HERE Project interim report 2009 10

What works? Student Retention and Success Programme: Interim
report headings 2009-10

Please submit your project interim report by 1st October 2010 to:
inclusion@heacademy.ac.uk. Each project report should be no more than
10,000 words long. Please use single space and 12 point Arial. Please use
headings, so that your report can be navigated using a document map.

If you wish to make use of institutional data which is not currently available,
this should be indicated in the main report, and supplied as a data annex by
28th January 2011 to: inclusion@heacademy.ac.uk.

THE HERE Project

What Works? Student Retention & Success Programme Interim Report
The HERE Project page 1 of 44

1. Introduction
This should be a short section and should cover any changes (if any) to
your institutional context(s) and staffing arrangements in 2009-10.

The HERE Project is a collaborative research exercise operating in three
universities:

• Nottingham Trent University (NTU)
• Bournemouth University (BU)
• University of Bradford (UoB)

The HERE Project has concentrated on investigating two areas of work:

• What can we learn from those students who have doubts, but stay?

• What, if anything, can individual programme teams do to impact
upon retention rates?

Project Team


Institution Staffing
Nottingham Trent University Ed Foster, Study Support Coordinator
(project lead)
Sarah Lawther, Learning & Teaching
Officer, (employed to conduct research)

Two staff were engaged for short term
specific tasks
• Dr Nick Foard, to conduct statistical
analysis of the Student transition
Survey
• Zoe Hollingsworth to conduct data
analysis
Bournemouth University Christine Keenan, Learning & Teaching
Fellow (institutional lead)
Natalie Bates, Research Assistant

University of Bradford Becka Currant, Dean of Students,
(institutional lead)
Ruth Lefever, Research Associate

Changes during 2009-10

Bournemouth University
The team at Bournemouth has remained the same throughout 2009-10.

University of Bradford
The last member of the core team, Ruth Lefever, joined in October 20091. In
September 2009, Becka Currant was promoted to her current role as Dean of
Students.

Nottingham Trent University
In Summer 2010, Ed Foster and Sarah Lawther were moved as part of an
organisational re-structure. However, whilst some aspects of their roles are
likely to change, they are currently directly line managed by the chair of the
HERE Project Steering Group, Professor Nigel Hastings. It is not anticipated
that there will be any impact on project deliverables.

1
For this reason we are reporting on the 2009 UoB doubters’ survey in this interim report,
whereas much of the evidence from NTU and BU has been reported in the 2008-09 report.


2. Progress

2.1 What have you done this year? (Progress against plan,
additional activities, dissemination etc).

The HERE Project has focused on the experience of first year students at
Nottingham Trent University (NTU), Bournemouth University (BU) and the
University of Bradford (UoB).

We have investigated two areas:

Strand 1
- The impact of doubting on progression

Strand 2
- The impact that individual programmes can provide to
support better retention

The evidence presented arises from the following sources:

a) The doubters’2 surveys (March – May 2009)
• Students were asked to rate the importance to them of 17 Student
Experience Factors on a likert scale of 1-5 (for example, “my subject is
interesting”) and then also how much they agreed that those
statements reflected their experience. (See Appendix A for further
details)

• They were also asked whether or not they had considered withdrawing
from University. If so, why and what had helped them remain?
Students were subsequently categorized as doubters, or non-doubters.

b) Interviews and focus groups with doubters and non-doubters (June –
December 2009)
• Students were interviewed at all three institutions either in small groups
or individually. Differences were noted between the two groups. Initial
findings from NTU and BU were reported in 2008-09.

c) Analysis of doubters’ survey respondents’ progression (October 2009
– January 2010)
• Once progression data became available, we analysed those
respondents who granted us permission to do so. The results of the
doubters’ surveys were again reviewed taking into account the
additional progression data. At NTU, further statistical analysis was
2
Formally known as ‘Student Transition Surveys’


conducted to test which factors were likely to have the strongest impact
upon doubting.

These data sources were then used to develop a draft programme audit tool.

d) Interviews with programme staff
The draft programme audit tool was used to structure the investigation of both
course literature and then conduct interviews with programme staff on
programmes at all three partner HEIs. Where possible, programmes were
chosen because they were either:
• Better at retention than their peers
• Were working to overcome a particular problem/ appeared to be coping
with particular issues, for example had a high proportion of mature
students.
• Where possible we have tried to analyse comparable programmes at
all three partners

e) Surveys with students on the same programmes
We then sought to corroborate the evidence provided by the programme staff
using feedback from students on their programmes.

2.2 What has changed this year?

For the most part we have remained focused on first year undergraduate
students once they have commenced their studies. The strand 2 staff and
student surveys have also provided evidence for the impact of interventions
pre-arrival at university. In particular, the impact of the Stepping Stones 2HE
has been picked out at Bournemouth University.

We have primarily focused on full-time students. We have some data from
part-time respondents to Strand 1 research, but a very low response rate.
When we conduct the second doubters’ survey (Easter 2011) we will seek to
get a better response rate from part-time students. The University of Bradford
is currently part way through a programme audit with a programme containing
a large part-time cohort.

We have conducted our research broadly along the lines set out in the original
project proposal. We have however, slightly changed our approach to strand
2 research. We have found that the full process for each programme
retention audit is highly time-consuming. The analysis of retention statistics,
course literature and then the results of our research has created an
extremely rich source of data, but one that is time-consuming to analyse.
Therefore, in July 2010, we agreed with our project liaison Prof Liz Thomas
that we would reduce the total number of programme audits from an
ambitious 21, to a more-realistic 10-12.


2.3 What remains outstanding in your plans for 2009-10 and
why?

There are three outstanding items. Fundamentally, they have been delayed
for the same reasons. Some aspects of the project, particularly strand 2
research has taken longer to complete than expected.

1. Programme Retention Audit Tool (final version)
A working version of the audit tool has been developed based on the Strand 1
research. We are confident that the question areas are right, however, we
have not yet produced a version that can be used by organisations that have
not previously been involved in the HERE Project. We are meeting on 14 &
15 October 2010 to create a final version of the tool and will disseminate it in
December 2010.

2. Project website
This has been delayed. NTU are extending the contract of a short-term
employee with web development experience to ensure that the project has a
website by November 2010.

3. Project Reports
We agreed with the HERE project steering team that we would produce a
number of stand-alone reports into the different aspects of our research.
Each partner HEI has produced the required reports; they will be drawn
together in the Autumn term 2010.

