Applying for Higher Education Career Choices and Plans

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Applying for Higher Education Career Choices
and Plans

• Putting Research Outcomes into Practice (PROP)
  Conference,
• Tuesday 12th June 2007
• Professor Kate Purcell

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THE RESEARCH DESIGN

• Initial population census with targeted follow-up
  of under-represented groups.
• Reliance exclusively on web-based data
  collection.
• Contact with universities and colleges to
  maintain contact and rebalancing.
• Substantial resources devoted to
• retention of sample members
• co-ordination across HECSU wider research
  programme
• dissemination of research findings.
• Longitudinal pilot survey, question testing,
  consultative approach to identification of
  priorities at each wave.

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2006 UCAS APPLICANTS POPULATION AND RESPONSE AT
WAVE ONE
SURVEY RESPONDENTS 100,411 (82.4) accepted
places in HE 21,461 (17.6) Not accepted
427,786 Invited to participate in survey (84.5)
122,872 responded (24.1 of all applicants
HE NON- PARTICIPANTS SHORT SURVEY 7,591 respondent
s
506,304 UCAS applicants
NON RESPONDENTS 223,198 (73) accepted places in
HE 82,716 (27) not accepted
305,914 no response (60.4)
OTHER APPLICANTS 64,000 (85.7) accepted places
in HE 11,000 (14.3) not accepted
78,518 late applicants or no email
supplied not e-mailed invitation (15.5)
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FUTURETRACK Wave 1 TWO RELATED SURVEYS (..at
least..)
Who got first main scheme place?
HE ENTRANTS
Who accepted insurance place?
Who entered through Clearing?
(and who changed course within first year?)
Who turned down offered place and why?
NON-ENTRANTS
Who took a gap year and why?
Who failed to obtain a place and what did they
do next?
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FUTURETRACK Wave 1

• Full survey response of 121,427
• Short questionnaire for non-accepted applicants
  7,591 responses
• Final response 129,118
• Application data merged with survey responses
• Telephone follow-up interviews with targeted
  respondents

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RESPONSE BIAS

• What bias did we expect?
• Gender (more women than men)
• Age (younger rather than mature)
• Ethnicity (lower proportion of Afro-Caribbean)
• Social background (fewer working class
  applicants)
• Entry qualifications (fewer applicants with low
  entry qualifications)
• Non-traditional degrees (fewer on Foundation
  degrees)

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RESPONSE RATE ANALYSIS
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THE KEY STRENGTHS OF THIS INVESTIGATION

• Large and comprehensive
• Longitudinal from HE application to early
  career development
• Detailed data university/college application
  data, educational history, socio-economic
  background and other attributes prior to survey
  responses and targeted follow-ups
• Opportunities for methodological development and
  testing
• Interdisciplinary research team using both
  quantitative and qualitative research methods
• Strong support from HE stakeholder community and
  collaboration to track students with
  data-linking where feasible.

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FUTURETRACK Wave 1 Some indicative findings
(Weighted responses, HE participants only)

• NB Not to be cited without permission of the
  research team
• (Futuretrack2006_at_warwick.ac.uk)

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MAPPING DIVERSITY

• Different contexts and sources of information of
  HE applicants
• Different HE Terrain (and VARIETY of HE
  Terrain) to which they have access
• STAGE 1 UNPACKING COMPLEXITY

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WHO GETS HE PLACES? - BY CONTEXT DURING
APPLICATION
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ETHNICITY BY SITUATION WHILE APPLYING FOR HE
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(No Transcript)
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RESPONDENTS SELF-EVALUATION KEY SKILLS PRIOR TO
HE ENTRY
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DEGREE OF CLARITY ABOUT CAREER AMBITIONS, BY
GENDER
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CLARITY OF IDEAS ABOUT CAREER PRIOR TO COURSE BY
AGE-GROUP
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CAREER PLANNING BY SUBJECT
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All accepted applicants Medicine dentistry Education Subjects allied to medicine Engineering Tech. Business Admin. Physical Science Language Historical Philosophical Studies
Per cent female 54 57 86 74 14 48 40 72 50
Per cent aged 25 or over 12 15 20 31 9 8 6 6 9
Per cent high soc-econ.1 15 30 11 12 15 12 20 21 22
Reasons for HE
- normal thing 35 44 20 27 39 36 42 47 44
- part of career plans 78 91 87 85 78 78 73 65 71
- to get good job 79 69 75 73 81 84 83 80 74
- to study subject 78 87 66 72 78 54 78 81 79
- friends doing it 14 14 9 9 15 13 18 20 21

• Self-evaluation on range of Excellent, Very
  good, Good Adequate or Not very good
• 1 From higher managerial or professional
  household (SES1)
• 2 From categories 0- 11, where 0 0 and 11
  540 (NB overseas and non-standard
  qualifications zero-rated)
• 3 On scale of 1-7 as in previous figures.

