Attendance and retention interventions in Worcester Business School

Attendance and retention are challenging and complex issues across the university requiring a student-centric approach. At Worcester Business School, the Retention Working Group has been 1) developing a more efficient and effective attendance monitoring process, 2) improving communications with students, and 3) conducting analyses on the relationships between attendance and retention. Within our presentation, we will share the lines of enquiry that have been guiding the group (balancing surveillance with solutions), our processes for monitoring attendance, and our plan for communicating with applicants and students. We will also share findings of statistical analyses that have explored the efficacy of different communication methods in driving attendance (at meetings and at teaching sessions), as well as the relationship between attendance levels and likelihood of withdrawal, and how attendance affects submission. We will also present our views on actions that could be taken to increase the organisational learning in relation to retention.