Modelling throughput at Unisa: The key to the successful implementation of ODL

Strategic Discussion Forum

2 April 2009

Prof George SubotzkyExecutive Director:

Information & Strategic Analysis

Distinctive Features of SDF

• It focuses on current institution-wide strategic matters• It provides for institution-wide participation• It consists of presentations by internal and external

experts, respondents’ reflections on these, followed by open debate

• Wherever possible, discussion documents will be prepared and disseminated beforehand

• The purpose of this is to encourage rigourous, robust, critical and evidence-based engagement on key issues of current strategic importance to Unisa

• The overall aim is to contribute to the IOP objective of building common conceptual understanding of strategic issues, with critical space for the airing and debating of different perspectives.

Background: The Throughput Forum

• Strong external and internal imperative to improve success & throughput, especially in ODL context

• Co-ordinated and integrated effort to improve success & throughput• Approach adopted: to achieve the comprehensive understanding of

all factors shaping success and throughput through modelling initiative

• Purpose of modelling initiative: to provide a systematic, evidence-based, contextually-relevant foundation to inform and guide initiatives to improve success & throughput

• This work undertaken by modeling Task Team, comprising:– Prof George Subotzky, DISA– Prof Chris Swanepoel, Decision Sciences– Dr Paul Prinsloo, DCLD– Dr At van Schoor, BCCAD– Ms Hanneri Botha, ICT

• The hard work of the Task Team is acknowledged

A 2-fold framework for enhancing throughput & success

1. Comprehensive modelling initiative– Literature review (conducted by Doctor Paul Prinsloo)– Drawing from this, the conceptual/hypothetical modelling of

the positive and risk factors shaping the student experience, success & throughput in the ODL context of Unisa (Modelling Task Team)

– Together, the literature review and conceptual model to be released as a Strategic Discussion Forum discussion document during April for comprehensive engagement & feedback and then to STLSC & Senate

– Regarding the model, determining what is knowable, measurable, (is/may be) available and actionable

– Utilising model to shape student tracking system, to gather relevant and available quantitative and comprehensive complementary qualitative data (some ideas elaborated below)

– Statistical and analytic modelling to determine factors shaping success in the Unisa context, and readjusting the model as necessary

A 2-fold framework for enhancing throughput & success

2. Transforming institutional identity, attributes & practices

– Utilising consolidated findings (as actionable intelligence) to inform and guide existing and new Learner Support Framework and initiatives and academic practices and operational improvements in order to improve success, throughput and the student experience;

– Monitoring and evaluating these initiatives over time as part of continuous reflection and improvement and ongoing QA

MANAGEMENT OF STUDENT EXPERIENCE, SUCCESS, THROUGHPUT & GRADUATENESS Shaped by modeling process

Conceptual Modeling M & E

Statistical & Analytic

Modelling producing Actionable Intelligence

Tracking System

Identifying what is

relevant, measurable, available & actionable

Learner Support

Interventions and other

academic & administrative

changes

Processes:• Informed responsibility & ‘choice’• Ontological/epistemological dev.• Managing risks/opportunities/

uncertainty: Integration, adaptation, socialisation & negotiation

Domains:• Intra-personal• Inter-personal

Modalities:• Attribution• Locus of

control• Self-

efficacy

Processes:• Informed responsibility &

choice• Managing

risks/opportunities: Transformation, change management, org. learning, integration & adaptation

Modalities:•

Attribution

• Locus of control

• Self-efficacy

Domains:• Academic• Operational• Social

TRANSFORMED INSTITUTIONAL IDENTITY & ATTRIBUTES:

STUDENTIDENTITY & ATTRIBUTES:

• Situated agent: SES, demographics• Capital: cultural, intellectual, emotional,

attitudinal• Habitus: perceptions, dispositions,

discourse, expectations

Success

INSTITUTIONALIDENTITY & ATTRIBUTES:

• Situated organisation: history, location, strategic identity, culture, demographics• Capital: cultural, intellectual, attitudinal• Habitus: perceptions, dispositions,

discourse, expectations

SHAPING CONDITIONS: (predictable as well as uncertain)• Social structure, macro & meso shifts: globalisation, political economy, policy; National/local culture & climate

