Conditions for a successful first year

1. Conditions for a successful first year Mantz Yorke mantzyorke@mantzyorke.plus.com University of Plymouth 24 February 2010

2. The story-line Aspects of student success ‘The first-year student experience’: some evidence What ‘student success’ implies for some aspects of teaching and learning in the first year Some key points for the first-year curriculum

3. Q: What is higher education for? A: Helping people to develop as ‘effective operators in the world’ (broadly in life as well as in employment) … learning and skills are not just about work or economic goals. They are also about the pleasure of learning for its own sake, the dignity of self-improvement, the achievement of personal potential and fulfilment, and the creation of a better society. DfES (2003) Realising our Potential: Individuals, Employers, Nation [Cm 5810], para 4.1 Professional formation and employability are key aspects of higher education (but not the only ones)

4. Capability (an implicit definition of student success) Capable people have confidence in their ability to ~ take effective and appropriate action ~ explain what they are seeking to achieve ~ live and work effectively with others ~ continue to learn from their experience ... Capable people not only know about their specialisms, they also have the confidence to apply their knowledge and skills within varied and changing situations and to continue to develop their specialist knowledge and skill ... Based on Stephenson (1992)

5. A definition of employability [A] set of achievements - skills, understandings and personal attributes - that make graduates more likely to gain employment and be successful in their chosen occupations … Developed by the Enhancing Student Employability Co-ordination Team [ESECT] Phrased to reflect the politicians’ instrumentalism whilst bearing in mind the greater breadth of purpose expressed in ‘Capability’ Graduates at any level will be expected to have developed themselves as beginning or continuing professionals

6. Professional competence is complex [The] mastery of requirements for effective functioning, in the varied circumstances of the real world, and in a range of contexts and organizations. It involves not only observable behaviour which can be measured, but also unobservable attributes including attitudes, values, judgemental ability and personal dispositions … Worth Butler et al (1994, pp.226-7)

7. Some characteristics of a professional • Operates autonomously (albeit within limits) • Often works collaboratively • Demonstrates trustworthiness • Applies both academic and practical understandings … • … but may not articulate all of how this is done • Works integratively, sometimes on non-routine problems • Applies metacognition (reflection; self-regulation; etc) • Is committed to new learning, often via CPD • Maintains standing as a professional

8. Panel from Metamorphosen by MC Escher Developing as a professional Is likely to involve a significant transformation

9. AcquiescenceAutonomy Kohlberg 1964 Perry 1970 (reprinted 1998) King and Kitchener 1994 Baxter Magolda 2009 Developing as a professional Is likely to involve a significant transformation Guiding learners through the transformation from authority dependence to self-authorship is a primary challenge for twenty-first century higher education Baxter Magolda (2009, p.144)

10. An organising framework Much will depend on the approach taken to teaching and learning: i.e. the inherent ‘quality’ of HE The curriculum needs an organising framework I offer you mine, but you may have a different one

11. The USEM account of employability Four broad areas of student success that were developed in the context of employability, but are relevant to capability and to learning in general. [Note that the social dimension is implicit] Understanding Skilful practices (subject-specific and generic) Efficacy beliefs (and self-theories generally) Metacognition (including reflection)

12. E Personal qualities, including self-theories and efficacy beliefs S Skilful practices in context Effectiveness in the world, inc. employability Meta- cognition Subject under- standing M U

13. USEM • Is supported by both theory and empirical evidence • Hence there is an academic justification for it • Correlates with ‘good learning’ • Much that goes on in HE is tacitly consistent with USEM • One task is to make the tacit overt (e.g. develop metacognition) • There already exists a substantial base on which to build • Is permissive rather than prescriptive, i.e. is flexible • It can accommodate disciplinary differences • It can accommodate differing kinds of student • Is not a knee-jerk response to ‘employer demand’

14. Some evidence from the University of Plymouth... ... and, later, elsewhere

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

16. Now a short intermission...

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

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

19. Progression No clear correlation between ineligibility to progress and overall satisfaction H&SW Tech Arts Sci SocS&B Educ 3.89 3.92 4.06 4.09 4.11 4.30

20. Five angles on the first-year experience • Transition • Induction / Rules of the game • Motivation and engagement • Formative assessment • The social dimension: staff/student, student/student

21. 1 Transition

22. Aspects of transition • Choosing a programme and an institution • New-found freedom

23. New found freedom I was amazed by the ‘big city’. I started clubbing regularly, took more and more drugs, became increasingly more ill, lost weight, became paranoid. I messed up in a very big way. One minute I was on top, the next rock bottom. I came from a cushioned background and believe if I had maybe waited a year or two and learnt more about the reality of life, then it would have been a different story. Student reading joint Arts and Social Science, in Yorke (1999, p.32)

24. Aspects of transition • Choosing a programme • New-found freedom • New environment (especially for international students) • New kinds of demand • Need to develop autonomy in learning

25. 2 Induction / Rules of the game

26. Making the ‘rules of the game’ explicit • HE is for many a different kind of experience The main reason for leaving university was the vast contrast of teaching styles between university and college. […] Male, U21, Humanities, Pre-1992 university, UK

27. What’s the game? Frank: In response to the question, ‘Suggest how you would resolve the staging difficulties inherent in Ibsen’s Peer Gynt’, you have written . . . ‘Do it on the radio’ . . . Rita: Precisely. Frank: Well? Rita: Well what? Willy Russell: Educating Rita, Act 1 Scene 4.

