Educated Solutions article by Richard Wiggers
Republished from Educated Solutions: The Student Success Issue (Issue 7, November 2010)
By Richard Dominic Wiggers, HEQCO
Throughout the past decade, great efforts have been made across Canada to improve access to postsecondary education, especially for traditionally under-represented groups of students. More recently, emphasis has shifted to the retention of students after initial admission into their selected college or university program of study. Why admit more students into postsecondary education, some began to ask, if many end up dropping out without earning a credential?
Now, the gaze is widening again towards something called student success. In addition to enhancing opportunities for more equitable admission, and easing the transition and increasing the retention rate for those who are admitted and choose to enrol, it is believed that Ontario’s postsecondary institutions should also provide a worthwhile experience for students that combines quality learning–including solid and effective teaching, strong levels of student engagement and some unspecified level of value-added skills development– with subsequent outcomes in terms of a completed credential, relevant employment and reasonable income, and broader indirect benefits such as civic engagement and improved health. These factors, and more, are what many believe contribute to true student success in the postsecondary world.
There is some good news regarding the postsecondary environment in Ontario. The overall participation rates for young Ontarians aged 21 or less, particularly for college, are above the national average. Among those aged 25-34, the attainment rate for postsecondary credentials already stands at 67.5% in Ontario, well on the way to the new target of 70% for the adult population established in the Premier’s recent Speech from the Throne. Furthermore, when those who switch programs or institutions or who take only a brief pause in their studies are taken into account, it appears that five years after first enrolling, more than 75% of Ontario postsecondary students have either graduated with their first credential or are still in postsecondary.
Interestingly, the most common reason given by students for either switching programs, or dropping out altogether, is that they realized their original program/institution choice was not suited to them. This likely has more to do with their initial planning for and selection of programs and institutions prior to enrolment, rather than with their actual experiences within post-secondary education. As a result, the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) intends to launch several research and pilot projects in the coming years, designed to improve planning, preparation and selection of post-secondary pathways.
For the majority of students who persist in their initial program/institution of study, HEQCO is trying to better understand and assess what faculty and postsecondary institutions are doing to define and enhance student success. That was certainly the focus of their conference this summer entitled Enhancing Student Success in Ontario Postsecondary Education1, as well as two recent Calls for Proposals in the areas of Teaching and Learning (CFP-020) and Student Services (CFP-006).
The Classroom Experience:
Class sizes are growing and various studies indicate that university students in particular are disappointed at the level of student-faculty interaction. A number of HEQCO projects already underway or about to be launched will assess interventions designed to enhance teaching and learning in the postsecondary classroom. Most of these interventions can be broadly categorized as: enhanced teaching designed to improve the ability of faculty and teaching assistants to deliver and assess student learning; enhanced learning approaches to assess student skill levels and improve student engagement and performance; and supplementary interventions that involve the introduction of personnel and expertise beyond the regular curriculum, faculty and teaching assistants assigned to a specific course.
In Taking Stock: Research on Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (2010)2, the editors concluded that colleges, universities and their faculty need to do more to inspire and engage students. A faculty survey undertaken for HEQCO at five Ontario universities in 2008 identified the relative lack of professional development available to or engaged in by faculty.
Student Services/Affairs:
All colleges and universities in Ontario provide some suite of initiatives intended to help students deal with the transition into postsecondary education and to enhance their chances of academic success. These can include orientation programming, “101” type courses, targeted interventions for “at risk” students, career and personal counselling, writing workshops and exam preparation. A number of student surveys also seem to show that students consider the campus environment in general to be “supportive”.
Two years ago, HEQCO approved funding to assess 16 innovative practices already underway at Ontario colleges and universities. More recently, another study was launched that is examining more broadly how student services/affairs promote student success in Ontario postsecondary institutions. On June 28, 2010, the first four final reports from this series of projects were published by HEQCO, and other final reports are expected to be published in the winter of 2011. Thus far, the broader findings of these “Student Services/Affairs” interventions include the following:
• Despite the best efforts of postsecondary institutions, many of the students who most need to be aware of the supplementary assistance available to them are not adequately informed;
• In most voluntary interventions of this nature, the students who seek out and take advantage of these opportunities are often not necessarily those who are most academically at risk;
• There is no “silver bullet” that clearly improves student performance in individual courses or programs, or even overall, and the most common impacts are marginal or indirect at best;
• While student participants will generally applaud the value of the interventions when interviewed or surveyed, there is seldom an easy and credible method that can quantitatively measure the positive impact on student engagement, academic achievement or retention.
Future Directions:
While efforts, both within and outside the postsecondary classroom might not result in immediate, direct or measurable increases in retention, grades or other measures of student success, it is likely they do enhance student engagement and success overall. HEQCO would like to applaud those within each Ontario college and university–including many student associations, who have put so much effort and dedication over the years into creating and maintaining these initiatives. HEQCO will continue to seek ways to work with those individuals and with Ontario’s institutions to appropriately assess and improve interventions intended to enhance student success.
Richard Wiggers is a Research Director at the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario, responsible for Student Services and Teaching & Learning research projects. He holds a Ph.D. from Georgetown University. He has more than a dozen publications and nearly 100 presentations at academic conferences across North America.
1. Enhancing Student Success in Ontario Postsecondary Education http://bit.ly/d3DNAo
2. Taking Stock: Research on Teaching & Learning in Higher Education http://bit.ly/cqbExb
