What is the impact of students being required to develop different learning strategies part way through their studies, due to meeting modules which rely on different media for learning resources? Does this affect student progression and retention and could there be ways to mitigate this impact? Laura Alexander and Alexis Lansbury

Students within STEM have very different experiences at level 1 and at level 2 Focus on S217, MST224 and M250 students. Science Mathematics Computing Level 1, entirely online (S111 and S112) Or Online and book based (S111 and MST124) Level 1, mostly book based study resources (eg MU123, MST124, MST125, M140) Level 1, TM111, TM112, TM129, MU123 or MST124 S217 Entirely online MST224 purpose-written text-books M269 blend of digital resources, texts in the public domain and texts specifically developed for the module

Aims and Objectives identify similarities and differences between the different approaches that schools in STEM take identify the similarities and differences between students’ learning strategies in the different schools identify how the use that students make of different types of learning resource evolves over time investigate whether students’ preferences for specific types of resource have any correlation with factors such as age, gender, first language/mother tongue use individual interviews to investigate whether any correlation has an underlying causality.

Date What we will be doing 20 Nov-20 Dec Develop online questionnaire for small pilot study, working with experienced AL from each school. Work with the student surveys panel to identify 3 samples of level 2 students where key comparison factors, eg age, gender reflect the student demographic in STEM. 1 Jan-31 Jan Run a small pilot study and refine questionnaire 1 Feb-14 Feb Send out the refined online questionnaire to the samples identified, follow-up with a reminder after a week 14 Feb – 31 March Perform preliminary analysis of questionnaire data and develop a framework for the telephone discussions to follow Identify a representative sample of students for the telephone interviews/discussions. 1 April – 30 June Conduct the telephone interviews. Ideally, 50 students. Ask whether the students will keep a reflective diary on how they use the learning resources provided. 1 July - 31 Aug Conduct smaller number of follow-on telephone interviews based on students’ learning diaries. 1 Sept -31 Oct Analyse the data. 1 Nov – 31 Jan 2019 Reflect on analysis, draw conclusions, write up results