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Increasing the chances of student success in the first year of full-time study Mantz Yorke mantzyorke@mantzyorke.plus.co

Increasing the chances of student success in the first year of full-time study Mantz Yorke mantzyorke@mantzyorke.plus.com University of Leeds 11 January 2006. The ‘impossible pentagon’. Five policy ‘desirables’ Widened participation High completion rates Higher quality of HE provision

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Increasing the chances of student success in the first year of full-time study Mantz Yorke mantzyorke@mantzyorke.plus.co

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  1. Increasing the chances of student successin the first year of full-time studyMantz Yorkemantzyorke@mantzyorke.plus.comUniversity of Leeds11 January 2006

  2. The ‘impossible pentagon’ • Five policy ‘desirables’ • Widened participation • High completion rates • Higher quality of HE provision • Higher standards of student performance • Lower cost

  3. Neither award nor transfer, % Projected outcomes Year began 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 UK all 16 16 16 16 15 14 14 England 16 16 16 16 15 14 14 Scotland 17 16 16 17 17 16 18 Wales 16 16 14 15 14 15 16 N. Ireland 13 11 13 11 12 12 15 HEFCE/HESA PIs

  4. Non-continuation at same HEI, % All FT first degree entrants Year began 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 UK all 13 12 13 12 12 12 12 England 13 12 13 12 11 12 12 Scotland 13 12 12 13 13 13 13 Wales 12 13 11 12 11 14 15 N. Ireland 9 9 15 10 10 12 12 HEFCE/HESA PIs

  5. Leeds 10.6% of 6830 FT u/g entrants to Leeds are mature 19.6% of 5145 young FT first degree entrants are from NS-SEC classes 4-7, compared with the HESA location-adjusted benchmark of 24.1% Data from HESA PIs

  6. Russell Group Leeds Pre-1992, not Russell Post-1992 % non-continuation English universities 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 % NS-SEC classes 4-7 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 HESA Performance Indicators

  7. US degree attainment rates % completing bachelor’s degree Institution type within 4 years within 6 years Private university 67.1 79.6 Public university 28.1 57.7 Public college 24.3 47.4 Nonsectarian college 56.3 66.2 Catholic college 46.4 60.2 Other Christian college 51.0 61.3 All 36.4 57.6 Astin & Oseguera 2002

  8. What are PIs for? • Judging institutions • But is the methodology even-handed? • What about PT students? • Would a ‘per module success rate’ be fairer? • Encouraging institutions to improve provision • Informing the public • directly • indirectly, via ‘league tables’ • International comparisons (OECD statistics)

  9. What drives institutions? Fear of poor retention/completion statistics? Funding streams? Desire to enhance students’ achievement? To focus on retention is to focus on symptom rather than on cause

  10. Yorke 1999a Davies & Elias 2003 N = 2151 FT/SW N = 1510 FT/SW Response rate 32% Response rate 10% Wrong choice Wrong choice Academic difficulties Financial problems Financial problems Personal problems Poor student experience Academic difficulties Dislike environment Wrong institution Poor institutional provision Why do students leave?

  11. Voices 1 My A-levels were geared towards accounts and economics, and I just carried on in that direction and didn’t think of anything else. I should have researched it all a bit more. ‘HD’, in Davies & Elias (2003, p.32) … I wasn’t having a particularly happy time personally and I just thought I’ll do what the school says, and once I actually got to it [the institution] I realised that maybe it wasn’t the only option and maybe I could be happier doing something else … ‘Irene’, in Longden (2001, p.30)

  12. Voices 2 Academic staff, on occasions, had a tendency to project themselves as being very pushed for time, stressed out and could not fit you into their timetable of work. No matter who you turned to, or when you seeked (sic) someone’s aid, they seemed to be busy. Student reading Science, in Yorke (1999a, p.40).