28. Making the ‘rules of the game’ explicit • HE is for many a different kind of experience • Expectations are different (and grades may be lower) • Self-directed study • What might once have been OK may not now be OK • Plagiarism

29. Data from UK FYE survey (In all the histograms, the ‘desirable’ end lies to the right) Staff made clear from the start what they expected from students

30. 3 Motivation and engagement

31. Motivation and engagement Motivation level Engagement level Teaching approach High High Moderate Low Low

32. None 2% of respondents (N=211) Some 39% Half 29% Most 27% All 3% Mann & Robinson (2009, p.250) Boredom 2003 YFCY findings … suggest that many remain disengaged from their coursework. Over 40% of the sample reported “frequently” feeling bored in class … Keup & Stolzenberg (2004, p.15, emphasis in the original) Proportion of lectures seen as boring

33. Teaching methods, ranked by boredom Most boring Least boring • Laboratory work • Computer sessions • On-line lecture notes • Copying overheads in lectures • PowerPoint without handout • Workshops • Video presentations • Group work outside lectures • PowerPoint with handout • Seminars • Practical sessions • Group discussions in lectures Interpret with care! Mann & Robinson (2009, p.250)

34. Have done more than the specified reading Not as motivated as I should be Data from c.6900 1st yr FT students Have not done background reading

35. Encouraging motivation thx heaps 4 ur motivation email Chih (Week 11 Sem 1, 2003) I just would like to say thank you for all those emails that you have been sending to us during the semester. They are very motivational, encouraging, funny and interesting. Being a mature age student and from a non-English speaking background I have experienced some moments when I thought that [it] was too hard and impossible to continue my university studies. However, I am still here and looking forward to the end of semester. Once again, thank you very much. Your encouraging words really helped me a lot. Maryana [19/05/03] Kift (2004)

36. Strike whilst the iron’s hot The potential for enthusiastic engagement in the curricula should be harnessed in the critical first days of the first weeks of the first year, thereby promoting a sense of belonging, so often missing for the contemporary learner. Kift and Nelson (2005, p.229)

37. Promoting motivation The assignments were fascinating, they made me think about where I am really heading with my studies and making a career in science. This unit made me think more than any other unit I have ever done. In my five years at uni., until this unit, I haven’t had any assignments that made use of my problem solving skills! Thanks! It made me think and formulate ideas which I have never done extensively before in three years of uni. Meyers et al (2004) Q: Do your curricula generate feedback like this?

38. But what type of curriculum? The holistic nature of learning suggests a clear need to rethink and restructure highly segmented departmental and program configurations and their associated curricular patterns. Curricula and courses that address topics in an interdisciplinary fashion are more likely to provide effective educational experiences than are discrete courses accumulated over a student’s college career in order to produce enough credits for a degree. Pascarella and Terenzini (2005, p.647)

39. 4 Formative assessment

40. Formative assessment (feedback and feedforward) • Vital for learning • Consistently seen as problematic in UK HE • Quality Assurance Agency reports • National Student Survey • University of Plymouth Survey • First-year students less positive in Australia than in UK

41. Feedback on my work has been prompt I have received detailed comments on my work Feedback on my work has helped me in my learning Data from UK FYE survey

42. Feedback (and feedforward) • Vital for learning • Consistently seen as problematic in UK HE • Quality Assurance Agency reports • National Student Survey • First-year students less positive in Australia than in UK • Even when feedback is provided • students may not recognise it as such • they may not act on it • in part, curricular structures may be to blame

43. Slow feedback The feedback on my assignments comes back so slowly that we are already on the topic after next and I’ve already submitted the next assignment. It’s water under the bridge, really. I just look at the mark and bin it. Collected by Graham Gibbs I found that I did not learn anything from my mistakes as I was never told what they were. Misko and Priest (2009, p.15)

44. The need for feedback Over 60 percent of all institutions collect and report midterm grades to first-year students, thereby giving them an important source of feedback on their academic performance. Some educators would argue that midterm feedback is too late … Barefoot, in Upcraft et al (2005, p.55) I found having large blocks of work without assessment difficult – you don’t know if you are grasping it or not until exam time! Assignments weekly would be better from my point of view. Female in her 30s, pursuing a science-based Foundation Degree programme

45. The need for feedback The less individuals believe in themselves, the more they need explicit, proximal, and frequent feedback of progress that provides repeated affirmations of their growing capabilities. Bandura (1997, p.217) Don’t leap to blame the victim! See Hrabowski (in Upcraft et al, 2005, pp.130-1) for an example of a Chemistry department’s realisation that poorly-performing students needed more in the way of feedback

46. Supportive feedback Students observed that feedback was given in such a way that they did not feel it was rejecting or discouraging … [and] that feedback procedures assisted them in forming accurate perceptions of their abilities and establishing internal standards with which to evaluate their own work Mentkowski and Associates (2000, p.82) Note the significance for the development of metacognition [M]

47. 5 The social dimension

48. We think it is too impersonal, it’s not sufficiently interactive … the student experience can considerably be improved … Alan Gilbert, President, University of Manchester On BBC Radio 4 ‘Beyond Westminster’, 15 August 2009

49. A socially-aware pedagogy If contemporary students cannot (or choose not to) attend campus other than for formal sessions, then they miss out on the social benefit that can accrue from HE. The social may have to be deliberately accentuated in curricula in order to generate ‘belongingness’ and informal networking. Diversity in the student body strengthens the point.

50. Contact with academic staff Importance widely acknowledged, also value for money considerations Selected influences on student non-continuation, UK Mid-1990s 2005 poss 2006-07 Influence (ranked) left leaving left Programme not as expected 1= 2 1 Teaching issues 5 3 2= Lack of contact with staff 8 6 4 How to make best use of an expensive resource?