Conditions for a successful first year

Conditions for a successful first year

Mantz [email protected]

University of Plymouth

24 February 2010

The story-line

Aspects of student success

‘The first-year student experience’: some evidence

What ‘student success’ implies for some aspects of teaching and learning in the first year

Some key points for the first-year curriculum

Q: What is higher education for?

A: Helping people to develop as ‘effective operators in the world’ (broadly in life as well as in employment)

… learning and skills are not just about work or economic goals. They are also about the pleasure of learning for its own sake, the dignity of self-improvement, the achievement of personal potential and fulfilment, and the creation of a better society.

DfES (2003) Realising our Potential: Individuals, Employers, Nation [Cm 5810], para 4.1

Professional formation and employability are keyaspects of higher education (but not the only ones)

Capable people have confidence in their ability to

~ take effective and appropriate action

~ explain what they are seeking to achieve

~ live and work effectively with others

~ continue to learn from their experience ...

Capable people not only know about their specialisms, they also have the confidence to apply their knowledge and skills within varied and changing situations and to continue to develop their specialist knowledge and skill ...

Based on Stephenson (1992)

Capability (an implicit definition of student success)

[A] set of achievements - skills, understandings and personal attributes - that make graduates more likely to gain employment and be successful in their chosen occupations …

Developed by the Enhancing Student Employability Co-ordination Team [ESECT]

A definition of employability

Phrased to reflect the politicians’ instrumentalism whilst bearing in mind the greater breadth of purpose expressed in ‘Capability’

Graduates at any level will be expected to have developed themselves as beginning or continuing professionals

Professional competence is complex

[The] mastery of requirements for effective functioning, in the varied circumstances of the real world, and in a range of contexts and organizations. It involves not only observable behaviour which can be measured, but also unobservable attributes including attitudes, values, judgemental ability and personal dispositions …

Worth Butler et al (1994, pp.226-7)

Some characteristics of a professional

• Operates autonomously (albeit within limits)

• Often works collaboratively

• Demonstrates trustworthiness

• Applies both academic and practical understandings …

• … but may not articulate all of how this is done

• Works integratively, sometimes on non-routine problems

• Applies metacognition (reflection; self-regulation; etc)

• Is committed to new learning, often via CPD

• Maintains standing as a professional

Panel from Metamorphosen by MC Escher

Developing as a professional

Is likely to involve a significant transformation

Acquiescence Autonomy

Kohlberg 1964Perry 1970 (reprinted 1998)King and Kitchener 1994Baxter Magolda 2009

Developing as a professional

Is likely to involve a significant transformation

Guiding learners through the transformation from authority dependence to self-authorship is a primary challenge for twenty-first century higher education

Baxter Magolda (2009, p.144)

Much will depend on the approach taken to teaching and learning: i.e. the inherent ‘quality’ of HE

The curriculum needs an organising framework

I offer you mine, but you may have a different one

An organising framework

The USEM account of employability

Four broad areas of student success that were developed in the context of employability, but arerelevant to capability and to learning in general.[Note that the social dimension is implicit]

Understanding

Skilful practices (subject-specific and generic)

Efficacy beliefs (and self-theories generally)

Metacognition (including reflection)

Effectiveness in the world,inc. employability

Subjectunder-standing

Meta-cognition

Skilfulpracticesin context

Personalqualities, includingself-theoriesand efficacybeliefs

E

S

U M

Is supported by both theory and empirical evidence• Hence there is an academic justification for it

Correlates with ‘good learning’• Much that goes on in HE is tacitly consistent with USEM• One task is to make the tacit overt (e.g. develop metacognition)• There already exists a substantial base on which to build

Is permissive rather than prescriptive, i.e. is flexible • It can accommodate disciplinary differences• It can accommodate differing kinds of student

Is not a knee-jerk response to ‘employer demand’

USEM

Some evidence from theUniversity of Plymouth...

... and, later, elsewhere

3.0

3.2

3.4

3.6

3.8

4.0

4.2

4.4

4.6

4.8

Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 Q6 Q7 Q8 Q9 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 Q19 Q20 Q21 Q22

Arts (527)Educ (340)H&SW (616)Sci (754)SocS&B (538)Tech (384)

Teaching Assessment Ac Supp Org&Man Lrn Res Pers Dev OvS

Now a short intermission...

3.0

3.2

3.4

3.6

3.8

4.0

4.2

4.4

4.6

4.8



Q1 What inferences about the students’ first-year experience can you draw from the survey data?

3.0

3.2

3.4

3.6

3.8

4.0

4.2

4.4

4.6

4.8



Q2 Are there any aspects of the experience that are missing from the survey that would be significant for the first-year experience? If so, what are they? [NB Health & Social Work asked the set of practice-relevant questions that are not shown on the slide.]