2.4 Successes and challenges and implications for future
work.

In order to produce this report, we have reviewed the original research
questions set out in the stage 2 of the bid process. With one year to go, we
have strong evidence to answer the questions we set with regards to
doubting. 2010 - 11 will be used to gather further evidence about actions and
strategies used by doubting students to remain.

We are not as far forwards with Strand 2 research. This is due to the
following reasons:

Firstly, it is partly dependent on the data gathered from strand 1, therefore
would always would always take up more time in years 2 & 3.
Secondly, the audits were more time consuming than originally envisaged.
Whilst institutional staff are interested in the work, it takes time to set up
interviews and questionnaires as they deal with other demands upon their
time


We have therefore scaled back the total number of audits from 21 to 10 – 12.
We are meeting on the 14th & 15th October 2010 to review our existing data
and plan how we will complete the research within the timescale.


3. Findings: impact and implications
3.1 Summary of key findings

There are four broad points below. They are slightly longer than bullet points,
but we felt it would be beneficial to have an overview here, rather than broken
into the different sections below.

A) Impact of Doubting on the Decision to Remain or Withdraw
I

Approximately 1/33 of all new students (2008-09) appear to have considered
withdrawing at some point during their first year. Furthermore, analysis of the
progression rates of respondents to the Doubters’ Surveys demonstrates that
doubters are more likely to actually withdraw from university than students
with no doubts.4

Doubters also rated their experience more poorly than their non-doubting
peers5. Those who actually withdrew were even more negative about the
experience.6 We feel this is useful as it suggests one way of identifying
students at risk before they actually withdraw. Whilst this may only confirm
commonsense assumptions, it’s useful to have it evidenced.

B) Why Students Doubt

Non-doubting students are most likely to report that they have had a positive
learning experience. They were more likely to report that their tutors were
enthusiastic and their subject was interesting. They were more confident that
they would be able to cope with their studies. When tested, the single factor
3
UoB – 28% doubters, NTU - 37% doubters, BU – 46% doubters
4
In all three institutions doubters were more likely to withdraw than non- doubters. At NTU,
98.2% of non-doubting students were still in higher education the following November.
Amongst those students who had described themselves as doubters, only 90.3% were. At
BU, 96.6% of non-doubters progressed, only 91.3% of doubters did so. At UoB, 100% of
non-doubters progressed and only 90.4% of doubters did so. We have compared the rates of
progression with the institutional benchmarks for 2007/08 (the most recent year that there is
HESA data available) and these rates of progression are better than the whole institution
performance, by as much as 5%. Therefore the self-selecting nature of the survey (with a
higher proportion of female students) has meant that we are looking at a sample that is
slightly different to the institutions as a whole.
5
See appendix A. At all three institutions, doubters rated the 17 student experience factors
more negatively than non-doubters in all but three instances. At BU the three factors
associated with a social life and support from family and peers were rated more highly than by
doubters than non-doubters. Therefore in 48 of the possible 51 responses from across the 3
partners, doubters rated the experience more negatively.
6
Further analysis conducted of the NTU doubters who left, see appendix A.


most associated with confidence was feedback7. Therefore, if students felt
that their feedback was useful, they were more likely to be confident that they
were coping with their studies. In two of the three partners, non-doubters also
appeared to be enjoying their overall university experience more than
doubters.

In contrast, doubting students rated virtually all the 17 Student Experience
Factors more negatively than their non-doubting peers8. There was also a
greater gap between the importance they placed on individual factors and
their actual experience of those factors. When asked why they doubted, the
most common reasons stated were ‘course related’ in all three surveys.
When the academic experience grouping was analysed further, ‘anxiety about
coping’ featured heavily.

Students were asked to record how hard they had found their studies. Those
who found it very hard or very easy were more likely to have doubts. Similarly
when responding to how hard they were working, those working very hard or
very little were more likely to have doubts. Interviews at UoB also found that
students who were anxious about coping were more likely to be doubters.

Other factors that made students consider leaving included the student
lifestyle, finance and personal issues.

C) Factors that help doubters stay

Although there was some variation between the partner institutions, the most
commonly cited reason for staying was ‘friends and family’. It was felt that it
was important to group family and friends together as they described non-
professional and informal sources of support and this may have an impact
upon strategies for supporting doubters.

Other reasons for staying included:

UoB – adapting to the course/ University, determination/ internal factors,
support from institutional staff
BU adapting to the course/ University, determination/ internal factors, support
from institutional staff
NTU – Future goals (particularly employment), Determination/ internal factors,
Adapting to the course and University life

D) A two-strand approach
We would suggest that the evidence of the doubters’ surveys suggests that

7
We tested the four Student Experience Factors and one question that we felt would have
the strongest impact on confidence (See section 3.3.1 Organisational domain)
8
BU – Doubters stated that ‘my family is supportive’, ‘my fellow students are supportive’ and
‘I have an enjoyable social life’ more highly


institutions need to consider a two-strand approach: tackle those factors that
lead students to have doubts in the first place and develop strategies to
support student doubters.


3.2 Implications for practice

3.2.1 HEI level
We would suggest that the evidence of the doubters’ surveys suggests that
institutions need to consider a two-strand approach:

a) Tackle those factors that lead students to have doubts in
the first place

Doubts appear to be primarily caused by academic matters. If institutions
want to prevent students from doubting, then we need to help students to
reduce anxiety about coping and make the transition to learning in a more
adult and independent fashion.

The following all appear to have the potential to reduce doubting and have
been picked out in interviews with staff and students:

• Building individual student confidence about their academic abilities
• Providing useful feedback, probably earlier in the student lifecycle than
is normally the case
• Helping students to learn effectively from feedback
• Helping students to make the transition from learning in post-16
education to higher education
• Providing supportive and accessible tutors and ensuring that the role is
properly supported.
• Provide inspiring lectures who engage well with first year students.
Evidence is starting to emerge from the strand 2 research to show that
students respond positively to passionate and inspiring teaching.
Furthermore non-doubters appear more likely to rate the quality of
teaching staff more highly. It may be that inspiring lecturers are
teaching in a way that inspires around ⅔ of all students, or that not
enough high quality lecturers are teaching first year students. Either
way, institutions need to continue to invest in a balance of teaching and
research and ensure that investing time in both is perceived as
beneficial to the individual academic’s career.
• At NTU non-doubters appear more likely to have taken part in extra-
curricular activities such as clubs & societies. We would suggest that
it’s important that a wide range of such activities are made available to
students.

b) Develop support strategies to help student doubters.
• The most important factor to help support doubters appears to be the
support offered by their peers and feeling part of a student community.
This may be particularly important during induction and throughout the


first year. In strand 2 interviews, a number of interviewees have
suggested that course reps can play an important role here.
• We would suggest that institutions ensure that appropriate social
spaces are built into their estates strategies, both on campus and in
accommodation
• Pre-arrival community building - Staff interviewees have suggested that
this process may start with open days. As students increasingly
operate online, building up pre-arrival activities will become
increasingly part of the process
• Develop effective pastoral and professional support. A number of
recommendations about good practice have come forward, but overall,
our research suggests that the form this takes appears less important
than the quality.

