Dr Sarah CarpenterCardiff University

Background to experience at Cardiff

Discussion about gaining support

Useful information that might help gain support

Learning and Teaching Committee (LTC) agreed to fund a pilot maths support service for two years (2006-2007 and 2007-2008)

Strong desire to continue support Needed to convince the LTC that further

funds should be provided This began in Autumn 2007

Take 5 mins to talk in groups to think about what information the committee wanted before it could consider its decision

How much does it cost? Does it work? How many holes it plug? Number of students Number of depts Evidence What happens elsewhere? (Russell Group) Retention rates Aims & objectives

Further discussion in groups

What evidence would you use? What evidence have you used?

Not always possible to produce convincing evidence from first year of a pilot

Look at information from other HEIs Find out what publications sigma have

made available

One I found useful...

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Action Plan Bridging Maths Non-Responders

Dr Carol Robinson and Dr Tony Croft, Loughborough University

At Cardiff we asked for: Dedicated management and admin Increased in hours of support provided Permanent, central location as a “home” A system for data capture An understanding that evaluation and

research could be carried out

An understanding of what the service couldn’t support – full statistics advice!

The university were convinced of the generic nature of mathematics support

The university decided to increase its support for student skills in general, and agreed that mathematics should be included in this support

So future funding has now been secured

We’re still working on the permanent, centralised location...

Would still like to provide full Statistics Advisory Service

More difficult to achieve this as it impacts on undergraduates, post-graduates (taught & research) and staff◦ not obvious who should fund

Some useful evidence...

Position Frequency %

research student 79 20.1

post doc/research fellow

206 52.3

lecturer/senior lecturer

25 6.3

reader/professor/consultant

27 6.9

other clinical 9 2.3

IT/admin staff 18 4.6

Total 364 92.4

Missing 30 7.6

Total 394 100.0

Stage of the research

Frequency %

Writing up 40 20.6

Data analysis 72 37.1

Data collection 15 7.7

Design 40 20.6

Missing 27 13.9

Total 194 100