Faculty N ineligible to progress (%)

Arts 50 (5.07)

Education 20 (6.29)

Health 71 (8.00)

Science & Technology 79 (3.78)

Plymouth Business School 48 (4.76)

TOTAL 268 (5.00)

Progression

No clear correlation between ineligibility to progress and overall satisfaction

H&SW Tech Arts Sci SocS&B Educ 3.89 3.92 4.06 4.09 4.11 4.30

1. Transition

2. Induction / Rules of the game

3. Motivation and engagement

4. Formative assessment

5. The social dimension: staff/student, student/student

Five angles on the first-year experience

1 Transition

Aspects of transition

• Choosing a programme and an institution

• New-found freedom

New found freedom

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 (1999, p.32)

Aspects of transition

• Choosing a programme

• New-found freedom

• New environment (especially for international students)

• New kinds of demand

• Need to develop autonomy in learning

2 Induction / Rules of the game

Making the ‘rules of the game’ explicit

The main reason for leaving university was the vast contrast of teaching styles between university and college. […]

Male, U21, Humanities, Pre-1992 university, UK

• HE is for many a different kind of experience

What’s the game?

Frank: In response to the question, ‘Suggest how you would resolve the staging difficulties inherent in Ibsen’s Peer Gynt’, you have written . . . ‘Do it on the radio’ . . .

Rita: Precisely.

Frank: Well?

Rita: Well what?

Willy Russell: Educating Rita, Act 1 Scene 4.

Making the ‘rules of the game’ explicit

• HE is for many a different kind of experience

• Expectations are different (and grades may be lower)

• Self-directed study

• What might once have been OK may not now be OK

• Plagiarism

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Strongly Disagree Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly Agree

Pe

rce

nta

ge

0

10

20

30

40

50

60


Pe

rce

nta

ge

From the moment I enrolled I was helped to get off to a good start, academically

Staff made clear from the start what they expected from students

Data from UK FYE survey(In all the histograms, the ‘desirable’ endlies to the right)

3 Motivation and engagement

Low Low

Moderate

Motivationlevel

Engagementlevel

Teaching approach

High High

Motivation and engagement

Boredom

2003 YFCY findings … suggest that many remain disengaged from their coursework. Over 40% of the sample reported “frequently” feeling bored in class …

Keup & Stolzenberg (2004, p.15, emphasis in the original)

None 2% of respondents (N=211)

Some 39%Half 29%Most 27%All 3%

Mann & Robinson (2009, p.250)

Proportion of lectures seen as boring

Teaching methods, ranked by boredom

1 Laboratory work2 Computer sessions3 On-line lecture notes4 Copying overheads in lectures5 PowerPoint without handout6 Workshops7 Video presentations8 Group work outside lectures9 PowerPoint with handout10 Seminars11 Practical sessions12 Group discussions in lectures

Mann & Robinson (2009, p.250)

Most boring

Least boring

Interpret with care!

0

10

20

30

40

50

Strongly Agree Agree Neutral Disagree StronglyDisagree

Pe

rce

nta

geData from c.6900

1st yr FT students

Have not done background reading

0

10

20

30

40

50

Strongly Agree Agree Neutral Disagree StronglyDisagree

Pe

rce

nta

ge

Not as motivated as I should be

0

10

20

30

40

50

StronglyDisagree

Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly Agree

Pe

rce

nta

ge

Have done morethan the specified reading

Encouraging motivation

thx heaps 4 ur motivation email Chih (Week 11 Sem 1, 2003)

I just would like to say thank you for all those emails that you have been sending to us during the semester. They are very motivational, encouraging, funny and interesting. Being a mature age student and from a non-English speaking background I have experienced some moments when I thought that [it] was too hard and impossible to continue my university studies. However, I am still here and looking forward to the end of semester. Once again, thank you very much. Your encouraging words really helped me a lot. Maryana [19/05/03]

Kift (2004)

The potential for enthusiastic engagement in the curricula should be harnessed in the critical first days of the first weeks of the first year, thereby promoting a sense of belonging, so often missing for the contemporary learner.

Kift and Nelson (2005, p.229)

Strike whilst the iron’s hot

Promoting motivation

The assignments were fascinating, they made me think about where I am really heading with my studies and making a career in science.

This unit made me think more than any other unit I have ever done.

In my five years at uni., until this unit, I haven’t had any assignments that made use of my problem solving skills! Thanks!

It made me think and formulate ideas which I have never done extensively before in three years of uni.

Meyers et al (2004)

Q: Do your curricula generate feedback like this?

But what type of curriculum?

The holistic nature of learning suggests a clear need to rethink and restructure highly segmented departmental and program configurations and their associated curricular patterns.

Curricula and courses that address topics in an interdisciplinary fashion are more likely to provide effective educational experiences than are discrete courses accumulated over a student’s college career in order to produce enough credits for a degree.

