The student experience of
transition to university
Sandra Winn, Paula Wilcox, Sarah Pemberton, Dave
Harley
School of Applied Social Science, University of Brighton
Contact: [email protected]
Outline of presentation
• Introduction
– Retention and student success
– Retention and student motivation
– Impact of material factors
• Aims and methods
• Findings
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Applying to university
Arriving and making contact with others
Experience of academic work
Personal circumstances and social location
• Conclusion and implications
Student retention
(or ‘student success’)
• In the UK student retention has assumed
increasing prominence
• Retention is complex; rarely a single reason
for withdrawal. Factors include:
– those operating prior to entry
– the academic experience
– the social experience
• Retention more recently conceptualised by
HEFCE and researchers as ‘student success’
Student success and student
motivation
• Student success requires study of both
completion and achievement
• Student motivation is a factor in both
– Retention: proactive decision-making in the
application process (Ozga and Sukhnandan,
1998); commitment, motivation, long-term goal
(Mackie, 2001)
– Achievement: some evidence of a relationship
between intrinsic motivation and academic
success, but not straightforward; types of
motivation linked to approaches to studying.
Psychological approaches to
student retention
• Many of the learning and teaching strategies
suggested in the retention literature are motivationenhancing approaches
• View of retention as a psychological issue (Bean and
Eaton, 2000; Yorke, 2004)
• Bean and Eaton’s model encompasses academic
and social integration, e.g. internal locus of control
produces high motivation both to study and integrate
socially
• But is at odds with much sociological analysis of
retention
Sociological approaches to
student retention
• Macro-structural factors: age, socio-economic status,
etc.
• Financial factors?
• Accommodation, social support, ‘institutional habitus’
(Thomas 2002; Wilcox et al., 2005)
• Prescott and Simpson (2004)
– Utilize Herzberg’s theory of motivation
– Motivators and ‘hygiene’ factors (or dissatisfiers)
– Analysis restricted to academic environment
Aims and methods
• Explore both motivators and dissatisfiers (material
factors) in a cohort of students
• Extend Prescott and Simpson’s (2004) model to
include the social experience and the pre-entry stage
• Study of first year Applied Social Science students at
University of Brighton
• Qualitative interviews with 35 students who stayed
and 32 who left
• 15 of the ‘stayers’ interviewed three times to capture
the process of transition
Applying to university
• Lack of ownership of decision (external regulation)
Basically they’d ask, ‘Have you got your UCAS forms in?’
and we’d be like ‘No’ and we had to do them. We weren’t
given any support about other options. All my friends were
doing their UCAS forms and basically it was just a case of
why not? (Stella, 18, left)
I thought about having a gap year and my mum and
boyfriend kind of swayed me against the idea, thinking that
it would be better for me to go on in case I didn’t go back.
… As soon as I got here I thought maybe this isn’t right for
me, so I had doubts even before I was coming. (Rebecca,
18, left)
Applying to university
• Lack of other options (extrinsic motivation):
It was better to go to university than stay at home
and do nothing. (Danielle, 18, stayed)
• Motivation unrelated to the degree:
I went there because my boyfriend is at Sussex
University across the way. I wasn’t really
interested in the course I was doing, or anything
like that … I hadn’t even gone to an open day or
looked round the uni before I got there,
which is pretty ridiculous. (Nicole, 20, left)
Arriving at university and making
friends
• Support from family (social support)
I was crying every day and ringing up my mum, but she was
saying, ‘Oh stay for a bit’. So I am really glad that I stayed now.
My mum didn’t let me come home for five weeks. So I stayed for
five weeks, which I didn’t think I was going to be able to do … and
I’m happy now. (Chantelle, 18, stayed)
• Social isolation (social support/material factor)
I was really willing to learn and I liked the lectures but it could be
really lonely because although you’re with eight people, you were
in your room by yourself. I thought I’m going to have to go to my
room now and do nothing and sit there while everyone else is
doing their own thing … I just hated that, it was really depressing.
(Zoe, 20, left)
• Isolation was increased by living with boyfriend or
spending time with friends from home
Making friends
• Living with incompatible flatmates (material
factor)
I was thinking everyone’s going to go out all the
time, every night, have a really good time. This is
really silly but I remember it was so hard to get
people to go out with me in my flat. That was a
bit of a shock because I’m quite used to going out
loads at home and I thought they’d be up for it
because it was Freshers’, and students have such
a reputation. So that was the only negative thing,
it was nothing to do with the university, it was just
the people. (Christine, 20, withdrew)
Academic work
• Difficulties with independent study.
Sometimes because motivation was
extrinsic/externally regulated:
… you know how it is, you think you want to do it
because you want to do it, but I probably would
do it more for my parents and my family than
myself. They haven’t put me under any pressure
to pass, but I don’t want to let them down sort of
thing, and I just want to play hockey. (Daren, 19,
stayed)
Academic work
• Lack of study skills (reduces intrinsic motivation)
It is so hard to read because it is not interesting and
everything is referenced so much. It says about four words
and then the reference cuts in and you’ve got to move down
the line. It is so hard to read! (Billy, 18, stayed)
And they said, ‘Right, week to week read your handbook,
you will find out what’s happening’, then suddenly you turn
over the next page and it says, ‘Essay in next Friday’ and
everyone goes, ‘Oh wow’. But I don’t think many people
realised that the first day we were at university we already
had the essay title and the date it had to be handed in.
