Good outcomes? A cohort analysis of students’

progression through a Foundation degree and beyond

Julie Wintrup, Sally Lumley, Liz JamesUniversity of Southampton

UALL conference, March 2012

If it is a good thing to leave an educational programme with a

degree then is it possible to ensure more students persist through to achieve this goal?

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I do not want to see the currency of higher education undermined by the creation of a stratified sector in

which some forms of provision are considered excellent and others second-rate...

Diversity with excellence will also mean identifying new routes into higher education and new forms of

provision...

We have to develop new higher education opportunities at this level (intermediate skills),

oriented strongly to the employability skills, specialist knowledge and broad understanding needed in the

new economy

David Blunkett, Secretary of State for Education, 2000

Of 306 entrants to the Fd over 4 years:

• 22.5% left with no qualification

• 3.6% left with Certificate in Higher Education

• 73.8% achieved their Foundation degree

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Of those who gained a Cert HE or Fd….

94 progressed further at Southampton within two years

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Of the original 306 entrants 2005/6 – 2008/9:

22.5% left without a qualification

46.8% left with Cert HE or Fd

And of the 30.7% or 94 who went further at Southampton:

•10 gained a diploma

•84 a degree (8 x 1st class) many with a professional qualification

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‘Once I finish this and have got over the stresses of it, I’ll be looking for the next thing I can do and I think it will carry on for a long time... I will get a huge, huge

amount of satisfaction and pride of knowing that I will have been the first person in our family to do a degree’

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• ‘FE was never an option, my family didn’t have the money to support me through uni and it was never mentioned’

• ‘It’s opening up areas which I wouldn’t even have considered at the beginning of the year, because I didn’t know they were out there’

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‘The second year... was hard. Stressful, because I was still working, and the

assignments I found, were much more in-depth, and the memories I have first

and foremost, being in tears most of the time, saying “I can’t do this”. Well

actually I couldn’t do it’

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‘a couple of people on my course were going “I don’t want to do this anymore, I’m going to give up”… (enacts) “Oh no you don’t give up! You’re not!” and you sort of help them out there...’

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Three of us, we’ve had to really fight for it, for the course really, just to get from lectures to seminars to everything else...and we’ve had to fight for everything..

..it was so annoying, it was so, that, I nearly gave up’

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‘We felt bewildered at the beginning. And then we all started realising that actually we had voices.

So when we all decided to say something, it was brushed under the carpet at first, and then suddenly, it was recognised and apologies were made, and that

was appreciated.

That was really appreciated. And then we seemed all right again. We seemed to be okay again’

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But I’m nosier; I want to know the background of things, and the facts and figures. You know, I want to know the depth of something; I don’t just want to know the surface, and know my job, I want to know underneath why I’m doing that, where does that come from, who said we had to do it like that.

Whereas I never thought that before. Never went into depth like that before.

3rd year student

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Alienation

feeling unable to engage or contribute in ways which are meaningful and productive

This may include the experience of feeling held back, blocked, inhibited, estranged or isolated from what it is they are learning, and the study practices and learning processes, both individual and social, which are part of

their particular learning context

•Mann, 2001:17; 2005: 43

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criticality

A crucial way out of the experience of alienation….is the development of the

capacity to become aware of the conditions in which we work, and of the responses we make

to them…to question, examine, uncover, reframe, make visible and interpret

(Barnett, 1997)

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Persistence

‘While retention can be seen as institutional interventions made to retain the student, persistence is used to describe the individual student’s efforts to seek encouragement and support to persevere in his/her studies despite the challenges that he/she may face. …a student may persist ….despite a change of course, mode of study, campus or even institution’

Horstmanshof & Zimitat, 2007: 705

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So:

many - persistent - students described feeling held back, blocked, inhibited, estranged or isolated, at times, by our

practices and processes

but some interviewees described challenging and confronting those practices and in doing so, taking back

control of their learning17

Might we, more systematically, create conditions which foster

persistence in students and support their individual and collective efforts to engage?

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