Progressing to Undergraduate Study in Hospitality and Tourism

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Progressing to Undergraduate Study in Hospitality
and Tourism

• Dr Pete Cannell (pcannell_at_qmuc.Ac.uk)

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Background

• Higher national awards in Scotland
• 25 of HE students in FECs
• The widening participation forums
• Mapping, tracking and bridging
• School of business and enterprise at queen
  Margaret university college

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Patterns of Progression

• It is evident that the further and higher
  education sectors could be better informed about
  the volume and pattern of student progression
  from FE to HE
• (MacLennan et al, 2000)

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Transition

• CHERI report (2004) found a high degree of
  consensus about the importance of the issues of
  first year support but it found relatively
  little consensus about how these issues should
  best be tackled.

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The Study

• Interviewing hospitality, tourism and events
  management students with HN awards pre and
  post-entry
• Contextualised by questionnaire data from larger
  group of students

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Learning Pathways

• The report highlights the extent to which direct
  entrants acquire maturity in motivation and
  attitudes to study in the course of learning
  pathways, which often encompass false starts
  straight from school, full and part-time
  employment and college study.

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Case Study 1

• Student B went straight from school to
  University (in Northern Ireland) to study but
  left after the first Semester. She found the
  University style very different from school and
  wasnt sure if this was what she wanted to do.
  She transferred the following year to a Further
  Education College. The Tech course in Tourism
  seemed more interesting more work related and
  also fitted with an interest in learning Spanish.
  At the end of the course she ended up living in
  Spain for 6 months and planned to start at QMUC
  in the following year.

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Case Study 2

• Student D had a two-year gap between leaving
  school and enrolling on an HNC. He worked in
  various part-time jobs before college and
  continued to do this while at college. After a
  year he transferred to the HND and then planned
  to move to the third year of an articulated
  degree course.

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Breadth of Career Aims

• Students with quite specific career aims and on
  vocational courses still value open-ness and
  breadth.

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Influences

• Expectations of university study seem to be
  shaped most strongly by peers and by college
  staff who have particular links with the
  university.

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Induction

• The first few days at university are critical to
  the success of transition. Students want the
  chance to meet and form relationships with their
  peers, to orient themselves in relation to their
  new surroundings and to have clear information
  about timetabling and the distribution of course
  contact time.
• Administrative and academic information given in
  the first few days of the first semester is
  largely a waste of time as students suffer from
  information overload.

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Transition

• Direct entrants to the third year at university
  find that there is no major gap in their subject
  knowledge.
• Direct entrants feel that the skills they bring
  with them are not always recognised in bridging
  courses or by university staff.

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Skills

• Students with HN qualifications embarking on
  undergraduate study bring with them a diversity
  of skills and experience acquired at college and
  in the workplace.
• Support for the development of academic writing
  skills to cope with a diverse range of assessment
  methods is not well integrated into the
  curriculum.

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Recommendations - Induction

• Should
• Be staged to avoid information overload.
• Facilitate social links with peers.
• Provide clear and accurate information on
  timetables and programme organisation.
• Allow opportunities for orientation to the
  campus.
• Link in a coherent way to ongoing support in
  modules and through the personal academic tutor
  system.

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Recommendations - Bridging

• Should
• Avoid a deficit model.
• Be grounded in a constructivist approach, which
  recognises, values and builds on the diversity of
  skills that direct entrants bring with them.
• Recognise the importance of the development of
  academic writing skills and adopt a pedagogical
  approach consistent with that which the students
  will encounter in subsequent modules.

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Recommendations - Peer Support

• Mentoring or buddying arrangements should be
  available for direct entrants.

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Recommendations - Learning Skills Development

• Institutions should aim for a coherent approach
  to learning skills development across and between
  modules. The development of generic materials
  that can be customised and used within modules
  may be one way of achieving this.

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Recommendations Staff Development

• Focus on developing an awareness of the diversity
  of student skills and backgrounds and the ways in
  which the curriculum can be developed and adapted
  to make positive use of this.
• Support staff to develop and use forms of
  formative assessment that can support student
  learning.