They had it in their bags but they hadn’t looked at it. (Harry,
26, stayed)
Academic work
• Concepts of learning: didactic/reproductive beliefs
(Kember, 2001) (associated with extrinsic motivation)
… if we had handouts [in seminars], so you had something
to refer to rather than just sitting in a circle and chatting and
going home again. Because if you said, ‘What did you do in
the seminar on Friday?’ I wouldn’t be able to remember
because you never have anything to look back on. (Jane,
18, stayed)
• Small number of examples of deep learning
(associated with intrinsic motivation):
Once you’ve got the knowledge it starts to piece together
after a while. I think that’s the point of it rather than just
learning what you have to do to pass an assessment. And
when you come to do the exams at the end it’s easier
because you’ve made sure you understand things before
you move on. (Sarah, 31, stayed)
Academic work
• Lack of motivation to study caused some to withdraw
I didn’t have the self-motivation to do it really. I’m more of a
structured person, I need structure in my life where I can
come into work, know exactly what I’m doing and I realise
that and decided that it wasn’t for me. (Karen, 25, left)
• For others, study skills improved ‘in a complex and
untrackable way’ (Haggis and Pouget, 2002), e.g.
Billy who initially had difficulty with reading:
So [the sociology exam] was all right and luckily two of the
questions were socialisation, which is quite a big topic and
we had done lots on it, and the other one was sociological
theory of crime which ties in really well with the criminology
… (Billy, 18, stayed)
Personal circumstances and
social location
• Employment (material factor)
We only had to be [at university] Monday, Tuesday and
Wednesday so I found myself saying to them, ‘Oh I will do
lunch covers on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday’ and I
would be working Thursday, Friday, Saturday and I would
only have Sunday off to do anything for uni and then in the
evenings I would be going to my other job. (Lisa, 21, left)
• Children (material factor)
By the time the little one went to bed at nine o’clock or half
past eight, there was no way I wanted to study. Then at
weekends I just wanted to chill out. (Pauline, 45, withdrew,
three children)
Personal circumstances and
social location
• Personal growth and developing independence
It was the first serious relationship I had ever had and laying
in bed with him, knowing that I had lectures in an hour and
just not wanting to be anywhere else but there. And then I
was feeling really shitty … in the beginning it would be all
affection and all positive and then it like just switched to the
negative and there was still no room for the work. (Dan, 20,
stayed)
I am not the person I thought I was and I have become a
different person at the same time. So elements of my
personality that I thought I had, like jealousy, I am really not
that jealous at all. It has done me a lot of good actually,
given me a thicker skin, I am more headstrong and I know
what I want. (Dan)
Conclusions
• Motivational issues are not restricted to the
teaching and learning context; they originate
in (or prior to?) the application process
• For many students motivation-enhancing
techniques will aid academic integration
• But it is also important to recognise material
factors and social support issues which
operate outside the academic environment
and may not be visible to tutors
Implications
• Pay more attention to the pre-entry stage
– Not just more or better information; needs more
proactive intervention
– Implications for schools and colleges
• Motivation-enhancing techniques will aid
academic integration
– Active engagement; group work; interesting/
‘relevant’ content; make outcomes of seminars
clear; early formative assessment; etc.
– Explicit discussion (within modules) about the
nature of learning in Higher Education
Implications
• Address social integration, which mainly
takes place outside the academic
environment
– Accommodation: flexibility and choice. Difficult
when most Halls of Residence are privatized
– Social spaces on campus and in Halls
– How to provide more opportunities for social
interaction outside the course?
References
Bean, J. and Eaton, S. (2000) ‘A psychological model of college student retention’,
in: Braxton, J. (Ed) Reworking the College Departure Puzzle: New Theory and
Research on College Student Retention Nashville: University of Vanberbilt Press.
Kember, D. (2001) ‘Beliefs about knowledge and the process of teaching and
learning as a factor in adjusting to study in higher education’, Studies in Higher
Education, 26 (2), pp. 205-221.
Mackie, S. (2001) ‘Jumping the Hurdles - Undergraduate Student Withdrawal
Behaviour’, Innovations in Education and Training International, 38 (3): 265-275.
Ozga, J. and Sukhnandan, L. (1998) Undergraduate non-completion: developing
an explanatory model Higher Education Quarterly 52(3), pp. 316-333.
Prescott, A. and Simpson, E. (2004) ‘Effective student motivation commences with
resolving “dissatisfiers”’, Journal of Further and Higher Education, 28 (3), pp. 248259.
Thomas, L. (2002b) ‘Student retention in higher education: the role of institutional
habitus’, Journal of Education Policy 17 (4), pp. 423-442.
Wilcox, P., Winn, S. and Fyvie-Gauld, M. (2005) ‘“It was nothing to do with the
university, it was just the people”: the role of social support in the first year
experience of higher education’, Studies in Higher Education, 30 (4) in press.
Yorke, M. (2004) ‘Retention, persistence and success in on-campus higher
education, and their enhancement in open and distance learning’, Open Learning,
19 (1), pp. 19-32.