Research Seminar Series 2009: Access and Success for All Jamie Thompson Jamie Harding Karen Williamson

 Northumbria Bedfordshire and Manchester Universities  To illuminate and improve student retention (student progression, student success)  One of seven funded three year projects  Building on previous work with ELLI  ELLI?  Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory

Learning Power Curriculum and Assessment Practices Pedagogy Institutional Ethos Worldviews and Traditions Home, Family and Community Cultural Tools Peer Culture Self-regulation Goal Orientation Interest Sense of Self As Learner Effort Dispositions Locus of Control Self-efficacy Skills and Capacities Awareness Self Esteem

 72 item questionnaire  Tested and Validated  Self-report  Malleable and situational  Statements of how think / feel / behave as a learner  4 point Lickert scale  Available online  Instant feedback as a spider diagram  Class / group profiles also produced

 Changing and Learning  Meaning Making  Critical Curiosity  Creativity  Learning Relationships  Strategic Awareness  Resilience  Being Stuck and Static  Data Accumulation  Passivity  Being Rule Bound  Isolation & Dependence  Being Robotic  Fragility & Dependence

 Do students’ dispositions change in the course of their academic programme  Does using ELLI in itself boost student retention and achievement?  Are there dispositions to learn that have an impact on student retention and achievement?  Can retention initiatives based on problematic dispositions be formulated and evaluated?

 4 students who have withdrawn compared to 374 who have not  ‘Withdrawers’ achieved higher mean scores on every dimension  Differences significant for Critical Curiosity and Strategic Awareness

 PCAP students higher than other groups on Critical Curiosity, Meaning Making, Resilience and Strategic Awareness  Psychology students lower than journalism students on Creativity and Critical Curiosity  Educational Practice students higher than Journalism in Learning Relationships

 Men scored significantly higher on Critical Curiosity, Resilience and Creativity  Woman had higher mean marks  Men achieved significantly higher marks when they scored higher on Critical Curiosity and Strategic Awareness  Women achieved significantly higher marks when they scored higher on resilience

 Students from lower socio-economic groups scored lower on Learning Relationships  Non-British students scored higher in the area of Creativity and Strategic Awareness, but achieved lower mean marks (not sig.)  Chinese students had higher levels of Creativity than White students

 3 focus groups: one academic staff on PCAP programme and two students on MAP  5 individual interviews: four ambassadors of MAP students and one academic staff at Manchester  Questionnaires from academic staff introducing ELLI to students

 Triangulation in the areas of Critical Curiosity and Changing and Learning  Students perceived benefits of self- reflection for personal development  Students found the language of ELLI advantageous  Staff positive, some concerns over practical issues

 How should we respond to higher scores on dimensions among students who withdraw?  Will negative correlation between marks and Learning Relationships and Creativity be reproduced more widely?  How do students dispositions change with time – can this be influenced by interventions?  Is there an appropriate response to gender differences?

 Exploration of changes to learning dimensions with time  Larger datasets to examine further relationships between learning dispositions and marks  Exploration of the impact of combinations of different dispositions  More withdrawers to make comparisons in terms of learning dimensions

Exploration of learning dimensions with:  Students who have withdrawn from an academic programme  Students who have been referred in an academic programme  Students who have high scores in high dimensions

 Evaluation of guidebook highlighting good practice in the use of ELLI  Evaluation of different methods of introducing ELLI to students  Development of initiatives to boost key learning dimensions  Evaluation of initiatives