Pascarella and Terenzini (2005, p.647)

4 Formative assessment

Vital for learning

Consistently seen as problematic in UK HE• Quality Assurance Agency reports• National Student Survey• University of Plymouth Survey

First-year students less positive in Australia than in UK

Formative assessment (feedback and feedforward)

0

10

20

30

40

50


Pe

rc

en

tag

e

Feedback on my work has been prompt

0

10

20

30

40

50


Pe

rc

en

tag

e

I have received detailed comments on my work

0

10

20

30

40

50


Pe

rc

en

tag

e

Feedback on my work has helped me in mylearning

Data from UK FYE survey

Feedback (and feedforward)

Vital for learning

Consistently seen as problematic in UK HE• Quality Assurance Agency reports• National Student Survey

First-year students less positive in Australia than in UK

Even when feedback is provided• students may not recognise it as such• they may not act on it• in part, curricular structures may be to blame

Slow feedback

The feedback on my assignments comes back so slowly that we are already on the topic after next and I’ve already submitted the next assignment. It’s water under the bridge, really.

I just look at the mark and bin it.

Collected by Graham Gibbs

I found that I did not learn anything from my mistakes as I was never told what they were.

Misko and Priest (2009, p.15)

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 Foundation Degree programme

Over 60 percent of all institutions collect and report midterm grades to first-year students, thereby giving them an important source of feedback on their academic performance. Some educators would argue that midterm feedback is too late …

Barefoot, in Upcraft et al (2005, p.55)

The need for feedback

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)

The need for feedback

Don’t leap to blame the victim!

See Hrabowski (in Upcraft et al, 2005, pp.130-1) for an example of a Chemistry department’s realisation that poorly-performing students needed more in the way of feedback

Supportive feedback

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)

Note the significance for the development of metacognition [M]

5 The social dimension

We think it is too impersonal, it’s not sufficiently interactive … the student experience can considerably be improved …

Alan Gilbert, President, University of ManchesterOn BBC Radio 4 ‘Beyond Westminster’, 15 August 2009

A socially-aware pedagogy

If contemporary students cannot (or choose not to) attend campus other than for formal sessions, then they miss out on the social benefit that can accrue from HE.

The social may have to be deliberately accentuated in curricula in order to generate ‘belongingness’ and informal networking.

Diversity in the student body strengthens the point.

Contact with academic staff

Importance widely acknowledged, also value for money considerations

Selected influences on student non-continuation, UK

How to make best use of an expensive resource?

Mid-1990s 2005 poss 2006-07Influence (ranked) left leaving left

Programme not as expected 1= 2 1

Teaching issues 5 3 2=

Lack of contact with staff 8 6 4

0

10

20

30

40

50

60


Per

cen

tag

e

0

10

20

30

40

50

60


Per

cen

tag

e

At least two members of the academic staff know me by name

The staff with whom I come into contact are friendly

Data from c6900 1st year students in the FYE study

Poor staff/student contact

I felt quite isolated in terms of studying. Lecturers spoke during lectures and then would leave the room, with no time for questions.

During my entire first year I never once met my personal tutor.

There seemed to be no interest in students’ personal needs.

I did NOT enjoy my experience what so ever, due to the lack ofsupport from staff. I was never introduced to my personal tutor and felt like a number – not a person in a new [overwhelming] environment. Not one of my tutors spoke to me as an individual …

Staff/student relations – negative comments(FYE survey)

Having a poor seminar tutor, who never seemed to get to know us, and never listened. Too many tutors for each subject, as they change after the 1st semester.

Communication with teachers, you can never find them, unless email them, not knowing who to ask help [from], not know where or who to get assignment and exam grades.

Hating the teaching staff as they are unhelpful. Be treated like I am 12 years old.

Students’ write-in comments: a statistical summary

(From the FYE survey)

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50

Accommodation-related

Induction

Resources & facilities

Personal matters

Social facilities

Independence

Teaching-related

Making new friends

Percentage of 5346 w ho commented

First-year experience – positive comments (FYE survey)

So...

3.0

3.2

3.4

3.6

3.8

4.0

4.2

4.4

4.6

4.8



Q3 On the evidence presented, and on any other evidence that you have, where might you focus efforts on enhancing the first-year experience? [The thrust of the question is on the student experience rather than on questionnaire ratings.]

1 Address needs of students. In the first year these are arguably more about learning to learn in higher education than anything else (as far as the cognitive is concerned)

2 Acknowledge students as individuals

3 Learning through as well as about the subject

4 Teaching for engagement. Not a simple continuation of school-based study: HE is different

5 Group-based study can ~ develop the social and ‘soft’ skills that are valued in ‘the world outside’ ~ help in forming friendship networks

6 Assessment, especially formative

First-year curriculum: some key points

7 Don’t think it’s all done if the first-year students pass

And one more

Documents

Conditions for a successful first year