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Does Randy Swing have anything to teach the UK about Quality Enhancement?

This page is a short note on whether we have things to learn from Randy Swing's account of recent innovations in USA HE about how to support first year students. (Randy Smith's biography.) I heard Randy at two seminars on 26 and 30 Sept 2003 (his slides), in connection with one of SHEFC's Quality Enhancement Engagements for 2003-4 "Responding to Student Needs" and its part "Providing holistic support for students..." and its subpart "with particular emphasis on the phases of ... the first year of study".

I list seven innovative practices (or interventions) he mentioned, and discuss how they would translate from the USA context to my own university; and hence whether or not they suggest changes we ourselves might usefully try.

Contents (click to jump to a section)

• Introduction
• Basic comparative positions
• List of interventions
  • Attendance: the magic phone call
  • First year (or "freshman") seminars
  • Learning communities
  • PAL
  • Summer reading programmes
  • Enrolment staffing
  • Evaluation method: the general approach
• Interpretation
• What I'm going to do
• References

Introduction

Randy's basic position is that in the last five years or so several interventions have spread rapidly through most of HE (Higher Education i.e. universities) in USA. There is considerable evidence that they are effective (in terms both of changes in reported student attitude measures and in dropout rates); and they were invented and adopted because of evidence about the experience of first year students, and the unmet needs this research showed.

However in considering whether any of this has lessons for us, we need to keep in mind the basic differences in position between HE in the UK and in the USA. In fact there are relevant differences between HE in the USA, in Scottish universities like Glasgow with a faculty system for the first two years, Scottish universities in general, and English HE. In the US system, students usually have a great freedom of choice in the combinations of courses (i.e. modules) they do. An effect of this is that no two students may do the same combination, and if they do, they won't easily know about each other. In contrast in most UK universities, students are accepted for a specific programme and will do most of their courses with the same cohort of fellow students. However with a faculty entry system as at UoG and some other Scottish universities, before joining a relatively fixed honours programme for the second two years, students have a wide and individual choice of course combinations within their faculty for the first two years, and potentially face the same situation as US students.

These differences are important because one possible reaction is that the US is at last fixing horrible problems the UK doesn't have because of superior structural features; while an opposite one is that the UK is at last moving towards wider (more socially just) HE participation which the US has done earlier, and the UK should learn as soon as possible about the problems this is likely to throw up and their solutions.

Another issue in considering the translation of these issues and interventions from the USA to the UK is that the effects might be on dropout and retention rates (the two sides of the same coin), but might also show on grades and marks achieved, or on the quality of the learning experience, particularly where dropout rates are already low. That is, the same intervention might work, but show an effect on different output measures.

Basic comparative positions

• Dropout (retention) rates. According to Tinto (1982), dropout rates in USA HE have averaged a steady 45% over the last century (defined as those who have not graduated 4 years after first enrolment), despite huge changes in participation rates and other major aspects of HE.

  In 1997 England, using another of the possible definitions, had a dropout rate of 15.8% while Scotland had 16.1%. I take it then that Scotland is very similar, but perhaps slightly worse, than the UK in general. In 1997 at UoG the dropout rate was about 13% and the UK rate 16% on the same definition and year according to BBC tables. So I'll take it that UoG has (only) a slightly easier retention job than the UK or Scottish average.

  The 2002-3 tables by HESA, if I'm reading them right, define dropout as the percentage of all first year first degree entrants who are no longer in HE a year later. The overall UK rate is 15.4%; the rate in Scotland is 10.7%; this university's rate is 9.2%. The range in dropout rates is 1%-36%. (HESA tables)

  Country Average rate Japan 11% UK 18% Germany 28% USA 37% France 45%

  These dropout figures, quoted in a news article, are for 1996-8 and derive from an OECD (2000) report. The funding councils also argue that while the numbers of students entering higher education has doubled in the past 10 years, the drop-out rate has only risen by 2% -- from 16% to the current 18%.

  In 2002 the UK rate was 18% on average with a range of 1-36% for different HEIs. Thus while rates vary greatly between countries, they also vary even more within a country i.e. different HEIs face quite different dropout rates. They also vary a lot within an HEI, most occurring in the first year: Randy mentioned about 25% currently drop out in the first year alone in the USA.

• Overall participation.

  Country 1991 2001 UK 19 29 USA 30 39

  The table shows the overall participation defined as the % of the population aged 25-35 with an HE qualification, according to the OECD's latest report (OECD, 2003).

