Widening participation, retention andattainment in higher education: an institutional case study of student experience
Karen Glanville, Alison Greenand Andrew Hannan*,
University of Plymouth, UK
*Corresponding author:
Professor A Hannan, Faculty of Education, University of Plymouth, Douglas Avenue, Exmouth, Devon, England, EX8 2AT
Email:
This paper is based on a conference paper entitled " Widening participation in HE: issues of retention and performance" presented at the Education, Participation and Globalisation Prague 2004 Conference, 20-22 May 2004
Abstract
This paper reports a project that was conducted in the academic year 2003/04 at a ‘new’ university in England. It focussed on the experiences of those from economically disadvantaged backgrounds undertaking full-time first degree courses, comparing them to their peers. It was concerned with 'young' students (those who were aged 21 and under at entry) who have been the target of recent widening participation initiatives, such as the Opportunity Bursary scheme. It involved a series of semi-structured interviews with first and second year students and an analysis of the university's student record database. The results from this case study challenge widespread assumptions about students from financially disadvantaged backgrounds being more difficult to retain, more demanding and less likely to succeed.
Keywords
Widening Participation; Retention; Attainment; Student Experience
Introduction
The emphasis in widening participation (WP) research in England has been on access to Higher Education (HE) rather than on the experience of those who become students. Surveys of students have been predominantly quantitative (eg UNITE, 2004). Those with a stronger qualitative element have tended to focus on members of those groups that are under-represented in HE without making comparisons with others (eg Archer et al., 2003). The research reported here attempted to combine quantitative and qualitative elements in a case study of an English university focussed on HE students from a range of backgrounds. It investigated the experiences of full-time first degree students who were aged 21 or under at entry.
The prevailing stereotype of those students who have been brought into HE as the result of efforts at WP is that they are more demanding, less likely to complete and generally less academically able than the more traditional entrants. For example, one study has claimed that the additional cost of support for recruitment, retention and progression for the average WP student amounted to as much as 35 per cent (Boxall et al., 2002). In addition, an evaluation report fromthe HE Consultancy Group and National Centre for Social Research (2003) suggested that those institutions that were best at recruiting students from under-represented backgrounds saw themselves as facing additional risks because these students were more likely to drop out of their courses. This was seen asparticularly significant as retention rates affectedan institution’s income and standing in the league tables. Thomas (2002) found that there was a temptation to link greater participation in HE with declining input standards, ‘to blame students for being poorly prepared for HE, and/or for lacking academic ability’ (p. 424) and to expect a rise in non-completion rates as a consequence of taking ‘risks’ in the admissions process. Ithas also been claimed, partly drawing on evidence from Scotland (Forsyth & Furlong, 2003), that WP students are less likely to take part in the full HE experience.
Views of WP students are also influenced by a set of theoretical constructs that together come close to implying that they suffer from a cultural ‘deficit’, although their proponents prefer the language of cultural ‘difference’. Thus, Bourdieu’s notion of ‘cultural capital’ has been used by researchers such as Archer et al. (2003) to help explain how young people from working-class backgrounds may be at a disadvantage when applying for HE. Bourdieu (1986) used this term to represent the collection of non-economic forces such as family background, social class, varying investments in and commitments to education, different resources, etc, which influence academic success. Trotman et al.(1998) used another of Bourdieu’s terms, that of ‘habitus’, to explain why many young people from working-class homes do not expect or aspire to continue to HE. Habitus can be understood as socially acquired, embodied systems of dispositions and/or predispositions, the combination in each person of their previous biography, their sense of identity/identities, their lifestyle, personality, class and cultural background, and their beliefs, attitudes and values. These concepts imply that those from the sorts of backgrounds targeted by WP initiatives, ie those from predominantly working class families without a history of involvement in HE and with relatively low incomes, would be likely to find the student experience somewhat strange. Their stock of cultural capital could be expected to be different from that required by HE. It could be hypothesised that they would be likely to find the prevailing habitus of those in academe at odds with their own sense of themselves. Thomas (2002) argues that there is such a thing as ‘institutional habitus’ and that although the dominant culture of HE favours the more privileged, in some universities it may actually benefit WP students meeting their needs and resulting in their high retention and success rates. However, according to Archer et al.(2003), those who did make it to university were apparently conscious of taking a number of risks, both financial (time spent not earning, or not earning as much as they might, to set against the possibility of higher earning in the future and the certainty of increased debt) and social (the threat to their class identity following alienation from their families and friends). For students from low-income families all this was likely to be exacerbated by their greater aversion to debt (Callender, 2003; Christie & Munro, 2003).
