Transcript Document

Promoting student success
Mantz Yorke
Liverpool John Moores University
[email protected]
London South Bank University
21 January 2005
The general plan
1. Policy context
2. Retention/completion
3. What the Action on Access studies found
4. Formative assessment
5. Employability
6. Who can do what? (Emphasis on institutions)
The ‘impossible pentagon’
Five policy ‘desirables’
• Widened participation
• High completion rates
• Higher quality of HE provision
• Higher standards of student performance,
including employability
• Lower cost
What drives institutions?
Fear of poor performance indicator statistics?
Funding streams?
Desire to enhance students’ achievement?
% non-continuation, 02-03, English HEIs
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
% SEG IIIm - V, 01-02
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
% non-continuation, 02-03, English HEIs
30
25
20
15
10
LSBU
5
0
% SEG IIIm - V, 01-02
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
% non-continuation, 02-03, English HEIs
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
% SEG IIIm - V, 01-02
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
% non-continuation, 02-03, English HEIs
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
% SEG IIIm - V, 01-02
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
% non-continuation, 02-03, English HEIs
30
25
r = 0.65
20
15
10
LSBU
5
0
% SEG IIIm - V, 01-02
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
US degree attainment rates
Institution type
% completing bachelor’s degree
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
Why do students leave?
Yorke 1999a
Davies & Elias 2003
N = 2151 FT/SW
Response rate 32%
N = 1510 FT/SW
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?
Yorke 1999a
Davies & Elias 2003
N = 2151 FT/SW
Response rate 32%
N = 1510 FT/SW
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
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)
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).
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)
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)
Academic
experiences
Pre-entry
attribute
s
Intentions,
goals,
commitments
Social
experiences
I
n
t
e
g
r
a
t
i
o
n
Intentions,
goals,
commitments
Departure
decision
Tinto, 1993
Entry
Ch’cs
Envir
Interact
Initial
Attribs
Normat
Beliefs
Coping
Strategs
Motiv’n
Skills &
Abilities
Intermed
Outcomes
Attitudes
Acad
Integ &
Perf
Inst’l
Fit
Intent’n
Behav
Institutional Environment
Past
Behav
Person’y
Psychological
Process Outcome
Self-Eff
+ve
S-E
Bureau
Academ
Social
Coping
Process:
Approach
/ Avoid’ce
Stress
&
Confid
External
Attribs:
L of C
Internal
Attrib &
Motiv
Intent
to
Persist
Social
Integ
Persist
Loyalty
to Inst
Bean & Eaton, 2000
Problems with models
• Slippery concepts and terminology
• Multiple theories
• Varied foci of attention
• Linearity
• Rationality
• Predictiveness
Weak empirical support
Academic
experiences
Pre-entry
attribute
s
Intentions,
goals,
commitments
Social
experiences
I
n
t
e
g
r
a
t
i
o
n
Intentions,
goals,
commitments
Stronger empirical support
Departure
decision
Adventitious
happenings
Psych of
Indiv
Institutional
context
Broader
society
Understanding
I meant, there’s no end to understanding a person
All one can do is understand them better,
To keep up with them; so that as the other changes
You can understand the change as soon as it happens
Though you couldn’t have predicted it.
TS Eliot ‘The confidential clerk’
Action on Access
Studied what HEIs with high proportions of
‘WP students’ were doing
6 HEIs that were beating retention benchmarks
9 other HEIs with high WP levels
Action on Access studies
Demonstrated the potential in
• Commitment to the student experience
• Pre-entry and early engagement with students
• Curricula attuned to widened participation
• Making the curriculum a social arena
• Allocating resources preferentially to 1st year
• Emphasising formative assessment, esp. in Sem. 1
Work on
• formative assessment
• employability
offers some pointers
Formative assessment …
implies no more (and no less) than a discerning
judgement about [a] learner’s progress; it is ‘on-going’
in the sense that it goes on all the time; and it is
formative in so far as its purpose is forward-looking,
aiming to improve future learning (as distinct from
the retrospective nature of summative assessment).