We would also suggest that HEIs explore making funds available from their
retention allocation for staff to bid for to test out the impact of ideas they may
have.
0


3.2.2. Department/service level
With each of the recommendations below, we suggest that departments need
to both raise awareness within their own teams of the issues as well as
actually carrying out these actions.

a) Staged transition

We would recommend that departments dedicate more time to considering
how they are to help students make the transition from FE into and through
the first year in HE. If, as our evidence suggests, confidence is important, this
may mean considering strategies for providing early assessment and early
developmental feedback to help students feel that they are making progress.

b) Building a cohort identity & friendships within the cohort

How much they learn is not as important as how gelled they are as a group at
the end so they’ve got a mutual support system. We think that peer support is
one of the key factors of retention (BU, strand 2 staff interview)

We suggest that departments need to create opportunities for students to feel
that they belong to a programme, this will include both helping students to find
out about one another, but also to learn about who their tutors are. Examples
that have emerged from the strand 2 research include:
• Ice breakers and other team building activities during induction
• Outdoors team building residential events - the University of Bradford
interviews found that this was particularly valuable to mature students
• One BU student suggested that there may be benefits from follow up
social events one month into the start of term
• Use of pre-arrival activities, for example Stepping Stones 2HE and
Develop Me
• Learning & behaviour contracts signed during induction
• Use of course reps and other voluntary positions to encourage social
cohesion
• Staff interviews at BU suggest that this process may start with the
impression given during open days

c) Pastoral and academic support

“There must always be someone that they can come to” (BU, strand 2,
student survey 2)


The strand 2 interviews have provided evidence for different systems working
effectively. We have seen evidence of the effectiveness of personal tutors,
year tutors and programme leaders offering pastoral support depending upon
the size and nature of the programme.

Whilst we would not recommend any single system, we feel that it is important
to have an effective system in place. It may be that having a clear route to
support and having a responsive system are particularly important. UoB have
found that a rapid response to attendance monitoring may have helped
improve student performance/progression.

Similarly, staff interviews have cited a number of examples of additional
academic support having a positive impact upon their students. We will
include guidance on these in the

d) Promote the benefits of the programme
The evidence for promoting the long term benefits has been a little mixed.
Overall it appears that seeing the benefits of the course will act to motivate
some students (UoB, strand 2 interviews), but elsewhere it does not appear to
be a particularly strong motivator (NTU, strand 1 focus groups).


3.2.3 Individual (staff or student) level
a) Individual Staff

We would suggest that individual teaching staff need to:
• Be seen to be interested in individual students, ingraining a ‘friendly
face culture’ “They provide such a friendly relationship which makes it
easier to learn because I feel more confident to ask questions” (BU
student survey 1)
• Strive to overcome the challenges of large cohorts, in particular try to
learn students’ names – “It’s nice when lecturers know you personally
by name” (BU student survey 3)
• Be explicit about how students are expected to work and engage with
the process
• Transmit their enthusiasm for the subject (particularly when teaching
new students who may lack the maturity to have internalised and be
motivated by that passion)
• Help new students develop friendships with one another within the
course
• Strive to meet individual students to discuss progress early in the
academic year and help students to learn the meaning of feedback and
strategies for improving work. In the first year, the assumption that all
first years are adult enough to seek help may not be useful
• Consider adopting PAL, SI or other peer mentoring schemes to help
first year students acclimatise to HE and support efforts by course reps
and other student groups to build up student communities
• Provide opportunities for students to actively develop the skills and
aptitudes required to cope in HE
• Monitor attendance and respond quickly to non-attendance

b) Individual Students

Non-doubting students appear to be more academically successful, appear to
be more satisfied and tend to be more socially engaged.

Specific actions that may help individual students

• Be prepared to recognise that they are learning in a new system and
are required to take more responsibility
• Learn how to use feedback
• Be prepared to engage with ‘learning to learn’ and other academic
skills teaching whether in stand alone modules or embedded within the
curriculum
• Be prepared to step outside personal comfort zones to build up a
supportive network
• Learn where and how to access support


3.2.4 HE sector level

a) Dealing with a mass higher education system
Our evidence suggests that problems partly stem from first year students
feeling isolated and uncertain about how they are progressing in the system.
We suspect that this may be partly due to the scale and relatively infrequent
contact typical of higher education. For example, one BU student interviewee
reported that

“As it is such a big course it is difficult for the lecturers to get to know us, or in
some cases even recognise us” (BU student survey, programme 2)”

We would suggest that the sector would benefit from paying more attention to
issues associated with teaching large cohorts: particularly creating cohort
identity and engendering friendship within them, providing pastoral support
and managing attendance/ engagement.

b) Transition from FE to HE
The student feedback suggests that doubters are relatively dissatisfied with
the experience of learning at University. In two of the studies, NTU and BU,
students who did not understand the differences between FE and HE were
more likely to be doubters9. We would therefore suggest that more energy is
invested in helping institutions prepare and support students to make the
transition from one system to the other.

c) Providing teaching to meet a wider range of students
Whilst the evidence from the UoB Doubters’ survey is less clear than that
reported from NTU in 2008-09 it shows that students who are working ‘very
hard’ or ‘not very hard at all’ appear to be more at risk of being doubters than
their peers working moderately hard. This appears to suggest that there may
be students at either end of the ability bell curve who may be finding the lack
of challenge, or the high level challenge to be a problem.

c) Reward for good teaching and pastoral support
Whilst we don’t doubt for a moment the sincere efforts of most staff to support
individual students, we would suggest that HE structures may need to more
explicitly reward activities such as good pastoral care and effective first year
teaching. Some staff, for example, reported recognition and reward within
institutions for staff engaging in research and publications but little reward or
recognition for efforts made in relation to improving the student experience,
such as time invested in pastoral support.