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All accepted applicants Medicine dentistry Education Subjects allied to medicine Engineering Tech. ) Business Admin. Physical Sciences Languages Historical Philosophical Studies
Reasons for subject
- enjoy studying it 78 76 57 59 78 68 89 91 93
- get good grades 41 50 14 26 44 35 55 58 54
- to enter profession 44 90 80 77 48 30 32 23 16
- difficulty deciding 8 3 4 5 8 9 11 10 10
Excellent written communication 20 27 15 19 14 15 16 35 32
Excellent numeracy skills 17 36 8 16 34 18 30 7
Average UCAS tarriff2 5.5 7.5 4.5 4.6 5.4 4.8 6.8 6.7 6.8
Average career plan score3 2.8 1.3 1.5 1.6 2.5 2.9 3.4 3.6 3.9
Self-evaluation on range of Excellent, Very
good, Good Adequate or Not very good 1
From higher managerial or professional household
(SES1) 2 From categories 0- 11, where 0 0
and 11 540 (NB overseas and non-standard
qualifications zero-rated) 3 On scale of 1-7
as in previous figures.

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SUBJECT RATIOS - UK/EU/Overseas
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SELECTED MAJOR SUBJECT GROUPS OF COURSES APPLIED
FOR, COMPARING ASIAN, BLACK AND WHITE APPLICANTS
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(No Transcript)
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ALL AND MAIN REASONS FOR APPLYING TO ENTER HE
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REASONS FOR CHOICE OF HEI
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ALL AND MAIN REASONS FOR CHOICE OF COURSE
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(No Transcript)
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INFORMATION AVAILABLE TO INFORM HE DECISION-MAKING
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CHOOSING COURSES EXPERIENCE OF INFORMATION
SOURCES
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HOW STUDENTS PROPOSED TO FUND THEIR STUDIES
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RESPONDENTS EXPECTATIONS OF DEBT
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DEBTS AND PAID WORK, BY DOMICILE
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ATTITUDES OF RESPONDENTS TO KEY ISSUES
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In the field NOWFUTURETRACK Wave 2experience of
1st year

• Topics to be investigated include
• current situation,
• evaluation of HE experience study, paid and
  unpaid work, extra-curricular activities,
• HE context region, type of university/college,
  travel, accommodation and other resources
• current career aspirations, use of careers
  service,
• finance and debt,
• obstacles encountered and access to opportunities

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SUBSEQUENT WAVES OF THE SURVEY

• AT THE END OF FIRST DEGREE STUDY (2009)
• Educational outcomes, career planning and use of
  careers information and guidance services
• The next stage graduate study, entry to
  employment, experience of job-seeking, evaluation
  of fit between education and early outcomes,
  career plans and choices.
• TWO YEARS LATER (2011-2)
• Where are they now? Early career development,
  different career paths, impact of advice and
  guidance
• value of higher educations experience and
  credentials, impact of access to information and
  Career planning and use of services
• evaluation of fit between education and outcomes,
  longer-term career plans
• continuing educational, training and career
  guidance needs
• Integration into the graduate labour market
  winners, losers, and what can we learn from their
  experience?

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OBJECTIVES

• improve understanding of the career
  decision-making process
• clarify the impact of obstacles and advantages in
  determining opportunities
• provide both an overview of the student
  population and insight into particular categories
  of students
• reveal where, when, what and for whom careers
  information and guidance are most effective and
  most required
• provide unprecedented evidence about the
  relationship between higher education and early
  career development to inform practice, policy and
  debates about the knowledge society, etc.

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KEY ISSUES

• Publicity and collaboration with other
  Stakeholders particularly HEIs and Careers
  Services will be essential to ensure high
  retention rate
• Targeting of under-represented groups required
• incentives and role of website important
  sponsorship, opportunities, etc
• development of panel element, to facilitate the
  addition of those who failed to participate first
  time round.

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• For further information about
• see www.hecsu.ac.uk OR
• www.warwick.ac.uk/go/glmf
• and follow the links to Futuretrack 2006
• Methodological enquiries to the research team at
  Futuretrack2006_at_warwick.ac.uk