• Personal /biographical micro shifts

SHAPING CONDITIONS: (predictable as well as he uncertain)• Social structure, macro & meso shifts: globalisation, internationalisation, political economy, technology, social demand

• HE/ODL trends, policy• Institutional biography & shifts; Strategy, business model & architecture, culture & climate, politics & power relations

Choice, Admission

Learning activities

Coursesuccess

Gradua-tion

THE STUDENT WALK: Multiple, mutually constitutive

interactions between student, institution & networks

• Managing complexity/ uncertainty/ unpredictability/risks/opportunities• Institutional requirements known &

mastered by student• Student known by institution through

tracking, profiling & prediction

FIT

FIT

FIT

FIT

Employ-ment/

citizenship

TRANSFORMED STUDENT IDENTITY & ATTRIBUTES:

FIT

FIT

FIT

FIT

FIT

FIT

FIT

FIT

Retention/Progression/Positive experience

Proposition 1

Student success is broadly interpreted and indicated by retention, progression through the main phases of the student walk, and ultimately successful graduation and effective entry into the labour market and/or citizenship.

Success also incorporates a positive student experience as a result of student-centred service excellence and efficient operations provided by the institution.

Measuring Success

Sources:• Annual Student Satisfaction Survey• Student Evaluation• Employer Satisfaction Survey• Employee Satisfaction Survey

Indicators:• Survey indices• In particular, graduate attributes

Proposition 2

Student success and positive experience is the outcome of sufficient fit between the identity and attributes of the student and the institution through all phases of student walk.

Student Identity & Attributes

• Understanding student identity, agency, being, experience, life circumstances, assumptions and expectations constitutes one key element of the model • This implies that we need construct detailed profiles of our

students in terms of their: • Demographic and biographic identities• The conduciveness of their past and current socio-

economic and cultural background and circumstances, and

• Their individual academic potential and the individual attributes

• Put differently, we need to know not only what students need to know in order to enter, progress and graduate (epistemological dimension) but also what kind of entering and enrolled students are likely to be persistent and successful (ontological dimension)

• Profiling the Unisa student complement in relevant categories, informed by these details is particularly important, given the heterogeneity of the Unisa student profile

Proposition 3

Fit arises when elements of the student and institutional identity and attributes (capital and habitus) are optimally aligned at each successive stage of the student walk. Fit at these various points is the outcome of the specific individual student and institutional preconditions

Student Identity & Attributes

• The student enjoys a conducive past and current social and economic status and circumstances in order to successfully undertake higher learning. This is indicated by:

– Sufficient freedom, time, space and opportunity in relation to current domestic, financial and employment status, conditions and responsibilities in order to allow effective study and interactions.

• Interactions occur between student and institution, other students and significant networks.

• Actual and virtual networks consist of immediate and extended family, actual and virtual peers, role models, local communities, and occupational, cultural, faith-based, social and recreational organisations.

– Adequate and timely interactive access to and effective utilisation of academic and operational institutional services, including study materials, library and information sources, academic and pastoral learner support and counselling in order to enhance individual capital.

– Adequate access to effective interaction with other students and the community of scholars in order to enhance individual capital.

– Sufficient individual health, safety and well-being among the student, and his/her immediate and extended family, communities and networks.

Drivers and Predictors

• SES: family income, employment & educational background and status

• Demographics: race, gender, age, location, marital status, etc. socio-economic status

• Attitudes to life issues: identity formation, sex, alcohol, drugs, and so on and in particular the role and meaning of higher education within this

• Extent of positive or negative influence, support, expectations and encouragement in significant networks, especially role models.

Institutional Identity & Attributes

• The institution provides high-quality, effective, relevant and efficient academic and operational services, informed by and aligned to student profile, identity and attributes. This includes:– Academic policies and practices: pre-admission counselling and

guidance, admissions (including appropriate assessment of academic and socio-economic potential and risk), teaching and learning (curriculum development, study material development, assessment), proactive academic and non-academic learner support (library services, access to academics, tutors and peers, tutorials and counselling)

– Academic offerings: Relevant PQM with differentiation and articulation opportunities appropriate to a comprehensive distance learning institution

– Operational policies and practices: especially regarding primary student support services including marketing, career and counselling services, admissions, registration, student administration, study material (production and dispatch), assessment administration, ICT, communication and interactions (call centre, academic and administrative departments, myUnisa), finance, health services and estates

Indicators/Predictors

Institutional success and performance indicators are included in organisational performance management instruments (including student evaluation) which are part of ongoing strategic and operational planning and management.

