Recruiting and Retaining Widening Participation Students in Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences

1
Recruiting and Retaining Widening Participation
Students in Geography, Earth and Environmental
Sciences

• Professor Bill Chambers
• Dean of Widening Participation
• President Geographical Association
• Liverpool Hope University College
• chambew_at_hope.ac.uk

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Structure

1. Widening participation and students
2. Geography in school, FE, training providers,
   lifelong learning and University
3. Recruiting to geography opportunities and
   examples
4. Retaining in geography learning from elsewhere
5. Conclusions

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1 Widening participation and students
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Individual and Societal Benefits of Widening
Participation

• Equity
• Competitiveness
• Economic (Blair)
• Social and cultural (Newby 2004)
• Health (Marmot 2004)

5
Who are Widening Participation Students?

• First generation in HE
• Social Class IV and V
• Post codes
• Ethnicity
• Disability
• Gender?
• State Sector

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What are Widening Participation Students like?

• Young (18-30)
• Negative educational experiences
• Lack confidence and self esteem
• Less well qualified (?)
• Fewer life opportunities
• Fewer (academic) experiences
• Aggressive (?) Challenging? Disaffected?
• Poor therefore earn to learn
• Daylocal provision (East Lancashire experience)

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2. Geography in school, FE, training providers,
lifelong learning and University
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Whither Geography?

• School decline from high base
• FE decline from low base
• Training Providers unknown
• Lifelong Learning poor (OCN, Access, Learn
  Direct,WEA, U3A, FDs) or predictable (FSC, RGS,
  GA, extra-mural)
• Universities declining fewer and larger

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What Can Geography Offer?

• Intrinsic interest and relevance .
• Fieldwork
• Variety of learning and teaching strategies
  lecture, practical, tutorial, fieldwork
• Practical experiences
• Bridge between sciences and arts
• ICT and GIS

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Problems with Geography?

• Despite
• GNU FDTL Phase 2 1996-9 (www.hope.ac.uk/gnu/)
• RGS/IBG Conference on WP June 2002
  (rgs.org/category.php?Pagemain education)
• RGS/IBG Geographers into Teaching surveys
• Lecture at GA Annual Conference
• LTSN Disability and Fieldwork Projects (ICP)
• GEES 2002 and 2004
• 2005 GA Conference strands on ethnicity and
  disability
• Little contribution to Widening Participation
  awareness, aspirations, achievement except eg
  Hope, Glasgow, Chichester, Portsmouth, Durham,
  Hull, Leeds

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Geography a Problem?

• What is geography?
• What should geography be at school and at
  University undergraduate and post graduate levels
  (Kneale 2002 Set free of pre-university training
  expectation? Geography for life and leisure)
• How does geography promote itself
• How do academics link with school GITS
• Geography for FE
• Geography for Modern Apprenticeships
• Geography for Lifelong Learning?

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Geography a Problem?

• What is geography?
• Repetitious, spiral (Kneale rivers, Brazil?)
• Subsumed into other subjects with service role
• Fissiparous nature of geography and
  specialisation
• Academic and research and popular and school
  links?
• Career relevance and vocationalism
• RAE v lt and outreach
• Charismatic communicators?

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3.Recruiting to geography opportunities and
examples
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Geography and Widening Participation Recruitment

• Aim entry to HE not necessarily Geography
• AimHigher 50 participation by 2010
• Awareness Aspirations Achievement
• AimHigher Sub-Regional and National Plans and
  funding opportunities
• Activities Sub-regional, Institutional and
  Subject
• Continuity progression curriculum (not one offs)
• Progression routes
• Challenging exclusion and barriers by sectors
• Staff development school HEI
• Research

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Things to Do Responsibilities Opportunities

• Use HE resources facilities, staff and students
• Facilities laboratories, equipment, maps, books
  and libraries, Mainstream into curriculum
  accredited modules as part of wbl or negotiated
  learning
• Staff (workloads). Dont underestimate impact on
  relatively unsophisticated audience of professors
  and Drs and lifestyle and research (and caps and
  gowns!)
• Masterclasses Lectures and lessons
• Student (hidden) mentors, volunteering, Higher
  Education Active Community Fund, Millennium
  Volunteers
• Student shadowing
• Subject-Related and Hidden Opportunities
  (Mentoring)
• Increase opportunities to do geography in
  AimHigher
• Enhance image and experience of geography through
  AimHigher
• Enhance teaching quality
• University links with schools, FECs and Training
  Providers
• Geography Prizes for every secondary school in
  area at Year 11 and Year 13
• Support for theme days/weeks
• Shared fieldwork eg French Alps, Romania
• Parents
• Careers in Geography

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4. Retention in Geography
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Why Retain?

• Altruistic
• Tragedy for all
• Reflection on subject
• League tables (benchmarks? selecting/recruiting))
• Cost
• Waste cost of recruitment (cheaper to retain than
  recuit?)
• Non-payment by HEFCE (clawback)
• BUT let some go!