  Defining participation differently as going directly from school into FE or HE: England had a rate of 12%?? until 1990, currently has participation 25-35%, but the target is 35-45% (see this HEFCE news). Scotland now has a participation rate of 52% (see this Scottish Executive bulletin), or 46% a few years ago (see this BBC news item). Another way of putting it (in that last news item) is that in the period 1982-1998 the number of students in Scottish HE nearly doubled.

  But a useful table combining longer historical comparisons with high/low socio-economic groups is to be found in Robertson & Hillman (1997), section 1, table 1.1. It shows the percentge of the age 18+ cohort entering HE in a given year. API means Age Participation Index. "High" means socio-economic groups I, II, IIIn; "low" means groups IIIm, IV, V.

  Participation by year and socio-economic group. Redrawn from Robertson & Hillman (1997)
  Group	1940	1950	1960	1970	1980	1985	1990	1995
  High	8.4	18.5	26.7	32.4	33.1	35.2	36.7	45.0
  Low	1.5	2.7	3.6	5.1	6.5	8.3	10.3	15.1
  API (UK)	1.8	3.4	5.4	8.4	12.4	13.7	19.3	32.0

• Unequal participation. "Non-traditional students" i.e. from low socio-economic category families, with lower pre-HE qualifications, parents who didn't do HE, schools that send few to HE, etc. "Widening participation" means taking more of these, and so reducing the differences in participation rate between different social groups e.g. the current working class 34% participation rate vs. the 64% middle class participation rate (see report on Scottish minister talk) in Scotland, or the class differences shown in the table above for the UK. These students have different needs; change may be required to address them. This is recently on the government agenda in the UK; the US has been addressing them for somewhat longer. Dropout rates for mature students are (or have been) about double that for others.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development's recruitment and retention survey in 2005 showed that 13% of new employees leave in the first six months. Should universities expect to do any better?
Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. (2005) Recruitment, retention and labour turnover survey 2005. (London: CIPD).

List of interventions

1. Attendance: following up non-attendance promptly by a single phone call.
2. First year (or "freshman") seminars i.e. small group teaching in the first semester of first year.
3. Learning communities
4. Supplemental Instruction (Peer Assisted Learning)
5. Summer reading programmes.
6. Enrolment, recruitment, and advising specialisation.
7. Evidence-based educational change.

Surveys on what US HEIs are currently doing are here and also here.

Attendance: the magic phone call

However, perhaps UoG could do this for tutorial attendance, where attendance records often are kept (in those level 1 courses that do have tutorials). So we might look at a policy of having someone contact students after missing a tutorial. Variables in implementing such a policy include:

• Who: whether this is done by the group tutor, class head, advisor of studies, or someone else. Note that in the Mississippi first trial, it was done by a postgraduate who presumably did not know the student personally. Perhaps anonymity is helpful as in a counselling-like encounter?
• Medium: by phone, email, letter, personal visit in hall of residence, ...
• Tone and content: e.g. "I understand you missed the last tutorial and we're concerned: I wonder if there is anything we could do to help?" (as opposed to "What is your excuse for missing it?"). Or actually: "One of your instructors is concerned about your absences from his class at such an early time in the semester. Understand that instructors have different criteria for what they deem excessive, which might be far different from your own ideas. I tell you this only to notify you that your instructors do in fact notice when you attend or fail to attend their classes. If you are in need of any type of assistance, whether it be academic or personal, please feel free to contact an advisor in the Academic Support Center located at 22 Road Street (123 4567) or the staff at the University Counseling Center at the V.B. Harrison Building (123 4567). Information regarding Academic Probation, Dismissal and Suspension can be found at in the Undergraduate Catalogue."
• The trigger criterion. In the Mississippi trial, this was the second missed class in the first 8 weeks. The first missed one, or the first missed one after the first 2 weeks, might be alternative criteria. A related issue is whether the delay from the missed class to the phone call matters.

In the first trial, about 40% of the class qualified by their absences for the intervention. Of these 87% of those getting the intervention got grade C or better, while only 55% of the control group did. In the second trial (with no control group) only 58% got a C or better: as if there were no effect. In the third trial, 70% got C or better. However that was in the second semester, when perhaps most of the dropouts had already occurred and the remaining students were much less likely to fail. Differences between the definite success of the first trial, and the possible failure of the others include:

• English class only in the first trial, a wide variety of classes in the others.
• In the others, a residence hall advisor sought a face to face encounter rather than use the phone. This might matter because:
  • Face to face more threatening or less helpful than phone?
  • Advisors are in an authority position: worse than anonymous outsiders?
  • The postgraduates employed in the first trial were training to be clinical psychologists: perhaps their approach amounted to that of trained counsellors rather than the untrained Advisors.
• The measure in the later trials was the half term, not full term grade. Perhaps this implies that treatment stopped after the first half semester, in which case some students needing the intervention would not have got it, so depressing the success rate.
• In later trials there was an uncontrolled variability in the trigger criterion: the need for intervention was left to individual course staff. This may have led to too little too late on some courses.
• Later trials seem to have involved many more courses yet only approximately the same number of students were contacted.