  13. Voices 3 My main reason for leaving was finance. I soon realised that once I had paid my rent for the year, I would have no money left. Didn’t want to leave the university owing ’000s of £. So got a job. Student reading Humanities, in Yorke (1999a, p.44) … I was forced to work PT which ate into my studying time and my relaxation time. This generated a lot of stress for me … My commitment to the course was affected. I didn’t feel that studying an Art degree subject with little career/job assurance justified the severe three-year struggle required to achieve it. Student reading Art and Design, in Yorke (1999a, p.45)

  14. Voices 4 I was amazed by the ‘big city’. I started clubbing regularly, took more and more drugs, became increasingly more ill, lost weight, became paranoid. I messed up in a very big way. One minute I was on top, the next rock bottom. I came from a cushioned background and believe if I had maybe waited a year or two and learnt more about the reality of life, then it would have been a different story. Student reading joint Arts and Social Science, in Yorke (1999b, p.32)

  15. Levels of action • The system • Institutions • Organisational units • Students

  16. What can institutions/schools do? • Assist student decision-making • Enhance the student experience (curriculum, pedagogy, other aspects) • Promote student engagement • Help students to cope with the demand… • … and with failure • Deal sympathetically with adventitious events • Ask students about their experience of HE

  17. The student experience: general • Be welcoming • Engage with students before they arrive • Encourage a sense of belonging • Make induction effective • Provide a ‘one stop shop’ for support services • Help students to become ‘streetwise’ • Treat HE as a predominantly social process • Promote the development of teaching expertise

  18. High-performing US institutions • Focus on getting students engaged, especially in their first year • Have a genuine emphasis on the quality of undergraduate teaching and learning • Ensure that academics and administrators monitor student learning, taking advantage of the power of modern data systems, and use monitoring for helping individual students and for developing policy and practice • Have leaders who make student success a top institutional priority – and stick with it Carey (2005)

  19. The student experience: academic • A culture of learning • Programme structures likely to engender success • Teaching approaches likely to engender success • Assessment for learning • Make the 1st year relatively resource-rich • Usefulness of the ‘employability literature’? (contrast Barnett & Coate, 2005, with ESECT re curriculum)

  20. The virtue of small steps … I found having large blocks of work without assessment difficult – you don’t know if you are grasping it or not until exam time! Assignments weekly would be better from my point of view. Female in her 30s, pursuing a science-based FD programme The less individuals believe in themselves, the more they need explicit, proximal, and frequent feedback of progress that provides repeated affirmations of their growing capabilities. Bandura (1997, p.217)

  21. Teaching for engagement • ‘Get stuck in’ early • Give early feedback on progress • Find ways of giving reasonably regular feedback… • … and of ensuring that students act on it • ‘Active learning’ • Exploit the social side of learning • Foster a sense of ‘belonging’

  22. S USEM Skilful practices in context Employability; broader personal effectiveness E Personal qualities, including self-theories and efficacy beliefs Subject under- standing Meta- cognition M U

  23. UUnderstanding Understanding of subject matter is a normal expectation Understanding of how individuals, organisations and ‘the world’ work may not be an expectation in some (especially non-vocational) curricula

  24. S Skilful practices in context In the context of the subject discipline, and also in workplaces and more general life-situations … the ability to leave your office and go and face people in the community, not knowing how those people will be in terms of their social situation, their mental health and also how they’re going to perceive you and deal with that social work jargon … [It] only comes with practical experience […] you don’t need a social work qualification … to be able to think about how people function under stress, under difficult situations Experienced social worker (Knight & Yorke 2004, p.61)

  25. E Efficacy beliefs and personal qualities • Importance of motivation to learn and achieve • (but the desire to ‘perform’ may militate against • successful learning) • Capacity to learn from misfortune, error, criticism • Belief in the ‘developability’ of intelligence, etc • Belief that one can ‘make a difference’ • Importance of emotions in learning… • … and in working with others • Academic and practical intelligence success

  26. M Metacognition • Possession of general strategies for learning, thinking • and problem-solving • Capacity to differentiate between tasks, recognising • that variation in difficulty is likely to require • different cognitive strategies • Awareness of how one tackles tasks and learns • Self-regulation

  27. Understanding and Skilful practices are • important; so are Efficacy beliefs and • Metacognition • Foci • Working on the student’s ‘self-system’ [E] • Supporting the development of metacognition [M] • Approach • Emphasising formative assessment

