The student experience of transition to university Sandra Winn, - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

The student experience of transition to university

Sandra Winn, Paula Wilcox, Sarah Pemberton, Dave Harley

School of Applied Social Science, University of Brighton

Contact: s.winn@bton.ac.uk

Outline of presentation

• Introduction

– Retention and student success – Retention and student motivation – Impact of material factors

• Aims and methods
• Findings

– Applying to university – Arriving and making contact with others – Experience of academic work – Personal circumstances and social location

• Conclusion and implications

Student retention (or ‘student success’)

• In the UK student retention has assumed

increasing prominence

• Retention is complex; rarely a single reason

for withdrawal. Factors include:

– those operating prior to entry – the academic experience – the social experience

• Retention more recently conceptualised by

HEFCE and researchers as ‘student success’

Student success and student motivation

• Student success requires study of both

completion and achievement

• Student motivation is a factor in both

– Retention: proactive decision-making in the application process (Ozga and Sukhnandan, 1998); commitment, motivation, long-term goal (Mackie, 2001) – Achievement: some evidence of a relationship between intrinsic motivation and academic success, but not straightforward; types of motivation linked to approaches to studying.

Psychological approaches to student retention

• Many of the learning and teaching strategies

suggested in the retention literature are motivation- enhancing approaches

• View of retention as a psychological issue (Bean and

Eaton, 2000; Yorke, 2004)

• Bean and Eaton’s model encompasses academic

and social integration, e.g. internal locus of control produces high motivation both to study and integrate socially

• But is at odds with much sociological analysis of

retention

Sociological approaches to student retention

• Macro-structural factors: age, socio-economic status,

etc.

• Financial factors?
• Accommodation, social support, ‘institutional habitus’

(Thomas 2002; Wilcox et al., 2005)

• Prescott and Simpson (2004)

– Utilize Herzberg’s theory of motivation – Motivators and ‘hygiene’ factors (or dissatisfiers) – Analysis restricted to academic environment

Aims and methods

• Explore both motivators and dissatisfiers (material

factors) in a cohort of students

• Extend Prescott and Simpson’s (2004) model to

include the social experience and the pre-entry stage

• Study of first year Applied Social Science students at

University of Brighton

• Qualitative interviews with 35 students who stayed

and 32 who left

• 15 of the ‘stayers’ interviewed three times to capture

the process of transition

Applying to university

• Lack of ownership of decision (external regulation)

Basically they’d ask, ‘Have you got your UCAS forms in?’ and we’d be like ‘No’ and we had to do them. We weren’t given any support about other options. All my friends were doing their UCAS forms and basically it was just a case of why not? (Stella, 18, left) I thought about having a gap year and my mum and boyfriend kind of swayed me against the idea, thinking that it would be better for me to go on in case I didn’t go back. … As soon as I got here I thought maybe this isn’t right for me, so I had doubts even before I was coming. (Rebecca, 18, left)

Applying to university

• Lack of other options (extrinsic motivation):

It was better to go to university than stay at home and do nothing. (Danielle, 18, stayed)

• Motivation unrelated to the degree:

I went there because my boyfriend is at Sussex University across the way. I wasn’t really interested in the course I was doing, or anything like that … I hadn’t even gone to an open day or looked round the uni before I got there, which is pretty ridiculous. (Nicole, 20, left)

Arriving at university and making friends

• Support from family (social support)

I was crying every day and ringing up my mum, but she was saying, ‘Oh stay for a bit’. So I am really glad that I stayed now. My mum didn’t let me come home for five weeks. So I stayed for five weeks, which I didn’t think I was going to be able to do … and I’m happy now. (Chantelle, 18, stayed)

• Social isolation (social support/material factor)

I was really willing to learn and I liked the lectures but it could be really lonely because although you’re with eight people, you were in your room by yourself. I thought I’m going to have to go to my room now and do nothing and sit there while everyone else is doing their own thing … I just hated that, it was really depressing. (Zoe, 20, left)

• Isolation was increased by living with boyfriend or

spending time with friends from home

Making friends

• Living with incompatible flatmates (material

factor)

I was thinking everyone’s going to go out all the time, every night, have a really good time. This is really silly but I remember it was so hard to get people to go out with me in my flat. That was a bit of a shock because I’m quite used to going out loads at home and I thought they’d be up for it because it was Freshers’, and students have such a reputation. So that was the only negative thing, it was nothing to do with the university, it was just the people. (Christine, 20, withdrew)

Academic work

• Difficulties with independent study.