An attempt was made to replicate the Mississippi study at the University of Glasgow for students taking the first semester, first year psychology course. The trigger criterion was missing two consecutive tutorials. Those meeting the trigger were then randomly assigned to receive either an email or else a phone call. No differences were found in dropout or exam grades at the end of the semester between the groups. Dropout was defined as either withdrawal, or credit refused for failing to complete work e.g. non-attendance at the exam.

There were big differences in the effectiveness of the two methods in reaching the students and gaining an acknowledgement. There was no sign (in an extensive survey) of any problems in the phone calls being seen as intrusive or unwelcome.

	Email group	Telephone group
Total no. of students meeting the "trigger"	30	30
No. of students who were definitely reached	5	20
Of these, no. who had already dropped out	2	5
Total no. of dropouts by end of semester	17	17

First year (or "freshman") seminars

There's been some research, and no consensus yet, on the content of these courses. Because this has been very widely adopted, but with great variation in what each HEI means by it, there is data on what features are associated with most success.

• 3 hour classes do better than 1 hour classes.

• What makes them effective is being pedagogically engaging: good discussion, meaningful homework, interesting topics.

• The discipline-based ones (probably the most like our tutorials) are less effective than those that are either focussed on the transition to HE (i.e. about how to study, how to be an effective student), or focussed on a special academic theme (perhaps a wacky topic the teacher likes, but NOT stuff that will eventually be useful in the discipline or profession, but whose relevance and interest is not immediately apparent to the new student).

To what extent do first year tutorials cover this function? At UoG a first year could get 3 tutorials a week, one per subject, although there is no uniform policy. Furthermore tutorials may not be weekly but fortnightly. They only last 50 minutes (not 3 hours). They are typically not taught by academic staff. They may or may not have a substantial study skills component.

All of this suggests to me that level 1 tutorials aren't just one part of a reasonable technical provision for certain subjects, but may be the most important factor determining quality, student performance, and dropout rate in level 1. If it turns out that they are, then this implies that substantial changes in their provision (in their frequency, content, length, and who acts as tutors) could yield large benefits. Overall, it means that our understanding of their aim and purpose should be changed: not just providing a bit of assistance with the content of the least advanced courses, but the locus for supporting the step change to different study habits, and forming the relationship between them and the subject and indeed the university.

Furthermore, my recent experience with PAL has made me think that experience in groups with no more than 5 students is important for some things, such as willingness to speak out and to engage in meaningful conceptual discussion. this means that larger groups may just not be effective.

Learning communities

In most UK universities this is automatic, where students enrol from the start in a given subject. In a Faculty system, we could do it by using the Registry database to extract the sets of students sharing all 3, (or failing that 2) subjects in first year; and giving them the list of each others names and emails. Perhaps also organise a "social". We might also consider using this in allocating students to tutorial groups: bunch together those a) with the most overlap in the courses they take, b) living in the same hall or area, c) with the same major declared on their UCAS university application form. In early tutorials, put on the agenda a) introducing themselves b) noting what other subjects each person takes.

In judging both the need for and success of such schemes, the main measure should (I think) be how often students talk to other students about their academic work. If the people they socialise with don't do the same courses, this will be seldom; if they do, it is almost certain to be high. In fact it seems to me likely the real need is to have a minimum number of acquaintances on the same course(s); but after that, knowing diverse people is good.

The simple underlying idea is that people learn best in communities. If the people students know share the same experiences, then they will automatically talk about it, and learn more (and feel less isolated). The US system of free choice of courses makes for consumeristic "freedom of choice" at the price of isolation. The English system automatically largely avoids this. The Scottish faculty entry system suffers from this for the first years: exactly the students most at risk of isolation. Freedom of learning choices has been allowed to entail isolation and the absence of academic community. Lecture audiences in the hundreds mean that people never sit next to the same person twice unless they know them so well they arranged to meet beforehand: new acquaintances cannot be formed there. Even tutorial groups of 20 are not always good for this in practice.

