What can universities do to support all their students to progress successfully throughout their time at university?

ABSTRACT

This article reviews the findings from a UK nationwide project on the causes of differences in student outcomes in higher education. The project was commissioned by the Higher Education Funding Council for England and reported in July 2015. We found that universities with an embedded, institution-wide approach that engaged senior managers, academic staff, professional service staff and students as stakeholders and agents in the differential outcomes agenda were most promising in decreasing progression gaps. Universities use targeted and universal interventions to affect change. Initiatives that tackle assessment and the content and meaning of curricula are a promising stream of interventions. Overall, more evaluations on what works and sharing of practice will further enable the sector to support all higher education students in reaching their academic potential.

KEYWORDS:

• Differences in student outcomes
• attainment gap
• student progression
• BME students
• learning and teaching

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dr Anna Mountford-Zimdars is a Senior Lecturer in Higher Education and Head of Research at King's Learning Institute, King's College London. She has previously worked at the Universities of Manchester and Oxford.

Dr John Sanders is a Director of ARC Network, a not-for-profit research and consultancy company established five years ago by the senior management team of Aimhigher Greater Manchester. He has worked as an Open University Associate Lecturer since 1985 and is an independent member of the QAA's Access Recognition and Licensing Committee. John was Assistant Director of Aimhigher Greater Manchester from 2006 to 2011 and a leading figure in the ‘Open College Network’ movement from 1981 to 2006.

Joanne Moore, Director, ARC Network, is a social researcher with an interest in the education and training sectors, whose research areas have pursued a social justice angle particularly from the perspective of education policy and practice. Her varied career includes positions in the public and private sectors, and latterly in university posts.

Dr Duna Sabri is a visiting research fellow at the Centre for Public Policy Research, Kings College London. She has previously worked at Royal Holloway and the University of Oxford.

Dr Steven Jones is a Senior Lecturer at the Manchester Institute of Education, University of Manchester where he leads the PGCert in Higher Education, he is also a member of the Sutton Trust Research Group. He has previously lectured at several UK universities.

Louise Higham is a Director of ARC Network whose professional background is in Careers Education & Guidance; she held the role of IAG project manager with Aimhigher Greater Manchester. Her recent projects work for the Social Mobility Commission, Kings College London and supporting three Networks for Collaborative Outreach (NCO).

ORCiD

Steven Jones http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4529-9996

Notes

1. The extent to which those issues are covered in our subsequent reports will depend on the data, available evidence from the grey literature search and meta-analysis of the literature.

2. The full HEFCE report also explores the pattern of differences for students with disabilities.

3. For example, while differences in prior educational attainment are part of explaining differences in higher education progression, but this is only a partial explanation (Broecke and Nicholls 2007; Richardson 2008).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Higher Education Funding Council for England.