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Retaining (Widening Participation) Students

• Open not rotating door
• Not just widening participation students
• Not just UK (Pacific Rim)
• Not just post 1992s

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Reasons for Leaving(Yorke and Longden 2004)

• Poor quality student experience
• Inability to cope with course demands
• Unhappiness with setting of course and college
• Wrong course
• Finances
• Dissatisfaction with areas of university
  provision
• (Engagement)

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Life History Approach

• Application and information
• Pre-induction (Student Progression and Transfer
  SPAT)
• Induction
• First term (clarity of purpose quality of
  teaching social networks finances pick-up
  diverse needs peer support)
• Critical moments
• Inter-semester and holiday breaks
• Career development and intention purpose

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Levels of Intervention

• Proactive Reactive
• Blame and responsibility perspectives
• Student
• Subject
• Institution

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Student Intervention

• Identify and target when and who most at risk
• When
• First semester
• First break, holiday
• Who
• First generation
• Clearing, late entrant or transfer
• No advice and guidance
• No interview
• Limited access to PCs and WWW
• Inadequate and/or incorrect course information
• (Alvarez-Cordova 2004)

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What Can the Subjects Do? Constraints
Opportunities

• Constrained by
• Life influences especially with WP students
• Student quality
• Other subjects (in Combined programme)
• Know/understand your students, be flexible
• London University of the Arts (Alvarez-Cordova
  2004)
• Course problems cited 3x more often
• Teaching single most serious issue (27)
• Did not settle in group (68)

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Subject (Geography) Retention

• Get to know students, get students known
• Honest course details, transparency
• Front load 1st year teaching (time, quality,
  individualise, support v autonomy)
• Assessment first, formative, frequent, fewer,
  friendly
• Variety of teaching methods
• Fieldwork opportunities but respect individual
  circumstances (Hope 1st Year)
• Individual needs and differences
• Designated tutor
• Friendly office
• Engagement and attendance Snatch Pack, meet
  and greet, register, phone calls, text messages,
  fetch and carry.
• Mentors

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Institutional Intervention Support

• Data and tracking systems
• Empirical evidence not intuition or anecdote
• Student support (COMPASS)
• Specialist support (Writing Centre)
• Academic Alert
• Library and IT Services (access and make them
  work)
• Registry, Deanery, School and Award Offices
• SU
• Chaplaincy

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Institutional Intervention Curriculum and
Regulations

• Curriculum Regulations and Undergraduate Modular
  Scheme Quality considerations? Modularisation
  Examination timing, type, frequency, resits
  Serial Extensionists length of year contact
  time attendance at University
• Work ethic especially in Halls of Residence
• Needs of students living at home
• Personal Development Planning
• Flexibility, asynchronous activity, VLEs,
  e-resources

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Serial Extensionists playing the system or
supportive system?

• Liverpool Hope School of Sciences and Social
  Sciences 654 students
• 9 granted extensions
• 88 only once
• Statistically significantly more likely to
  ultimately submit work
• (Norton, B,. And Gayton, E. 2004 Unpublished)

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Students Living at Home

• WP students study locally and live at home
• 3282 students from 4 Merseyside HEIs
• 23 live at home (18 pre-1992 29 new unis)
• Financial motivation (78) More in paid work
• Harder to fit in less involved in student social
  life
• Integration of home and university life.
• Targeted publicity for local students.
• Freshers Week event for local students
• Local support group and space?
• Uni wide awareness of circumstances of local
  students commitment to work, local community,
  family.
• Clare Houldsworth 2004. ESRC The Choices and
  Experiences of Higher Education Students Living
  in the Parental Home. University of Liverpool.

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Institutional Intervention Staff Development
and Research

• Staff Development Student staff
  responsibility financial and ethical views
  Carrot and stick with staff PGCLTHE, ILTHE, LTSN
  engagement
• Research agenda Data and records empirical
  evidence not anecdote Institute for Research
  into Developments in Higher Education Aim Higher
  Research/Evaluation Pedagogical Action Research
  Group, JGHE, LTSNs

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5.Conclusions

• Opportunity not threat
• Simply good practice
• Use student and physical resources
• Challenge institutional structures and regulations

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Selected References

• Alvarez-Cordova, V. 2004 Innovate to Retain
  University of the Arts.
• Cook A. 2003 The Roots of Student Attrition.
  Conference on Student Retention, University of
  Ulster 14.11.03
• Geography for the New Undergraduate Project
  www.hope.ac.uk/gnu/
• Houldsworth, C. The Choices and Experiences of
  Higher Education Students Living in the Parental
  Home. ESRC R000223985
• Changing A Levels, recruitment to HE and widening
  participationThe Shifting Agenda for Geography
  RGS/IBG Conference on WP June 2002
  (rgs.org/category.php?Pagemain education)
• Student Progression and Transfer (SPAT),
  University of Plymouth and University of Ulster
  (www.spat.ac.uk)
• The First Year Experience and Students in
  Transition, National Resource Centre, University
  of South Carolina www.sc.edu/fye
• Tinto, V. 1993 Leaving College Rethinking the
  causes and cures of student attrition (2nd ed)
  Chicago University of Chicago Press.
• Yorke, M. and Longden, B. (Eds.). (2004).
  Retention and Student Success in Higher
  Education. Buckingham Society for Research into
  Higher Education and Open University Press