promoting student success mantz yorke liverpool john moores university m.yorke@livjm.ac.uk london...
Post on 20-Dec-2015
216 Views
Preview:
TRANSCRIPT
Promoting student success
Mantz YorkeLiverpool John Moores University
m.yorke@livjm.ac.uk
London South Bank University21 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?
30
25
20
15
10
5
00 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
% non-continuation, 02-03, English HEIs
% SEG IIIm - V, 01-02
30
25
20
15
10
5
00 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
% non-continuation, 02-03, English HEIs
% SEG IIIm - V, 01-02
LSBU
30
25
20
15
10
5
00 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
% non-continuation, 02-03, English HEIs
% SEG IIIm - V, 01-02
30
25
20
15
10
5
00 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
% non-continuation, 02-03, English HEIs
% SEG IIIm - V, 01-02
30
25
20
15
10
5
00 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
% non-continuation, 02-03, English HEIs
% SEG IIIm - V, 01-02
r = 0.65
LSBU
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 57.6Astin & Oseguera 2002
Yorke 1999a Davies & Elias 2003
N = 2151 FT/SW N = 1510 FT/SWResponse 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?
Yorke 1999a Davies & Elias 2003
N = 2151 FT/SW N = 1510 FT/SWResponse 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?
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)
Intentions,goals,
commitments
Academicexperiences
Social experiences
Integration
Intentions,goals,
commitments
Departuredecision
Pre-entryattribute
s
Tinto, 1993
Entry Envir Psychological Intermed Attitudes Intent’n BehavCh’cs Interact Process Outcome Outcomes
PastBehav
Person’y
InitialAttribs
NormatBeliefs
CopingStrategs
Motiv’n
Skills &Abilities
Bureau
Academ
Social
External
Self-Eff
CopingProcess:Approach/ Avoid’ce
Attribs:L of C
+veS-E
Stress &Confid
InternalAttrib &Motiv
AcadInteg &Perf
SocialInteg
Inst’lFit
Loyaltyto Inst
Intentto Persist
Persist
Institutional Environment
Bean & Eaton, 2000
Problems with models
• Slippery concepts and terminology
• Multiple theories
• Varied foci of attention
• Linearity
• Rationality
• Predictiveness
Intentions,goals,
commitments
Academicexperiences
Social experiences
Integration
Intentions,goals,
commitments
Departuredecision
Pre-entryattribute
s
Weak empirical support
Stronger empirical support
Psych ofIndiv
Institutionalcontext
Adventitioushappenings
Broadersociety
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’
Understanding
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
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
Action on Access studies
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
Probably the mainapproach in HE
Where circumstancespermit
Via peer assessmentactivities
Over coffee or inthe bar
Problems if assessoris mentor, supervisor
In work-basedsituations
Only if an assessmentrequirement
Where student is acting self-critically
From Formal Informal
Teachers
Peers
Others
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
Probably the mainapproach in HE
Where circumstancespermit
Via peer assessmentactivities
Over coffee or inthe bar
Problems if assessoris mentor, supervisor
In work-basedsituations
Only if an assessmentrequirement
Where student is acting self-critically
From Formal Informal
Teachers
Peers
Others
Self
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
Employability
U Understanding of subject and broader situations
S Skilful practices in subject, employment and life
E Efficacy beliefs and personal qualities
M Metacognition
USEM
Employability;broader personal effectiveness
Subjectunder-standing
Meta-cognition
Skilfulpracticesin context
Personalqualities, includingself-theoriesand efficacybeliefs
E
S
U M
USEM
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 whysimplistic attempts to improve studentsuccess are unlikely to be successful
This theoretical plurality suggests whysimplistic attempts to improve studentsuccess 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
• 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
What can institutions do?
• Provide good information to prospective students
• Welcome all students in the information provided
• Recruit realistically
• Advise according to the student’s best interests
Student decision-making
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
• 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
The student experience: academic
• 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
Helping students to cope
• 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
What students should do
that change is easy to propose
Remember
that change is easy to propose
but
not so easy to implement
Remember
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
Epilogue
top related