A number of empirical studies have shown that there has been an increase in the proportion of full-time students who work part-time throughout their course, which to some extent is attributable to the rising costs they have had to meet. Studies by the Centre for Higher Education Research and Information (2002) and Hunt et al. (2004) found that students in employment during their term-times were disproportionately from less well-off backgrounds and saw working as a way of keeping down borrowing. Callender & Wilkinson (2003) have shown that 20% of students’ income, on average, comes from part-time employment, a 48% rise on four years previously. Research suggests that almost half of all students undertake paid employment during their term-time (Blasko et al., 2002) with the hours worked ranging from 12½ to 40 per week for over 40% of students (Careers Research Advisory Centre, 2002). There have been a number of studies that claim that working during term-time has an adverse effect on students’ academic output (Barke et al., 2000; Lindsay & Paton-Saltzberg, 1993; Little & Van Dyke, 2003; Metcalf, 2003). However, many students in a study by Curtis and Shani (2002) stressed the positive effects of working, with the most important benefits being improvement of skills and building of confidence. Nevertheless, the prevailing conclusion is that beyond a certain limit (often seen as 16 hours per week), paid employment during term time for a supposedly full-time student is detrimental to their experience of HE.
In recent years the government has launched a series of initiatives with the aim of counteracting some of the problems of encouraging young people from financially disadvantaged backgrounds to apply to HE, of retaining them once they arrive and of providing an alternative to part-time employment as an extra source of income. One of these schemes was the ‘Opportunity Bursary’ (OB) introduced in 2001. Students were eligible for the bursary if they were 21 or under when starting their course, their family income was less than £20,000 per annum, neither of their parents had been to university and they had attended a school in an educational priority (Excellence in Cities or Educational Action Zone) area. In practice the last of these requirements was often waived if there were insufficient applicants who met this criterion. Successful applicants were given £1,000 at the start of their first year and £500 at the beginning of their two subsequent years – a total of £2,000. This was a pilot scheme that ran for just three years, but other schemes were developed to replace it once it began to be phased out. Increasingly institutions have been encouraged by the government to provide their own bursaries and from 2006 they will not be able to charge a higher rate of fees (up to £3,000) beyond the current level (£1,150 in 2004) unless they can prove that they are taking such WP measures. The research reported here was partly intended to follow up on a previous study that had monitored the impact of OBs (Hatt et al., 2005).
The project
This institutional case studyinvestigated the extent to which the HE experiences of students from those backgrounds targeted by WP initiatives were different from the experiences of others. This paper is based both on qualitative data collected by semi-structured interviews and on quantitative data available from institutionally held student records. It is thus possible to hear the authentic student ‘voice’ as expressed through responses to open-ended interview questions as well as making comparisons between students from different backgrounds in terms of their retention rates, progress and achievements. The institution at which the study was undertaken will be referred to in what follows as Yellowstone University. Yellowstonebecame a university in 1992, having previously been designated a polytechnic. It is one of the more prestigious of the post-1992 ‘new’ universities, with a strong reputation for research for an institution of its kind. Its location in a predominantly rural part of England has helped determine its character. A majority of its students (62.1% of undergraduate full-timers) are drawn from the surrounding area, which is mostly white. According to the 2001 Census the city in which the university’s major campus is based has a black and minority ethnic population of just 0.6%. Some effort has been made to increase the number of black and minority ethnic students, but numbers remain low relative to the national average (just 2.3% of Yellowstone’s full-time UK undergraduates compared to 15.2% of all undergraduates nationally). However, Yellowstone has a slightly above average record for WP with respect to social class andan excellent record in terms of its success in recruiting students with disabilities. According to HEFCE (2003), 28%of full-time first degree students aged 21 or under at entryin 2001/02 were from manual working class backgrounds (social classes IIIM, IV and V), compared to 26% for all UK institutions. 91% of these students were from state (public-funded) schools or colleges, compared to a national average of 86%. Also, 7.4% of full-time first degree students were in receipt of the Disabled Students Allowance (DSA) compared to 2.1% for all UK institutions.
The researchreported here took place over a thirteen-month period from October 2003. It focussed on the experiences of those from economically disadvantaged backgrounds undertaking full-time first degree courses, comparing them to their peers. It was concerned with 'young' students (those who were aged 21 or under at entry) who have been the target of recent WP initiatives. It compared those students with full fee support from their local authority to others in terms of their levels of attainment, their retention rates, the learning support they required, and the extent to which they were able to participate in university life. Information about all young first degree main campus students at the university (just over 3,000 students in each of the first and second years and just less than 2,300 in the final year) was taken from the institutional database. However, an important additional source of data was an interview survey of first and second year students from each faculty, 52 in total.
The institutional database has provided a wealth of information about Yellowstone’s students. It was decided to use the variable relating to fee support in order to investigate the impact of family financial circumstances on the student experience. This has also served as an approximate indicator of social class. Although this is far from perfect it is a much more reliable measure than the ‘social class’ field itself, which was very often incomplete. In 2002 students in higher education whose families earned less than £20,480 per year were entitled to full fee support, ie their local authority paid their annual fee of £1,075 on their behalf. If their combined parental income was above that level they had to make some contribution, with those from families earning more than £30,502 having to pay the full amount. In the year 2002/03, 38.6% of Yellowstone students on full-time first degree courses aged 21 or under at entry were given full fee support, 16.9% received partial support and 43.8% no support.