It is also worth thinking of this in terms of halls of residence: again, use databases to put people in touch who have most in common (both courses taken and living in the same hall). Note that the Oxbridge college system might score badly in this respect.

PAL

Summer reading programmes

Enrolment staffing

Evaluation method: the general approach

This could and should be adopted here for the same reasons that evidence-based medicine is being progressively adopted.

If any of the implications of these US interventions are tried here, it should be with evaluation measures to determine whether first the same problem and then the same intervention apply in the new context.

Interpretation

This view is in contrast with the common view of learning as an individual cognitive activity, with social interaction only an indirect, auxiliary factor. It is however in line with the alternative view of learning as apprenticeship developed by Jean Lave (1988, 1991) and others. It is also consistent with Tinto's concept of academic and social integration in the literature on dropout and retention. Another way of looking at it is in terms of the easily measured objective factors e.g. amount of interaction with staff, with other students, etc. It could also be seen as related to Piaget's views of the role of peers as external stimuli that promote the internal conflicts and reorganisations necessary to development and learning. Or more simply, as to do with getting the students to feel that someone, or the organisation, is paying attention to them. Or more simply still, it just reminds them, prompts them to think about, their activities rather than letting it drift without any real learning actions.

It is particularly important nowadays for a traditional, campus-based, face-to-face (as opposed to distance-learning) university such as UoG to consider this. Unless it is able to deliver an effective experience of learning community by exploiting the potential advantages of the copresence of learners with the same aims and experiences, then it will be as poor for learning as a crowded shopping mall.

The change from school to university is a huge change in learning environment and required habits, and this requires scaffolding. This will apply more strongly to those ("widened access") who do not come from schools and/or homes where staff and parents have been orienting pupils to university from their experience and through their expectations.

This may imply we should reconsider the use of tutorials in level 1. If this social-induction function is established as of major importance then this amounts to a new (or rather, newly explicitly identified) requirement on tutorials. This in turn may imply that all level 1 courses should be required to offer tutorials, and that these tutors should be recruited and trained differently (i.e. not just on the basis of their subject-specific technical knowledge, operating as demonstrators somewhat like a telephone helpline for computer problems) in line with the newly identified requirement.

Principles for what is important in effective first year teaching

1. Encourages Contact between Students and Faculty
2. Develops Reciprocity and Cooperation among Students
3. Encourages Active Learning
4. Gives Prompt Feedback
5. Emphasizes Time on Task
6. Communicates High Expectations
7. Respects diverse talents and ways of learning

What I'm going to do

• PAL: this was introduced in psychology in October 2003.
• The magic phone call: too advantageous not to try. We tried this, and found no trace of any effect (see above).
• "Learning communities": it would be fairly easy to put subsets of students in touch with each other.
• Re-appraise the use of first year tutorial groups. This will be harder, but since it is not new but a possible redesign, it may be practical politics. Arranging time in groups no larger than 5 may be important.

Refs

BBC tables for HE performance at dropout and social inclusion

Arthur W. Chickering and Zelda F. Gamson (1987) "Seven principles for good practice in undergraduate education" American Association of Higher Education Bulletin pp.3-7 http://www.hcc.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/7princip.htm

John C. Hall (2001) Retention and Wastage in FE and HE: A Review http://www.scre.ac.uk/scot-research/wastage/index.html (SCRE)

HEFCE (2000) Performance Indicators in Higher Education (London: HEFCE; HEFCW; DENI; SHEFC). http://www.hefce.ac.uk/learning/perfind/2000/

Lave, Jean (1988) Cognition in practice : mind, mathematics and culture (Cambridge Univeristy Press)

Lave, Jean (1991) Situated learning : legitimate peripheral participation (Cambridge Univeristy Press)

NSSE: The national survey of student engagement: The college report http://www.indiana.edu/~nsse/

OECD (1997) Thematic Review of the First Years of Tertiary Education. Country Note: United Kingdom. http://www.oecd.org/els/pdfs/EDSEPDOCA015.pdf

OECD (2000) Education at a Glance. http://www.oecd.org/els/education/EAG2000/index.htm

OECD (2003) Education at a Glance. http://www.oecd.org/document/52/

Robertson,D. & Hillman,J. (1997) "Widening participation in higher education for students from lower socio-economic groups and students with disabilities" (part of the Dearing committee work) http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/ncihe/report6.htm

Tinto,V. (1982) "Limits of theory and practice in student attrition" Journal of Higher Education vol.53 no.6 pp.687-700

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