Greenwood et al. (2001, p.109)
A typology of formative assessment
From
Formal
Informal
Probably the main
approach in HE
Where circumstances
permit
Peers
Via peer assessment
activities
Over coffee or in
the bar
Others
Problems if assessor
is mentor, supervisor
In work-based
situations
Only if an assessment
requirement
Where student is
acting self-critically
Teachers
Self
Formative assessment
Black and Wiliam’s meta-analysis showed
a size effect of 0.7
… formative assessment does improve learning …
The gains in achievement [are] among the largest
ever reported for educational interventions.
Black and Wiliam (1998, p.61)
Weaknesses (Subject Review etc.)
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, Learning
from higher education in further education colleges in England
and QAA (2003) Review of 33 Foundation Degrees
Towards greater autonomy
From
Formal
Informal
Probably the main
approach in HE
Where circumstances
permit
Peers
Via peer assessment
activities
Over coffee or in
the bar
Others
Problems if assessor
is mentor, supervisor
In work-based
situations
Only if an assessment
requirement
Where student is
acting self-critically
Teachers
Self
Employability
Its development is aligned with good learning, and
hence with the development of student success
The four-component USEM approach has been found
useful in thinking about student development
USEM
U
Understanding of subject and broader situations
S
Skilful practices in subject, employment and life
E
Efficacy beliefs and personal qualities
M
Metacognition
S
USEM
Skilful
practices
in context
Employability;
broader
personal
effectiveness
E
Personal
qualities,
including
self-theories
and efficacy
beliefs
Subject
understanding
Metacognition
U
M
Some 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
…
This theoretical plurality suggests why
simplistic attempts to improve student
success are unlikely to be successful
This theoretical plurality suggests why
simplistic attempts to improve student
success are unlikely to be successful
There is no simple causality
Evidence for E and M: effect sizes
Meta-analyses
Size
N studies
Self-system (E of USEM)
0.74
147
Metacognition (M)
0.72
556
Marzano (1998)
Who can do what?
• The system
• Institutions
• Students
The system
• Operate a post-qualification admissions system
• Do not over-privilege research
• Use the QA system to ensure threshold quality
• Relax about completion statistics
• Make student funding system simpler
• Ensure that policy initiatives do not conflict
What can institutions do?
Wrong choice
Academic difficulties
Financial problems
Poor student experience
Dislike environment
Poor institutional provision
What can institutions do?
• Assist student decision-making
• Enhance the student experience
• Promote student engagement
• Help students to cope with the demand…
• … and with failure
• Deal sympathetically with adventitious events
Student decision-making
• Provide good information to prospective students
• Welcome all students in the information provided
• Recruit realistically
• Advise according to the student’s best interests
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
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/level relatively resource-rich
Helping students to cope
• Respond to students’ existing knowledge-level
• Ensure that students know what is expected
• Use formative assessment early
• See failure as a developmental opportunity
• Be supportive when disaster strikes
• Understand the pressures on today’s students
What students should do
• Choose programmes wisely and unhurriedly
• If uncertain, take time out
• Be motivated towards their programmes, & engage
• Understand that regurgitation is not enough
• Take note of, and act on, formative assessments
• Be prepared for low initial grades
• Use poor performance as a stimulus for learning
Remember
that change is easy to propose
Remember
that change is easy to propose
but
not so easy to implement
Epilogue
Institutions cannot guarantee student success, not
least because students have to contribute their effort
Epilogue
Institutions cannot guarantee student success, not
least because students have to contribute their effort
We can, however, ‘bend the odds’ in favour of success
Epilogue
Institutions cannot guarantee student success, not
least because students have to contribute their effort
We can, however, ‘bend the odds’ in favour of success
We have to act with intelligence in the ways in which
we design our educational provision, and in the ways
in which we respond to our students’ needs