Working With Vulnerable Students to Maximise Engagement and Achievement at Level 6

Throughout the past year within the Institute of Sport and Exercise Science (ISES) at the University of Worcester (UW) we have been aiming to engage vulnerable students, to maximise their potential in their academic programmes and minimise course attrition. We have used a multi-faceted approach to identifying, supporting and motivating these students in order to increase their attendance, engagement and academic performance.
In higher education (HE), attrition is complex and is persuasively described as a ‘wicked problem’ (Beer and Lawson, 2017) for which, there is an abundance of quantitative data (typically focused on demographic and social antecedents) available to undertake Educational Data Mining (EDM) (Romero and Ventura, 2013; Webb and Cotton, 2018). The EDM adopted within this approach, data analysis of key metrics across the Level 6 cohort demonstrated that students who were young, male, typically of non-white background with low attendance and a low average grade profile were most likely to withdraw, suspend studies or achieve a 3rd class degree.
However, this is not an all-encompassing solution; the individual circumstances of each student needed to be understood in order to make an effective intervention. This involved email attendance protocols, personal academic tutor support, action planning and reassessment support. The processes have brought to light a surprising plethora of reasons as to why students do not engage in their studies. This mirrors the complexity of the situation that HE institutions find themselves dealing with. Reflecting that one solution does not fit all, but having a toolbox of solutions can make a difference to student attrition.