Emotional transitions? Exploring the student experience of entering higher education in a widening-participation HE-in-FE setting

ABSTRACT

This paper details a small-scale research project that explores the student transition into higher education (HE), delivered in a further education college (FE), and considers whether the requirements of transition at this level impacts on emotional wellbeing. As such, it aims to contribute to the growing body of research on HE-in-FE from the perspective of student transition and emotional wellbeing. The data drawn on in this paper were collected by a questionnaire, administered at two points in the first semester, to measure levels of anxiety in students, alongside a further questionnaire designed to evaluate the effectiveness of bespoke academic skills input aimed at supporting the transition into HE. From quantitative and qualitative data, key findings identify factors that influence students’ emotional responses to HE, including those that exacerbate an those that mitigate negative emotional responses. Significantly, the research identifies academic factors, rather than personal or social issues, as being critical to students’ emotional experiences during the transitionary period.

KEYWORDS:

• Emotion
• transition
• widening participation
• HE in FE
• wellbeing

Acknowledgments

We owe a debt of gratitude to the first-year learners who study at University Campus Oldham. They gave up time to take part in various stages of the study and without whom there would have been no data to analyse.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Geolocalisation

This study was conducted at University Campus Oldham, University Way, Oldham, OL1 1BB. The coordinates are *53.5386° N, 2.1138° W*.

Supplementary Material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Notes

1. All data on student demographic sourced from internal key performance indicator reports and correct at the time of writing (September 2017).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Emma Young

Dr Emma Young is Head of Student Success Services at the University of Bradford. Previously, she worked as Head of Student Journey at University Campus Oldham and, as an Academic Development Lecturer and a Lecturer in English Literature at other universities across the UK. Her research includes an edited collection, a monograph and multiple book chapters and journal articles on women’s writing and feminist politics as well as more recent work on Peer Assisted Learning and student academic boredom in HE.

Rachael Thompson

Rachael Thompson is a Psychology Technician and Academic Development Lecturer at University Campus Oldham. Having recently completed an MRes, she is now studying for her PhD at the University of Huddersfield. Her own research interests surround psychology concepts relating to crime, as well as exploring factors within HE that influence the student experience and their anxiety. She actively attends conferences, presenting work at the British Conference for Undergraduate Research in 2016, and has submitted her dissertation project for publication.

John Sharp

Professor John Sharp is Professor of Higher Education and Head of the Lincoln Higher Education Research Institute (LHERI) at the University of Lincoln, which specialises in the evaluation of educational interventions and their impact at a variety of levels as well as providing support in the fields of Higher Education research and practice to staff and students across the university and beyond. His work on student engagement has led to the development of new lines of enquiry in the field of academic boredom and its effects across the teaching-learning environment with implications for course design and delivery as well as how students are supported in their studies.

Daniel Bosmans

Dr Daniel Bosmans is an Academic Development Lecturer at University Campus Oldham. He has taught ESOL/EFL/EAP at various universities and colleges across the Northwest of England. He has also taught French online for 14 years and has contributed to the 3 new books for this course, as well as the online pronunciation guide used by the students. His research interests encompass metacognition and affect in language learning, phonology, peer-assisted learning and learning strategies. Publications include journal articles and conference papers on all these topics.