9
(Although this was not the case at UoB)


3.3 Findings against emerging theoretical model

3.3.1 (Organisational domain)
How can the learning experience be managed and co-ordinated to promote
the engagement, sense of belonging and/or retention of all students (or a
specific target group)?

The responses below are about the students’ academic experiences, but not
specifically about the curriculum, therefore we have placed them in the
Organisational domain.

The Doubters’ Surveys at all three institutions indicate that the most common
reasons students gave for doubting relate to academic studies. At NTU, a
factor analysis of 1610 (see Appendix A) of the student experience variables
found that ‘Academic Experience’ was a common underlying factor11. When
this was tested with a number of other factors12 this was found to be have the
strongest influence with whether a student would doubt or not. The more
positive the academic experience, the greater the odds of being a non
doubter; students with the most positive academic experience were twelve
times more likely to be non doubters than those students with the least
positive academic experience.

Therefore, we would suggest that if institutions are to target resources to
support student retention, they ought to concentrate primarily on the academic
experience.

a) Anxieties about coping

In 2009-10, the academic reasons to doubt cited in the doubters’ surveys
were analysed in more detail. At NTU the most common reason cited was
‘anxiety about coping’ (45 out of 137 responses), this factor was joint first at
Bournemouth (7 out of 32 responses) and third at Bradford after
‘dissatisfaction with staff members’ and ‘other’ (3 out of 14 responses).

10
The variable ‘I would know where to go within the University if I had a problem’ was not
included in this analysis as it did not load onto any of the 3 factors.
11
As well as the underlying factors ‘Support, Resources and Future Goals’ and ‘Student
Lifestyle’ (see Appendix A for full details)
12
Factors tested were; the underlying factors ‘Academic Experience’, ‘Support, Resources
and Future Goals, ‘Student Lifestyle’, and the variables age, gender, whether the student was
the first person in their immediate family to go to university, whether NTU was their first
choice of university, whether this was their first time living independently and whether the
student had applied through clearing.


Figure 1 - NTU 2009, analysis of academic reasons for doubting

These anxieties also appeared in the subsequent interviews with student
doubters. Students often described feeling uncertain about deadlines, or that
they weren’t capable of actually meeting the standards required.

“More than a couple of times where there was a deadline coming … I am
thinking “My God, there is no way on earth I am going to get this done, why
don’t I just get another job?”” (Interview with Bradford student doubter)
(

b) Student Experience Factor – Confidence

As well as being the most commonly cited reason for doubting, confidence
also appeared to be highly important amongst the 17 Student Experience
Factors (see appendix A). At UoB, the second largest gap between
importance and experience is in response to the statement “I feel confident I
can cope with my coursework” (Importance = 88.9%, experience = 28.6%)13.
At NTU, confidence coping was the second largest gap amongst doubters14
and at Bournemouth it was the joint third (as reported in 2008-09).

13
The largest gap was in response to the statement “the feedback I receive about my work is
useful”
14
After the statement “I am confident that I have enough money to complete my course”


Figure 2 – NTU the relationship between the statement ‘I feel confident
that I can cope and the impact upon progression within the sample.

The box plot (Figure “”) illustrates how the scores given by NTU students in
answer to the statement “I feel confident that I can cope with my studies”
(rated from 1-5 where 1= strongly disagree and 5= strongly agree) vary
according to their progression status, recorded in the following four
groups: .
- No doubts and stay
- Have doubts but stay
- Have doubts & leave
- No doubts but leave-

The box illustrates the middle fifty percent of cases. The thick black line
across the box illustrates the median value. The vertical lines either side of
the box (with a T at each end) indicate the remaining cases except the
outliers which are indicated by a dot (with the reference number of each
case alongside).

We have used the box plots to show where there is a correlation between a
negative score and an increased likelihood of doubting and withdrawing.
This correlation occurs frequently amongst academic related factors, but not
always for other factors. See Appendix A for examples where the
relationship is less clear.


You will note that in this box plot, the group ‘No doubts but leave’ has a
higher overall level of satisfaction. This group only contains four
respondents and so the score needs to be treated cautiously. We suspect
that these students withdrew after a period of being blithely unaware that
there were any problems, or due to a sudden problem (as described in Ozga
& Sukhnandan, 1998).

c) Strategies for improving student confidence
- Feedback

We then sought to identify which factors had a relationship to confidence.
Further statistical analysis15 at NTU looked at whether there was a correlation
between student responses to the statement ‘I feel confident that I can cope
with my studies’ and their responses to following statements;
• ‘Lecturers are accessible’,
• ‘The feedback I receive about my work is useful’
• ‘I would know where to go within the university if I had a problem’
• ‘My fellow students are supportive’
• ‘Do you have a personal tutor?’16.

The strongest association related to useful feedback.

Higher Education often uses a different feedback paradigm to that students
have encountered beforehand. Whereas in FE, formative feedback is often
available, it is rarer in HE, where instead greater emphasis is placed upon
high quality written feedback at the end of the piece of coursework. Feedback
from student doubters suggests that this model is failing to meet their needs.

For example:
“Although I’m trying very hard, my marks aren’t great, and I don’t know where
I’m going wrong” (BU doubter (answering between March & May 2009))

We would suggest that institutions consider how the provide feedback early in
the student lifecycle. It appears that students are searching for reassurance
from their feedback and we would suggest that gold plated of high quality
written feedback may be of less use than other speedier forms. Our work
outside the HERE project would also lead us to suggest that students are
used to having opportunities to discuss and engage with feedback. It may be
particularly important during the first year to replicate this practice, even if only
for the first few assignments.

15
A standard entry multiple regression analysis
16
This analysis looks at the link between confidence and these factors and
does not indicate impact upon doubting/persistence.


d) Strategies for supporting student confidence
- Supportive students

The second strongest correlation to confidence was the variable ‘my fellow
students are supportive’ (see Social Domain for further details). This was
followed by having ‘accessible lecturers’. ‘Knowing where to go if there is a
problem’ has a far lower correlation and oddly ‘having a personal tutor’
appears to have no correlation at all.

Perhaps because of the historic success of Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) at
Bournemouth University, a number of respondents described PAL as
beneficial to the process of reassuring and building confidence.

“They love the PAL leaders. Having the PAL leaders to guide them through
the challenging times” (BU strand 2, staff interview)

“I think it’s invaluable because they can touch base with someone who’s been
there and done it before…they see them as their peers and look up to them.
It’s fantastic.” (BU strand 2, staff interview)

e) Strategies for supporting student confidence
- Relationship and communication with staff
We also looked at whether there was a link between the statement ‘I feel
valued by teaching staff’ and student progression. The box plot below shows
the analysis of those students who granted us permission to track their
progress at NTU.