  28. Meta-analyses: effect sizes on learning Effect size Self-system (Marzano 1998) 0.74 Metacognition (Marzano 1998) 0.72 Formative assessment (Black & Wiliam 1998)0.70 The gains in achievement [are] among the largest ever reported for educational interventions. Black and Wiliam (1998, p.61)

  29. A typology of formative assessment From Formal Informal Probably the main approach in HE Where circumstances permit Teachers Peers Others Self Via peer assessment activities Over coffee or in the bar In work-based situations Problems if assessor is mentor, supervisor Only if an assessment requirement Where student is acting self-critically

  30. AcquiescenceAutonomy Kohlberg 1964 Perry 1970 (reprinted 1998) King and Kitchener 1994

  31. Supportiveness Students observed that feedback was given in such a way that they did not feel it was rejecting or discouraging . . . [and] that feedback procedures assisted them in forming accurate perceptions of their abilities and establishing internal standards with which to evaluate their own work Mentkowski and Associates (2000, p.82)

  32. Weaknesses (Subject Review) In 49 per cent of cases, marking systems could be improved particularly in respect of feedback to students. This sometimes lacked a critical edge, gave few helpful comments and failed to indicate to students ways in which improvement could be made. QAA (2001, para 28: Subject overview report, Education) See also QAA (2004) ‘Learning from Subject Review’

  33. Gibbs et al (2003) Conditions 1-4 • Assessment tasks • Indicate clear and high expectations • Lead to productive activity • Capture enough study time • Are spread out evenly

  34. Gibbs et al (2003) Conditions 7-11 • Feedback • Is sufficient (in frequency; detail) • Is provided quickly enough to be useful • Focuses on learning rather than on marks • Is linked to assessment task specification • Makes sense to students • Is received by students and attended to • Is acted upon, to improve work and/or learning

  35. Weak empirical support I n t e g r a t i o n Academic experiences Intentions, goals, commitments Intentions, goals, commitments Pre-entry attributes Departure decision Social experiences Stronger empirical support after Tinto (1997)

  36. Entry Envir Psychological Intermed Attitudes Intent’n Behav Ch’cs Interact Process Outcome Outcomes Institutional Environment Past Behav Person’y Initial Attribs Normat Beliefs Coping Strategs Motiv’n Skills & Abilities +ve S-E Stress & Confid Internal Attrib & Motiv Self-Eff Coping Process: Approach / Avoid’ce Attribs: L of C Acad Integ & Perf Social Integ Inst’l Fit Loyalty to Inst Bureau Academ Social External Intent to Persist Persist Bean & Eaton, 2000

  37. Some other relevant theorists Bourdieu & Passeron (1977): cultural and social capital Flavell (1979): metacognition Salovey & Mayer (1990): emotional intelligence Pintrich & Schunk (1996): motivation Bandura (1997): self-efficacy Sternberg (1997): practical intelligence Dweck (1999): self-theorising Biggs (2003): constructive alignment in pedagogy …

  38. Problems with models • Slippery concepts and terminology • Multiple theories • Varied foci of attention • Linearity • Rationality • Predictiveness

  39. The theoretical plurality suggests why simplistic attempts to improve student success are unlikely to be successful There is no simple causality

  40. Adventitious happenings Psy of Indiv Instit’l context Broader society

  41. Epilogue We cannot guarantee student success, because students have to contribute their effort We can, however, ‘bend the odds’ significantly in favour of success if our approach to ‘the student experience’ is informed by theory and empirical evidence.

  42. Some references Gibbs G, Simpson C & Macdonald R (2003) Improving student learning through changing assessment – a conceptual and practical framework. Paper given at the EARLI Conference, Padova. At www.open.ac.uk/science/fdtl/documents/earli-2003.pdf HESA Performance indicators 2003-04. At www.hesa.ac.uk/pi/home.htm Knight PT and Yorke M (2003) Assessment, learning and employability. Maidenhead: SRHE and Open University Press. Yorke M and Longden B (2004) Retention and student success in higher education. Maidenhead: SRHE and Open University Press. The series Learning and Employability, published by the HE Academy, contains some relevant material even though its focus is on employability. It can be found by searching under ‘employability’ at www.heacademy.ac.uk/resources.asp. Unfortunately, the L&E items are not flagged as such.

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