaging students

5. We will survey a range of programmes, and use a range of methodologies, use pilot investigations and maintain an appreciative inquiry approach

14.  Coherence across partners In addition to putting good management practices into place, the three institutional coordinators currently work together as part of the Learnhigher CETL and are experienced at working collaboratively.  We plan to meet physically three times per year and communicate regularly via electronic means.

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