Figure 3 - NTU relationship between the statement “I feel valued by
teaching staff” and retention

From this, we can see that there was least variance among students who had
no doubts and stayed and that these students were also more likely to say
that they felt valued by teaching staff. As is the case in the previous box plot,
there is an increasingly negative score from non-doubters who stay, to
doubters who leave. We can infer from this that by increasing how valued
students feel by teaching staff the number of doubters who leave can be
reduced as can the students who have doubts.

Focus groups with doubters and non-doubters also indicated that a
relationship with a member of staff was a factor in non-doubting; all non-
doubters in the NTU focus groups said that they had a member of staff they
could go to if they needed to.

f) Adapting to learning at University
The BU doubters’ survey shows that students who did not understand the
differences between HE and their previous education were more likely to have
doubts. 32% of students who understood the differences in detail had doubts,
50% of those who did not understand the differences had doubts. Similarly if
a BU student did not feel that the information they had received prior to
arriving was accurate, they were more likely to have doubts (80% doubted,
against 45% who though the information was accurate).


The UoB doubters’ survey shows that students who were finding their studies
more difficult were more likely to have doubts than those who were not.
Furthermore, when the average grades of UoB student respondents were
monitored it appears that, overall, doubters had achieved lower grades than
their non-doubting peers (approximately 10% lower).

Figure 4 University of Bradford (2008-09) First year grades of students
who took part in the Doubters’ Survey

We aim to explore this further in 2010-11.


3.3.2 (Academic domain)
How can the curriculum be designed and delivered to promote the
engagement, sense of belonging and/or retention of all students (or a specific
target group)?

In writing this section, we found it difficult to identify themes that were
curriculum-specific that were not also associated with the wider academic
experience. We have found disaggregating the two a little difficult, therefore
we would suggest that the two sections ought to be read as a single whole.

a) Relevance of the curriculum to future goals

The UoB student doubters’ survey shows that the highest score in the 17
Student Experience Factors (see appendix A) relate to achieving future goals.
93.3% of non-doubters believed that completing their degree would help them
achieve their future goals. It appears that it is important to promote the long
term benefits to students of their degree. However, it must also be noted that
82.9% of Bradford doubters also believed that the course would help with their
future goals (the joint first highest factor). We suspect that this indicates that
whilst it is important, other factors such as boosting student confidence may
be more so.

Interviews with staff at UoB suggest that for those students with a less-clear
motivation for choosing a particular course, reiterating the importance of
career and future goals may be particularly important.

Interviews with the student doubter focus groups suggest that amongst
students we have labeled ‘endurers’ (see discussion in ‘other findings’), future
goals may be very important. However, students in this category were not
particularly well motivated when compared to the group we labeled ‘adapters’
and appeared at times to be rather grudgingly persisting with their studies.

“I stayed because of the placement, the third year. It is just like I am going to
go for the next year and take the placement and come back and that is all.”
(NTU doubter)

b) Using the curriculum to support transition into HE

Staff and student feedback for the strand 2 research cited a number of
examples of practice that had been felt to be useful. These included:

• The use of an effective learner module to help students to start to
develop effective strategies for learning in HE. In interviews at UoB
this is seen as especially beneficial to mature students and those with
low tariff points


• Offering clear guidance on academic processes and the amount of
work students will have to put in outside of contact time – helping
students to understand the differences between HE and previous
study.

• Both staff and students suggested that variety of modules, teaching
methods and assessments may help stimulate students. For example
“I like that it is a mixture of group work, presentations, exams or written
coursework. Because this course allows us to work in a variety of ways, I find
it a more interesting way to learn” (BU, student survey 1). However, we
would caution that if confidence is a problem for doubters, a wide range of
assessment types may actually leave them feeling more confused or
uncertain about what is expected of them.


3.3.3 (Professional service domain)
How can the professional service system be designed and delivered to
promote the engagement, sense of belonging and/or retention of all students
(or a specific target group)?

The nature of the research has meant that we have spent relatively little time
looking at professional support services.

The evidence we have suggests that the existence of professional services
(and here we include personal tutors) make little difference to the cohort about
the likelihood of doubting. However, we have found evidence in interviews of
students being particularly grateful for support offered by tutors. This may
suggest a sense of denial or feeling of invulnerability amongst our students
until they encounter a problem. It may also provide a partial explanation to
some of the problems that professional services have getting students to
engage with them proactively instead of reacting once a crisis has taken
place.

a) The personal tutor

Overall, having a personal tutor makes little or no difference to the incidence
of doubting (a 2% difference at best)17. Although at BU, those students who
did not actually know whether they had a personal tutor or not appear to be
twice as likely to have doubts. It does appear that BU students who see their
personal tutors weekly are less likely to have doubts and at NTU, seeing the
tutor very infrequently appears be associated with an increased incidence of
doubting, but the general relationship between the frequency of visits and
doubting is not quite so clear.

Doubters also appear more likely to be disappointed in their relationships with
staff and cite problems such as perceived anonymity, difficulty accessing
tutors and a lack of clarity about the role and expectations from tutors.

That said, many positive statements were made about tutors and other
support staff from students.

Interestingly is that the presence of a personal tutor is unimportant, what does
appear important is a good quality relationship between the student and a
staff within the programme/ at the University. Our programme audits have
shown that different tutorial systems can successfully provide support to
students.

17
NTU 36% of students with a personal tutor were doubters, 38% for those without one


b) Student Experience Factor - “I would know where to go
within the University if I had a problem”

Knowing where to go for help appears to be a relatively unimportant factor
in preventing students from doubting. When NTU student responses were
analysed, answering this question negatively was least likely to lead to a
student having doubts. In other words, not knowing where to go for help
was unlikely to cause a student to have doubts.18

That said, we aren’t arguing that professional services don’t have a role to
play, just that it may be hard for such services to make much impact on
doubting.

c) Students with disabilities

Students with disabilities were more likely to have doubts than students
with none.19 However, the progression rates were actually better than their
non-disabled peers. At NTU, 95.8% of students with disabilities were still
in higher education.20 We believe that this therefore supports the case the
professional services targeted at students with disabilities are making a
positive impact upon retention.

