SRHE Seminar: Black and Minority Ethnic Students’ Experiences and Attainment

Researching the causes of differential attainment

Duna Sabri

20 th March 2015 [email protected]

Overview

• • • • Causation : in HE discourse, applied research and theory Implications relation to: of different views of causation in – Curriculum – Familial context Attainment in context HEFCE project on causes of differential outcomes

Causation in HE discourse on attainment

• • Viewed through different lenses coloured by: Fears of reputational damage information requests and freedom of Assumptions about where the causes lie are expressed in the choice of language: ‘achievement’, ‘under-performance’ or ‘degree classification’?

Among activists: student attribute causes labelled ‘ deficit model ’ or ‘blaming the students’; institutional attribute causes branded ‘ institutional racism ’

Causation in research on attainment

Politicised polarisation between ‘individualised’ explanations (e.g. prior attainment) and structural (e.g campus environment) [Caplan & Ford 2014] ‘Were they pushed or did they jump?’ Gambetta [1987] explores tensions between intentional choice, causes beyond individual awareness, and structural constraints on behaviour.

Debates about structure and agency are political and have profound consequences for what is believed to be a worthwhile intervention.

What if… causation is an interplay between what a student brings and what an institution provides, understood through a dialogic process of investigation ?

What would constitute evidence interplay? Correlation demonstrated through: Experimental research designs with control groups Large-scale quantitative analysis BUT In social sciences oft repeated ‘negative advice’ that a correlation is not the same as causation [Gorard 2002] acts as a general warning to steer away from causal claims.

+ of that

Mechanisms [[Clarke et al 2014]

demonstrated through: Experience Observation BUT ‘psychologically compelling accounts’ do not constitute evidence [Clarke et al 2014] Context of elevation of ‘the student experience (Sabri 2013)

Combining statistical patterns with qualitative data

Gorard (2002:62) proposes: relatively stable association, a measurable effect from the intervention, and at least a tentative theoretical explanation… [cause] may operate at a distance… or come after effect.

Clarke et al (2014) argue for integration of evidence of correlation with evidence of mechanism, where accounts of mechanisms are graded.

Why is my curriculum White?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dscx4h2l-Pk

Curriculum (and staff diversity) as a product of interplay between structure and agency

‘Some students just don’t sign up to the intellectual project that is the course.’ [Sabri, D. (2014) Institutional research project]

How does the dialogue differ when tutor shares, or does not share, students’ cultural norms or references?

…I have disagreed with my feedback – in dissertation tutor said it was a good question but too broad. Had to be narrowed down… feedback wasn’t introducing me to new things to take it another level. It was limited. Other students had two pages of notes – bombarded with suggestions. I did ask if this question would be good. Will I have stuff to write about it?

Another time I got a really high grade – don’t understand why

. I thought the more you wrote the higher the grade so I was looking for a question where I could write a lot of references.

Researcher: Did you look for a topic that you were really interested in writing about?

I couldn’t do that, there wasn’t enough dialogue. I didn’t want to take the

risk

and the tutor didn’t help with the choice. Tutor stance: ‘Students set the agenda in feedback’. BUT interpretation of agenda is pivotal.

[Sabri, D. 2014, Feedback and Assessment Project, post-92 University]

Subject group for 2003-4 entrants: HEFCE 2010/13 Subject group White Black Pakistani & Bangladeshi Chinese Indian & other Asian Mixed & other Creative arts Foreign languages 20,160 6,695 4% 515 95 2% 175 65 1% 225 50 2% 550 155 !% 635 280 5% Humanities Business 34,430 30,275 610 1,345 (27%) 665 1,340 135 645 900 3,115 930 1,030 Science 44,830 (26%) 1,105 2,225 (36%) 710 (30%) 3,655 (32%) 1,235 (24%) Engineering & architecture 11,745 365 410 310 865 335 Other Total 23,835 171,965 915 4,945 1,365 6,245 280 2,350 2,160 11,395 710 5,155 By contrast, Woodfield (2014) analyses make up of disciplines by ethnicity, retention & attainment

Interplay between familial contexts and HE How are the different disciplines historically and socially situated in different ethnic groups? And conversely, how do the disciplines situate different ethnicities?

Interplay

between familial and HE experience. Material and other cumulative (dis)advantage can be traced throughout student cycle from ‘choice’, through to attainment and (un)employment What aspects of university provision – from admission to curriculum to graduation - make assumptions about students’ familial context, resources and motivations?

Putting attainment into context

• • • • Four outcomes from HE attaining a degree attaining a first or upper second class degree attaining a degree and continuing to employment or further study attaining a degree and continuing to graduate employment (as opposed to any employment) or further study. Source: HEFCE 2013/15 Higher Education and Beyond

Causes of differences in h igher education student outcomes A HEFCE-commissioned project

Research team

Anna Mountford-Zimdars, King’s College London Duna Sabri, King’s College London Joanne Moore, ARC Network John Sanders, ARC Network Steven Jones, Manchester University

Methodology: An iterative relationship between research strands

• Identifying patterns of difference (using existing analyses and working with HEFCE to extend these) • Meta-analyses of academic and ‘grey’ literature • Stakeholder interviews • International expert reviews • Institutional case studies

Implications of causation theory for HEFCE project

• • • What assumptions about causes are prevalent in the literature? And among stake-holders?

What do these assumptions mean for the kinds of interventions that are proposed?

– Targeted and universal interventions – Different levels of student involvement What are the challenges of evaluation, especially, when assumptions are left implicit?

Further information

http://www.hefce.ac.uk/whatwedo/wp/current/differential/ Project director: Anna Mountford Zimdars: [email protected]

Contact Duna Sabri about institutional research [email protected]

References

Caplan, P. J., & Ford, J. C. (2014). The voices of diversity: What students of diverse races/ ethnicities and both sexes tell us about their college experiences and their perceptions about their institutions’ progress toward diversity. APORIA, 6(3), 30–69.

Clarke, B., Gillies, D., Illari, P., Russo, F., & Williamson, J. (2014). Mechanisms and the evidence hierarchy. Topoi, 33(2), 339-360.

Gambetta, (1987) Were they pushed or did they jump? Individual decision mechanisms in education, Cambridge, CUP Gorard,S. (2002) The Role of Causal Models in Evidence-informed Policy Making and Practice, Evaluation & Research in Education, 16(1), 51-65 Sabri, D (2011) What’s wrong with ‘the student experience’? Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 32(5) Woodfield, R (2014) Undergraduate retention and attainment across the disciplines, York: HEA