Enabling success at university: the impact of an Australian programme to provide access to university

ABSTRACT

In Australia access to university studies is supported through students’ participation in government funded, pre-award programmes called ‘enabling’ programmes. These programmes allow students to meet university entry requirements and are designed to prepare students for the rigours of study. This article explores the performance and experience of students studying a range of undergraduate degrees after completing an enabling programme in a regional Australian university. Institutional data confirmed that post-enabling students in this study performed better in undergraduate programmes than traditionally enrolled students when grade point average (GPA), success and retention rates were compared. Students’ beliefs about the reason for this success were clustered within the six themes of confidence, ways of studying, managing lifeload, skills obtained, their attitudes to study, and the enabling programme staff and teaching. Students openly discussed their challenges and skills gained, and demonstrated confidence and resilience in undergraduate study. Staff reflections highlighted similar themes to those of the students, although in a different sequence of importance. Taken together, these three sets of results confirm that students who completed the enabling programme in this study were likely to succeed both personally and in their programmes of future study.

KEYWORDS:

• university enabling
• pathway programme
• student success
• confidence
• lifeload
• learning

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge and thank the generous commitment of time made by the students and staff who participated in the interviews.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This project was funded as part of the Shaping the 21st Century Student Experience at Regional Universities, a 2014 Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching Strategic Priority Project (Reference SP14-4602).