Sometimes because motivation was extrinsic/externally regulated:

… you know how it is, you think you want to do it because you want to do it, but I probably would do it more for my parents and my family than

• myself. They haven’t put me under any pressure

to pass, but I don’t want to let them down sort of thing, and I just want to play hockey. (Daren, 19, stayed)

Academic work

• Lack of study skills (reduces intrinsic motivation)

It is so hard to read because it is not interesting and everything is referenced so much. It says about four words and then the reference cuts in and you’ve got to move down the line. It is so hard to read! (Billy, 18, stayed) And they said, ‘Right, week to week read your handbook, you will find out what’s happening’, then suddenly you turn

• ver the next page and it says, ‘Essay in next Friday’ and

everyone goes, ‘Oh wow’. But I don’t think many people realised that the first day we were at university we already had the essay title and the date it had to be handed in. They had it in their bags but they hadn’t looked at it. (Harry, 26, stayed)

Academic work

• Concepts of learning: didactic/reproductive beliefs

(Kember, 2001) (associated with extrinsic motivation)

… if we had handouts [in seminars], so you had something to refer to rather than just sitting in a circle and chatting and going home again. Because if you said, ‘What did you do in the seminar on Friday?’ I wouldn’t be able to remember because you never have anything to look back on. (Jane, 18, stayed)

• Small number of examples of deep learning

(associated with intrinsic motivation):

Once you’ve got the knowledge it starts to piece together after a while. I think that’s the point of it rather than just learning what you have to do to pass an assessment. And when you come to do the exams at the end it’s easier because you’ve made sure you understand things before you move on. (Sarah, 31, stayed)

Academic work

• Lack of motivation to study caused some to withdraw

I didn’t have the self-motivation to do it really. I’m more of a structured person, I need structure in my life where I can come into work, know exactly what I’m doing and I realise that and decided that it wasn’t for me. (Karen, 25, left)

• For others, study skills improved ‘in a complex and

untrackable way’ (Haggis and Pouget, 2002), e.g. Billy who initially had difficulty with reading:

So [the sociology exam] was all right and luckily two of the questions were socialisation, which is quite a big topic and we had done lots on it, and the other one was sociological theory of crime which ties in really well with the criminology … (Billy, 18, stayed)

Personal circumstances and social location

• Employment (material factor)

We only had to be [at university] Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday so I found myself saying to them, ‘Oh I will do lunch covers on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday’ and I would be working Thursday, Friday, Saturday and I would

• nly have Sunday off to do anything for uni and then in the

evenings I would be going to my other job. (Lisa, 21, left)

• Children (material factor)

By the time the little one went to bed at nine o’clock or half past eight, there was no way I wanted to study. Then at weekends I just wanted to chill out. (Pauline, 45, withdrew, three children)

Personal circumstances and social location

• Personal growth and developing independence

It was the first serious relationship I had ever had and laying in bed with him, knowing that I had lectures in an hour and just not wanting to be anywhere else but there. And then I was feeling really shitty … in the beginning it would be all affection and all positive and then it like just switched to the negative and there was still no room for the work. (Dan, 20, stayed) I am not the person I thought I was and I have become a different person at the same time. So elements of my personality that I thought I had, like jealousy, I am really not that jealous at all. It has done me a lot of good actually, given me a thicker skin, I am more headstrong and I know what I want. (Dan)

Conclusions

• Motivational issues are not restricted to the

teaching and learning context; they originate in (or prior to?) the application process

• For many students motivation-enhancing

techniques will aid academic integration

• But it is also important to recognise material

factors and social support issues which

• perate outside the academic environment

and may not be visible to tutors

Implications

• Pay more attention to the pre-entry stage

– Not just more or better information; needs more proactive intervention – Implications for schools and colleges

• Motivation-enhancing techniques will aid

academic integration

– Active engagement; group work; interesting/ ‘relevant’ content; make outcomes of seminars clear; early formative assessment; etc. – Explicit discussion (within modules) about the nature of learning in Higher Education

Implications

• Address social integration, which mainly

takes place outside the academic environment

– Accommodation: flexibility and choice. Difficult when most Halls of Residence are privatized – Social spaces on campus and in Halls – How to provide more opportunities for social interaction outside the course?

References

Bean, J. and Eaton, S. (2000) ‘A psychological model of college student retention’, in: Braxton, J. (Ed) Reworking the College Departure Puzzle: New Theory and Research on College Student Retention Nashville: University of Vanberbilt Press. Kember, D. (2001) ‘Beliefs about knowledge and the process of teaching and learning as a factor in adjusting to study in higher education’, Studies in Higher Education, 26 (2), pp. 205-221. Mackie, S. (2001) ‘Jumping the Hurdles - Undergraduate Student Withdrawal Behaviour’, Innovations in Education and Training International, 38 (3): 265-275. Ozga, J. and Sukhnandan, L. (1998) Undergraduate non-completion: developing an explanatory model Higher Education Quarterly 52(3), pp. 316-333. Prescott, A. and Simpson, E. (2004) ‘Effective student motivation commences with resolving “dissatisfiers”’, Journal of Further and Higher Education, 28 (3), pp. 248- 259. Thomas, L. (2002b) ‘Student retention in higher education: the role of institutional habitus’, Journal of Education Policy 17 (4), pp. 423-442. Wilcox, P., Winn, S. and Fyvie-Gauld, M. (2005) ‘“It was nothing to do with the university, it was just the people”: the role of social support in the first year experience of higher education’, Studies in Higher Education, 30 (4) in press. Yorke, M. (2004) ‘Retention, persistence and success in on-campus higher education, and their enhancement in open and distance learning’, Open Learning, 19 (1), pp. 19-32.