For example:

“I…have a dyslexia tutor and he is brilliant, he will look over my work and
help me if I am struggling…that really helped me.” (UoB interviewee,
strand 1)

18
Only 53% of those who disagreed with the statement were doubters, whereas 93% of
students who did not find their course interesting were likely to be doubters.
19
(NTU, 50% of students with disabilities had doubts, at UoB, 47%)
20
(The progression rate amongst all doubting students was 90.3%. It must be noted that only
one disabled student withdrew and so we perhaps ought to be a little careful with such a small
sample.)


3.3.4 Social domain
How can the institution promote the social engagement and sense of
belonging of all students (or a specific target group)?

The HERE Project research suggests that amongst doubters, the support
of friends and family is the most important factor in helping students to
remain at University.

a) Friendships as a reason to stay – qualitative evidence

We reported in the 2008-09 interim report that for NTU students, the most
important factor was ‘friends & family’. When further analysed, friends
formed at University were the largest single element of this group. The
same analysis has now been completed at Bournemouth and Bradford,
and in both of these surveys, ‘Friends & family’ came out as the strongest
factor.

Figure 5 Student Transition Survey (March – May 2009, University of
Bradford), What factors have helped student doubters to stay?

Responses from UoB include:

“My new friends have been able to help me get through many hardships,
so they are part of the reason why I have been able to stay”

“My fellow students have helped me a lot. They have been very supportive
and are always helpful”


At BU, students also talked about the quality of friendships as being
important. Those students who described forming ‘solid’ or ‘good’
friendships felt that it had helped them to stay. We also noted that the
inverse is true: those students who had failed to make what they perceived
to be high quality friendships appeared to be more likely to doubt.

Thirteen of the student respondents to the Bradford Transitions Survey
were interviewed during February and March 2010. Once again, the
importance of friendship and family featured highly amongst students’
reasons to stay.

“I can’t imagine what would have happened if I had not got on with the
people I live with”

“I am quite a home girl anyway, I like being at home you know, and without
my friends I couldn’t have done it, definitely couldn’t have done it… I
wouldn’t be here definitely; I would have just gone home”.

“Without friends...I would feel unsafe as well so...I think I would not stay...I
think because I have all the friends here that is why I am staying”

Friends appear to act more as a comfort/ reassurance that there’s
someone around to talk to and share the experience with, perhaps
someone who can empathise with the student doubter.

b) Family as reason to stay

It is interesting to note that family includes both parents and partners,
perhaps reflecting that some of the respondents are mature students.
Reasons to stay cited by Bradford students included:

“My friends and family continually encouraging me to continue with my
studies” (UoB Transition Survey).

Non-doubters who were interviewed at Bradford also talked about family
support as a reason to stay.

• My husband [is supportive] massively because he has never queried it,
and never competed for my time and the kids in their own way...they
are old enough to understand...it is almost like it has always been
there, oh mum is doing a course, mum’s at the computer and you can’t
have the computer...it is my family unit that...got me through it...
(Bradford interview)

c) Quantitative data relating to an enjoyable social life

The initial evidence (as reported in the 2008-09 interim report) suggested
that student doubters were less likely to have an enjoyable social life than
their non-doubting peers. In January 2010, the data was re-analysed to


take into account the student progression. Once again broadly, there was
the expected relationship between a lower score in the factor and the
increased likelihood of withdrawing early (with the same exceptional
response from non-doubters who left).

Figure 6 - NTU Student Doubters’ Survey (March – May 2009), impact of
having an enjoyable social life on progression

This was not the case across all three institutions: at Bournemouth
doubters appeared to have a more enjoyable social life than non-doubters
and found that their fellow students were more likely to be supportive than
their non-doubting peers.

In the Academic Domain section, we noted that the main reasons for
students doubting related to academic matters, particularly confidence
about coping. The Student Experience Factor (see appendix A) with the
strongest association to confidence was ‘useful feedback’, the second
strongest factor was having ‘supportive peers’. It is therefore important to
note that supportive peers do not just create a more pleasant environment
for students to study in, but also appear to give students the confidence to
actually participate in the learning process.


d) Friendship-making opportunities

The following have all been suggested as possible approaches to
supporting better social cohesion by staff and students in the strand 2
interviews:

• Use ice-breakers during induction and create opportunities for
students to learn one another’s names
• Consider residential events during semester one – for both building
friendships and boosting confidence levels
• Students have suggested that Universities ought to consider
providing refresher social activities a few weeks into term
• Use course reps to provide course social events

e) Using groupwork to help create bonds

Problems with group work can be a particularly stressful aspect of the
student experience, nonetheless, we would strongly recommend it as a
more natural way of encouraging students to start to develop friendships.
Our experience during Welcome Week at NTU suggests that early group
projects do need structured ice-breaker elements to overcome initial
reserve; otherwise the opportunity is not always fully utilized.

Interviewees at Bournemouth made the following observations:

“Whilst they [the students] would argue that [group work] can have its
weaknesses, it does allow them to engage with each other and I’m sure
that friendships and social support comes out of that” (BU Strand 2 staff
interview)

“The group work we were set in our seminar group is very good for getting
to know people. I am now friends with people who I probably wouldn’t
have been friends with had I not had to work in a group with them.” (BU
strand 2, student interview)

At NTU, students described that smaller group work had helped them to
make friends

“Being in groups for coursework has created good friends” (NTU Programme 2
student survey).

“During tutorials and research methods class, that’s where I met my friends”
(NTU Programme 2 student survey).

f) Use peer support schemes for example PAL

PAL student facilitators may be able to play a particularly useful role helping
to develop a social milieu within the programme.


“What brought our seminars together most was PAL sessions because it
wasn’t a session purely for academics and we got to mingle on a social level”
(BU strand 2 student survey programme 1)

g) Curriculum designed to incorporate group work

A number of both staff and student respondents suggested that group work
provided an important opportunity to engender a sense of belonging
amongst the group.

The group project was great for friendship building and was an enjoyable
task (BU, strand 2, student survey 1). Staff at UoB worked hard to mix up
students during group activities early in order to break up cliques formed
within programmes where many local students already know one another
from college.

3.3.5 (HE Structures & processes)
How can the structures and processes of the English higher education system
be improved to facilitate institutions to promote the retention and success of
all students?

We feel that we have stronger findings in other section and so for reason of
space have not added anything here.


3.4 Further findings
Any additional findings that do not fit into (or challenge) the emerging
theoretical model.

a) Classifying Doubting

When considering the of doubting on student progression, it would appear
that there are four possible positions for the student.

