1. Stay with the Programme:
Update on the Evolving Strategy for Retaining Business Students
Owen Ross

2. Reminder of the Retention Strategy
AIT
Business School circa 1,600 students
3 Departments
Only HEI in the Midlands Region
Diversity and Inclusion
Dimensions of diversity
Educational (CAO, Mature/Life Experience)
Dispositional (self-esteem, EI, 1st in family to HE)
Circumstantial (age, disability, caring role)
Cultural (Language, EAL)
Specific socio-economic profile
Economic resources
Academic and Assessment literacies
Contents of Presentation:
Reminder of the Retention Strategy
Student Meetings and the “Intervention Plus”
Student Performance
Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics
Reflections and Considerations

3. REMINDER OF RETENTION STRATEGY
Significant Effort and Infrastructure Relating to Retention
000s of Man hours
Learning and Development for Higher Education (2010)
Student Meetings (2013)
Habit Forming (2013)
Programme Development (2014 & 2015)
Parents Evenings (2013)
Briefing for Students with failed modules (2014)
Intervention Plus (2016 & 2017)
Semester 2 Meetings (2017)
Bespoke Retention Officer (2017)
Captured Current Model on Diagram

4. HOD – STUDENT MEETINGS
Intervention for students who failed S1
Carefully Planned
Reconciliation of Many Elements
Performance, Esteem, Personal Life, Mental Health, Resilience, Determination, Personal Organisation, Respect, Humanity, Work-Life Balance and many, many more.

5. Intervention Plus
Brought about by experience at last year’s Student Meetings: I choose to pass
Informed by Business Psychology Team
Motivational techniques
Empathy
Creation of 10 different interventions to give to students
Allocated longer time to student meetings – took 1st years only
Invited 36 Students to attend
20 Did attend
16 Did not attend

6. Intervention Plus Passed S2 Exams: Passed year
12 of 20 who attended (60%)
1 of 12 who didn’t (8.3%)
Passed year
14 of 20 who attended (70%)
Statistically, students who attended the meetings were over 8 times more likely to pass than those who didn’t

7. Semester 2 Meetings
Geared at 1st year students who failed their 1st exam in S2
Meetings were very informative
Students knew nothing about supports
They didn’t attend briefing or did and couldn’t hear anything
Peter Melinn contacted every 1st year in the department eligible to repeat
Timely reminder
Motivate
Info re registering and supports

8. Taken Digital Marketing off AQA
2016 intake -departmental total of over 85% eligible to progress
Three programmes at over 90%
Business Psychology
Business (ab Initio)
HC in Business
Taken Digital Marketing off AQA
1.1 in 4th year 15%; CAO HC up 30% 1st Prefs

9. Lies, Damn Lies and StatisticsB
September 2016
100
November 2016 98 91
January 2017 94 77
March 1st 2017 92 71
June 2017 88 69
September 2017 (2nd Year) 72 59
Repeating 1st year attending 6 10
Repeat 1st year externally
December 2017 67 54
March 1st 2018 63 51
% Students still Active
79%
61%
Official Progression Rate
75%
86%

10. Reflections & Considerations
A First year retention model and increasing progression rates are not the same thing
Increasing the rate March – March
6 weeks S2 1st Year
12 Weeks S1 2nd Year
6 weeks S1 2nd Year
Performance in Business on this issue is understated by official Figures
Options open to us to focus on the rate and/ or total performance

11. Reflections and Considerations
Banner project to give more data
Sept 1st year – March 2nd Year;
Show patterns on key drop out points
S1v S2 repeats,
RP v RX
In order to “rate chase” should we focus on S3?
Do we need to consider supports for repeat students
Contact from AIT
Motivational talks?
Access to Tutors?

12. Questions, Observations and Criticisms