International Conference on Enhancement and Innovation in Higher Education Crowne Plaza Hotel, Glasgow 9-11 June 2015 Welcome

Guiding students onto a successful undergraduate path. Are we taking the route through the “mole” hill or are we climbing the mountain? David Booth

Methodology Skills audit evaluation A population of 1102 responses from students entering between the 2011/12 and 2014/15 academic years Scored for each of the four areas covered (Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics and Statistics) BS12005 evaluation Running average grades as a metric student across the core from students entering between the 2011/2012 and 2013/2014 academic year. Students randomly subsampled to produce n=100 for those deemed weak/strong in STEM Multivariate analysis conducted in R

First and second principal components of 1102 skills audit attempts between 2011 and Explained variation of each component labelled on axis; attempts classified as fail coloured red those classified as a pass coloured blue, with confidence ellipses; arrow vectors indicating the loading of the four variables.

Explanatory variables plotted against first principal component. Indicating Students scoring highly chemistry, statistics and physics being loaded positively on the first principal component

Running average grade (mean ± 95%ci) of students passing in first year (18.1 ± 0.227) and second year (17.5 ± 0.298); and students failing the skills audit in first year (17.7 ± 0.278) and second year (17.5 ± 0.302). * one-way ANOVA (F(1,198) = 6.562, p = ) with an effect size of Running average grade of students passing in first year versus and second year. Students failing skills audit and taking BS11005 coloured red, those passing coloured blue. Gradients not significantly different, there was a weak but highly significant effect on the intercept, F(1,197) = , p = 0.009) with an effect size of 0.03.

First and second principal components of 200 student running average grade sets between 2011 and Explained variation of each component labelled on axis; skills audit attempts classified as fail with BS11005 as an intervention coloured red those classified as a pass without BS11005 as an intervention coloured blue, with confidence ellipses; arrow vectors indicating the loading of the variables. Kaiser-Meyer Olkin measure of sampling adequacy suggested a suitably factorable sample (KMO = 0.84).

First and second year running average grades plotted against first and second principal components. Indicating Students scoring highly in both years loading negatively on the first principal component.

Conclusions Multivariate approach seems to have validity in this work. both sets of students converge academically by second year. Diverse range in student ability whereby those classified as weak or strong the skills audit at entry excel overall in the core curriculum modules. Need to explore a students trajectory over the full course to determine if entry velocity as determined by the skills audit reflects exit.