State Outcome
Non-doubter Staying/ progressing
Leaving
Doubter Staying/ Progressing
Leaving
Figure 7 – outcomes of doubting/non-doubting

Using the largest sample (NTU), we reviewed the Student Experience Factors
of those 370 students who granted us permission to track their progress. We
found that the four groups typically presented the following characteristics:

1. Non-doubters who stay (the largest group of students)
These are fundamentally satisfied with the experience and appear to be more
likely to enjoy the learning experience and feel confident that they can cope

2. Non-doubters who leave (the smallest group of students)
As they appear to be satisfied with the experience, we suspect that these
students may have withdrawn because of external crises (as described by
Ozga & Sukhnandan 1998) or are blithely unaware that they are not
performing as well as perhaps they ought.

3. Doubters who stay (Persisters)
Whilst less satisfied with the experience, these students have remained
because of (primarily) positive reasons such as the support of friends or
adapting to university, or negative ones such as being trapped by the
opportunity cost of moving. We would suggest that these students can be
supported and potentially moved from being doubters to non-doubters

4. Doubters who leave (Leavers)
These students have the most negative experience of all, but the gap
between them and doubters who stay is smaller than the gap between
doubters and non-doubters. We believe that these students can be supported
to remain.


Non-doubters who stay Non-doubters who
(Our ultimate goal) leave
(We would suggest
investing minimal
resources here)

Doubters who stay Doubters who leave
(We need to support (We need to help
students here and move support these students
them to being non- and try to move them
doubters) away from doubting)

Figure 8 - Supporting doubters

b) A typology of doubting
Following the interviews and focus groups with doubters at NTU, it was noted
that although there were many specific reasons for doubting and staying, two
patterns were of note.

Firstly, most doubters who had decided to stay described facing problems and
then either overcoming, re-evaluating the scale of the problem or had enough
support from others to deal with the problem. They described a range of
behaviours that we have tentatively described as ‘adapting’.

A second, smaller, group explained that they were unhappy about aspects of
being a student, but instead of having overcome or accommodated the
problem, they were enduring the situation. What appeared to motivate this
group were the long-term goals such as career, or not wanting to let down
family members. They appeared to feel more negatively about the experience
than those adapters.

One important difference between the two groups is that adapters were all
able to describe support and communication from a member of staff.

The researchers at BU and UoB found a slightly more nuanced picture.
Students in interviews were describing both types of approach at the same
time. Or would describe having felt trapped, but had with help and support,
often overcome the problem.

We would tentatively suggest that there are broadly two types of behaviour
associated with doubting:

• Adapting
• Enduring


We will seek to find ways of further exploring this during 2010-11.
c) Student Doubting - Demographic Differences

Analysis of the NTU sample using logistic regression revealed that there was
not a statistically significant link between doubting and the following variables:
• living independently for the first time
• being the first person in the family to go to university
• applying through clearing

There was, however, a link between doubting and whether NTU was a
student’s first choice of university, but this was the reverse of what was
expected.
• Students who said that NTU was their first choice of university were
twice as likely to have doubts as students for whom NTU was not their
first choice.

Female students appear more likely to have doubts than male students at two
of the institutions (BU & NTU). Nonetheless, doubting still meant that a
doubting student was more likely to subsequently withdraw. For example 1%
of male non-doubting students withdrew at NTU, compared to 15% of male
doubters.

Students with disabilities appear to have more doubts than non-disabled
students although they appear no more at risk of actually withdrawing. This
may reflect the level of support available to them at Universities.

Part-time students appear to be more likely to have doubts and actually more
likely to withdraw, although the overall number of respondents are low.

Age appears to affect the likelihood of doubting differently at each of the
partner HEIs and it is difficult to see an overall pattern.

Ethnicity also provides a mixed picture, but it appears that at UoB, Asian or
Asian British Indian and Pakistani students have a lower rate of doubting than
their peers.


4 Dissemination of learning
Please provide a bulleted list of how you have disseminated the learning from
your project in 2009-10 (e.g. events, publications, institutional visits). Please
limit this section to no more than 1000 words. Please indicate those which
are action focused as well as information sharing.

Dissemination Events

2009

• 18 June 2009 Aimhigher West Yorkshire Students’ Writing in
Transition

• July 2009 HE Academy Conference Contributed to What works?
Research and evaluation of interventions to improve student
retention and success. Initial outcomes of the Retention Grants
Programme

• July 2009 22nd International First Year Experience Conference,
Montreal, Canada Support Me! Develop Me! Retain Me! How a
Reflective Skills Activity has Increased Student Engagement,
Motivation and Success

• 15 September 2009 Students Writing in Transition, Nottingham
Trent University “It will all be different” Supporting Student Writing in
Transition

• 23 September 2009 Retention Summit, Bournemouth University
HERE! Higher Education Retention and Engagement.

• 15th October 2009 Research Seminar Series: Access and Success
for All, University of Bradford Learning from the Data: Using
institutional data to develop an audit tool to enhance student
success

2010

• 24 February 2010 Keynote at Greenwich Staff Development event

• 3 March 2010 4 March 2010 Retention Convention: What works?
Student Retention and Success, Leeds Here Project

• 23 March 2010 ELFYSE conference, online

• 29 March 2010 Nottingham Trent University Annual Learning &
Teaching Conference, presentation & poster presentation From


Fresher to First Year: what is it that helps students to stay?

• 29, 30, 31 March 2010, Celebrating Partnerships in Learning 7th
Annual LDHEN Symposium, Nottingham Trent Uuniversity HERE to
stay? Why do students persist and how can we support them to do
so?

• 7 May 2010 UK Transitions Conference workshop, University
College London “I’ll be there for youuuuuu” The role of friendships
in supporting transition

• 27 May 2010 European First Year Experience Conference, Antwerp

• 7-8th June 2010 9th Annual Teaching & Learning Conference,
University of Bradford

• 10 June 2010 Flying Start NTF Symposium

• 16 June 2010 First Level Assessment Practice conference, Leeds
Metropolitan University

• 17 June 2010 keynote at ICG network, Leeds

• 18 June 2010 Flexible Degrees conference, Plymouth

• 25 June 2010 Community of Engagement, Higher Education
Academy, York

• 6 July 2010 Higher Education Academy, Male access and success
in higher education, York

• 8 July 2010 keynote on what students stay at university, Bolton

• 14 September 2010 Students’ Writing in Transition Symposium,
Nottingham Trent University The HERE Project: learning about
transition from student doubters

Dissemination Publications

• HERE brochure ‘What works? Student retention and success
programme Interim findings September 2009’. Disseminated to
HEI’s detailing research so far.