However,figures from the database were not in themselves sufficientfor a full picture of the student experience. To provide the necessary qualitative data 52 individual interviews were carried out, 27 with first year and 25 with second year students during the academic year 2003/04. Students from different financial backgrounds were interviewed so as to compare their experiences, again with fee support being used as a measure of backgroundand as an indicator of social class (see Table 1). All students interviewed were aged 21 or under at entry to the university as the focus of the project was on those targeted by WP initiatives such as the OB and in order to control for age-related differences. In order to get a reasonably representative sample, students from a major full-time first degree course in each faculty were invited to participate either by email or in person at start of their lectures. The intention was to obtain an even spread of students from each faculty (see Table 2) and a roughly equal number of males and females (see Table 1).
Table 1: Interviewees by gender and fee status
Gender / Male / 23Female / 29
Fee status / Full fee support / 21
No/partial fee support / 31
Table 2: Interviewees by faculty and fee status
Faculty / Full fee support / No/partial fee support / TotalEducation / 4 / 5 / 9
Social Science and Business / 6 / 7 / 13
Arts / 2 / 6 / 8
Technology / 3 / 4 / 7
Science / 6 / 3 / 9
Health and Social Work / 2 / 4 / 6
Total / 21 / 31 / 52
The sample of 52 interviewees contained six students who were receiving OBs (all but one of whom received full fee support, the exception being a borderline case favoured for having other indicators of financial disadvantage) and seven students who were living at home.
Findings from the institutional database
Retention
Tables 3 and 4 present three years of statistical data for Yellowstone University with regard to student retention. Here retention is measured by the number of students returning to the university for the subsequent academic year, with the percentage of those returning in each fee support category given in brackets.
Table 3: Retention rates of first year students
Year / Full Fee Support / Partial Support / No Support / OB Students2001/02 / 951
(86.4%) / 415
(88.1%) / 1319
(89.2%) / 55
(90.2%)
2002/03 / 1423
(86.2%) / 437
(87.2%) / 845
(87.1%) / 83
(92.2%)
2003/04 / 2022
(86.9%) / 437
(89.0%) / 939
(85.5%) / 70
(92.1%)
Table 4: Retention rates of second year students
Year / Full Fee Support / Partial Support / No Support / OB Students2001/02 / 930
(94.7%) / 438
(94.2%) / 1480
(94.9%) / n/a
2002/03 / 859
(93%) / 505
(95.6%) / 1507
(93.8%) / 53
(96.4%)
2003/04 / 1711
(90.7%) / 511
(93.1%) / 1198
(92.8%) / 71
(93.4%)
From these tables it would appear that those first year students with full fee support were somewhat more likely to drop out than those with partial or no support in both 2002 and 2003. In 2004 they were more likely to be retained than those with no support, but not than those with partial fee support. Logistic regression reveals that fee support is not a significant linear predictor of retention for either first or second year students for any of the three years. However, in all years OBs seem to have had a positive impact on retention. For second year students, the retention rate of those with full fee support was similar to the others in 2002, but slightly lower in both 2003 and 2004. Again, students with OBs were more likely to be retained. Overall, though, the differences in retention rates according to fee status are not large and the slight tendency towards a higher drop-out rate for first year students with full fee support compared to those with none does not hold for 2004. In any case, the hypothesis that students from financially disadvantaged backgrounds would be more likely to withdraw is contradicted by the case of students with OBs who have the highest retention rates, although their small numbers mean that no significance is found using logistic regression.
Performance
Final year performance was examined as the measure of ultimate achievement for those who completed their courses. The proportion of students obtaining First and Upper Second Class honours degrees was taken as the indicator of the highest level of outcome (the proportion obtaining Firsts alone being too small to serve this function alone). The figures in Table 5 provide some fascinating comparisons.
Table 5: Final year performance First and Upper Second honours degrees
Full support / Partial support / No support / OpportunityBursary
2001/02 / 403
(44.3%) / 177
(47.9%) / 450
(45.6%) / na*
2002/03 / 351
(49.1%) / 191
(47.3%) / 529
(46.4%) / na*
2003/04 / 391
(45.2%) / 225
(52%) / 509
(43%) / 21
(56.8%)
* Students with OBs were not eligible for final assessment until 2004.
On this basis it would seem that young students from financially disadvantaged backgrounds, ie those with full fee support, did less well than those with both partial and no fee support in 2001/02 and better than these in 2002/03. In 2003/04 the situation was more complicated. Those students with full fee support had a higher percentage of Firsts and Upper Seconds combined than those with no support (those from homes with the highest level of income), but not as high as those with partial fee support (parental income in the middle range). For all three years those students with partial fee support did better in these terms than those with no fee support. However, the more demanding statistical test of logistic regression shows that fee support is not a significant predictor of attainment for any of the three years.
2004 was the first year in which students with OBs completed their degrees, so the information given in Table 5 about their relatively high level of attainment must be treated with some caution. It should also be noted that although there were 53 students with OBs who progressed to the third year of their course only 37 of these were assessed for degree-level final awards in 2004. Of the others not then assessed for their final award, 12 were taking four-year degree programmes, one was ‘referred’, one was repeating a practice placement, one was awarded a sub-degree qualification (a Diploma of HE) and one had inexplicably dropped out of the data set and, possibly, the institution. Nevertheless, it is remarkable that the final year results of those students assessed in 2004 with OBs were the best of all.