Drivers, preconditions and predictors include:• Effective leadership and management at all levels• Effective and appropriate business and enterprise architectures

(academic and non-academic HR capacity, systems, policies & procedures, infrastructure and technology)

• In particular, qualifications, research output & experience of teaching staff

• Conducive organisational culture and climate at all levels• Inspired, motivated and sufficiently satisfied academic and support staff• Systematic, ongoing tracking of relevant quantitative and qualitative

student activity• Through this, the identification of risks/opportunities and proactive

interventions• Academic and operational expectations and requirements clearly

communicated to students

Proposition 4

In order for fit to arise at each successive stage of the student walk, relevant transformative changes in the identity and attributes of the student and the institution are required.

Transformation

• Processes– Crucially dependent on relevant mutual

actionable knowledge– This is an essential precondition in the

management of risks, uncertainties and opportunities

– Student: understanding institutional expectation & requirements & executing these

– Institution: tracking, profiling, predicting relevant activities, risks & opportunities and adapting practices accordingly

Student Transformation

• The student has transformed his/her habitus where required and has acquired sufficient cultural, intellectual, emotional and attitudinal capital to be deemed prepared for higher education study. This is indicated by:

– Sufficient actual and potential academic literacies and numeracies, conceptual skills and vocabulary, with potential identified by means of appropriate instruments

– Language skills– Adequate understanding and successful adaptation and integration into

academic and operational requirements, expectations and practices – Consequently, individual habitus aligned to institutional requirements,

expectations and practices– Positive attitudes: motivation, focus, perceptions, expectations, energy,

drive, self-discipline and persistence – Study habits and skills: reading patterns, time management,

organisation, concentration– Self-efficacy: confidence and positive self-construction in relation to

institutional requirements, expectations and practices

Institutional Transformation

• The institution’s obligation is to continually reflect on its assumptions and practices not only in order to improve delivery but to eradicate hidden socio-economic and cultural barriers to equitable student access & success and thus to achieve the QA criterion of fitness to purpose

• This captures the transformative approach, failing which the institution perpetuates the social reproduction of elites

Proposition 5

The student walk comprises a series of multiple, mutually constitutive interactions between the situated student and the situated institution and between the student and his/her various networks through all points of the walk

(Articulation with ODL model)

Proposition 6

The formation and transformation of student and institutional identity and attributes is continuously shaped by overarching conditions at the macro, meso and micro levels

A word on the tracking system• Combines tracking, profiling, prediction and risk identification• Draws from qualitative as well as quantitative data sources• It is envisaged that, besides conventional qualitative data

sources (surveys, focus groups) that myUnisa can be used to gather rich relevant ongoing qualitative data on student habitus, activities and behaviours

• Together, the quantitative and quantitative analyses will provide indications of the nature and timing of risks. Where possible, these will be configured into automated alerts to students and staff in order to take proactive supportive action & interventions

• A detailed 1-year project plan has been drawn up, which includes the installation of a pilot tracking system during the next two weeks. This will integrate fully with the current Portal. A consultative needs analysis will follow, specs synthesised (strongly shaped by the model variables) and the tool assessed and procured. Further piloting will follow.

1. Unisa: Integrated, comprehensive approach to addressing the imperative of improving success, throughput & student experience – modelling approach

2. Literature Review: Rich field of enquiry, with interesting array of theoretical perspectives

3. Key constructs and propositions4. There is enough evidence to show that non-academic variables

and institutional variables impact equally (if not more) on student success and throughput than academic (e.g. course materials, curriculum) factors.

5. The initial indications from the literature and the conceptual model, as well as the envisiged qualitative and quantitative actionable intelligence should provide the basis of a much more comprehensive understanding of the student experience, success & throughput at Unisa.

6. In turn, this should provide an important basis for fulfilling the objectives of the ODL model by helping to bridge the various distances between the student and success, throughput and a positive student experience.

Conclusion

Thank you!