• A second edition of the HERE brochure is planned for later this year

• December 2009 Research Seminar Series: Access and Success for
All Briefing Paper Learning from the Data – using institutional data
to develop an audit tool to enhance student success


5. Next stage
Please briefly report on your future plans. Please limit this section as a whole
to no more than 1000 words.

Approach to future work (including an overview of planned work and
identifying any significant variations from earlier plans).

How is this informed by a) progress to date and b) findings to date

Strand 1 - Student doubters

In our original project submission we planned to produce a second doubters’
survey in 2010 – 11. We feel that we have enough information about
doubting and so will not repeat some of the core questions from the first
survey. We will concentrate much more on the actions taken by doubters and
their suggestions about structural support that would help. As this process
will take place relatively later in the project (Easter 2011), the survey will be
much shorter than the 2008-09 one.

Strand 2 – Programmes

As conducting each programme audit requires a considerable amount of
work, we will be conducting fewer audits than originally planned. However, in
the audits conducted so far, we are finding broadly similar answers. We are
satisfied that conducting 10 – 12 audits will produce a range of responses
broadly the same as our original 21. We also feel conducting fewer audits will
provide more time to fully analyse data for emerging patterns.

Dissemination ideas or plans for 2010-11. Please include any dates of events
etc to be included in the Calendar.

Forthcoming Dissemination Events

There are a number of key conferences that the group has presented to in
previous years. We intend to present end of project findings at a range of
these in the forthcoming year. These will include:

• Our own institutional learning and teaching conferences
• The UK transitions conference (May 2011)
• The European and International First Year Experience conferences
(June 2011)


• Students’ Writing in Transition (early September 2011, Nottingham
Trent University). After Sarah has presented a seminar for the past
two years about the HERE project, we’re lining her up to deliver the
keynote.

• Furthermore a paper from the Bradford team has been accepted at the
Society for Research into Higher Education conference 14 – 16
December 2010

Website

• We have a test site uploaded (http://web.me.com/ed.foster/) to test the
structure. In October/ early November 2010, this will be replaced by a
full project website.

Publications

• We refer to HERE Project research in FOSTER, E., LAWTHER, S.,
MCNEIL, J., 2010. Learning Developers Supporting Early Student
Transition. In: HARTLEY, P., HILSDON, J., SINFIELD, S.,
KEENAN, C., eds. Learning Development in Higher Education.
Palgrave Macmillan, 2010 (to be published 5 November 2010).

• We will make reference to HERE research when we contribute to
the HEA discussion paper in December 2010

We will submit at least one academic paper in the 2010 – 11 academic year
and are discussing approaches to maximise publication opportunities.

Support required next year. Please identify any ways in which the Support
and Co-ordination Team can assist your work next year.

Contribution to programme outputs. Please indicate what potential
contribution your project team would like to make to the broader outputs for
the programme as a whole.

We are very happy to be involved in dissemination activities. Obviously after
the life cycle of the project we may have less time to support such activity, but
will be keen to help where we can.

Please note that you are also required to send a financial report to
s.griffiths@hefce.ac.uk at HEFCE on 30th September 2010.


Appendix A
List of the 17 Student Experience Factors
Presented to students as part of the Student Transition Survey (March –
May 2010)

1. My subject is interesting
2. My course is well organised
3. I have enthusiastic lecturers teaching on my course
4. My taught sessions (such as lectures and seminars) are interesting
5. Lecturers are accessible
6. I feel valued by teaching staff
7. The assessment on my course is what I expected it to be
8. The feedback I receive about my work is useful
9. I feel confident that I can cope with my studies
10. My fellow students are supportive
11. My family is supportive
12. I have easy access to University resources (e.g. Computers, library
books that I need)
13. I would know where to go within the University if I had a problem
14. I like the house/ flat/ halls that I am living in
15. I have an enjoyable social life
16. I am confident that I will have enough money to cope
17. Completing my degree will help me achieve my future goals

Nick Foard conducted a number of statistical tests on the NTU data; both
on the initial, larger data set (of 656 students) so looking at doubting/non
doubting and on the smaller data set (of 370 students) of those students
that gave us permission to monitor their progress so looking at their
subsequent progression.

Larger data set (656 students): doubting
A factor analysis (using KMO measure of sampling adequacy, Bartletts test
of Sphericity, Principal Component Analysis and a Rotated Component
Matrix) was carried out that provided us with three component factors:

A. Academic Experience Variables

1. My subject is interesting
2. My course is well organised
3. I have enthusiastic lecturers teaching on my course
4. My taught sessions (such as lectures and seminars) are interesting
5. Lecturers are accessible
6. I feel valued by teaching staff
7. The assessment on my course is what I expected it to be
8. The feedback I receive about my work is useful
9. I feel confident that I can cope with my studies


B. Support, Resources and Future Goals

10. My fellow students are supportive
11. My family is supportive
12. I have easy access to University resources (e.g. Computers, library
books that I need)
17. Completing my degree will help me achieve my future goals

C. Student Lifestyle

14. I like the house/ flat/ halls that I am living in
15. I have an enjoyable social life
16. I am confident that I will have enough money to cope

Item 13. “I would know where to go within the University if I had a problem”
did not fit in well with other factors and is therefore not included as part of
any further factor analysis.

Smaller data set (370 students): progression

Box plots were created to illustrate patterns between students progression
status and their factor analysis scores. A very clear pattern emerges for
the academic experience factor. Students with no-doubts who stay have a
higher score than doubters who stay. In turn, doubters who stay have a
higher academic experience score than those who doubters who leave.
As is often the case with the analysis of individual factors, we note that
non-doubters who leave actually have a very high level of satisfaction.
However, we are only dealing with very small numbers of students (4 at
NTU and 1 each at BU and UoB) and so have not particularly focussed on
these sets of answers.


Figure 9 – NTU Academic Experience box plot

The pattern is far less clear for B. Support, Resources and Future Goals
and C. Student Lifestyle. There is a general trend towards lower
satisfaction in factor B amongst doubters, but is only marginal and in factor
C “Student Lifestyle Factors” students who have doubts and leave actually
score higher than students with doubts and stay. Although clearly one
might be tempted to raise a hypothesis that for these students partying got
in the way of studying.

Figure 10 – NTU Support, Resources & Future Goals box plot


Figure 11 – NTU Student Lifestyle box plot


HERE Project interim report 2009 10

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HERE Project interim report 2009 10