CONTENTS
Executive summary………………………………………………………………………………………….3
Chapter 1: Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………6
Chapter 2: Literature review………………………………………………………………………….11
Chapter 3: Aimhigher Practice, the West and the rest……………………………………19
Chapter 4: Learning from our practice……………………………………………………………27
Chapter 5: Approaches to Inclusion ………………………………………………………………33
Chapter 6: Conclusions and Recommendations …………………………………………….40
References…………………………………………………………………………………………………….43
Appendix 1: A Model of Triangulation………………………..………………………………….46
Appendix 2: Analysis of feedback from South West Disabled Students Advisers and Widening Participation (DSAWP) Regional Network members………………..47
Acknowledgement
The Aimhigher South West regional team at the Universi ty of the West of England, Bristol would like to thank all those who generously gave their time to participate in this study. In particular, we would like to mention the Aimhigher school co-ordinators and Virtual School Head Teacher, who provided interview material, the Aimhigher West Local Area Co-ordinators and South West Disabled Students Advisers/Widening Participation network members who submitted email responses to structured questions and all those who responded to the online survey and questionnaire. Without their help this study would not have been possible.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Introduction
Widening participation in higher education (HE) remains a key part of the government’s strategy to improve upward social mobility. Initiatives like Aimhigher which reach out to learners from groups that are under-represented in HE can contribute to this agenda, provided they are focused on the ‘right’ learners. HEFCE’s published guidance on targeting (HEFCE 2007) for HEIs and Aimhigher partnerships states that
‘Resources should be targeted at learners with the potential to benefit from higher education who come from under-represented communities.’ (HEFCE 2007: p8 para 21)
While the focus on under-represented groups in the HE student population is well documented and familiar territory for widening participation practitioners, far less attention has been given to, and there is less agreement about, identifying the ‘potential to benefit from HE’. This entails a judgement about whether an individual has the personal resources to attain their educational objectives in higher education, a difficult prediction to make about those in the early years at secondary school.
This study was commissioned by the Aimhigher West partnership and has sought to gain a deeper understanding of the ‘potential to benefit’ principle by reviewing literature, and exploring the ways in which practitioners operationalise this criterion when identifying learners for their Aimhigher cohort. It has used the findings from this research as the basis for making recommendations about future practice. The study has been conducted using a combination of desk-based research and field work to gather evidence about the quantitative and qualitative indicators used to assess a learner’s ‘potential to benefit’ from HE. The desk-based research analysed contextual data to inform the field work and to locate the findings from the Aimhigher West partnership within the national policy framework. The field work built upon these findings to explore current practice in the Aimhigher West area and beyond. It combined both breadth and depth by using questionnaires, surveys, structured email responses and interviews to collect a broad evidence base. This layered approach ensured that the interview findings were informed by and resonated with the wider evidence base collected from a larger number of respondents.
Literature review
The literature review notes the importance of adopting a developmental approach to potential in recognising that learner identities can be ‘transformed’ through new experiences. This raises an interesting question about the extent to which it is possible to identify potential in participants before they are exposed to these activities. If participation in the programme is designed to build positive learner identities, then the ‘potential to benefit from HE’ might be more readily apparent after the activities have taken place. This challenges HEFCE’s recommended guidance (2007) which views potential as a selection criteria rather than a programme outcome.
The review also notes that good practice in identifying learner potential involves a triangulated approach using Standard Assessment Tests (SATs), Cognitive Ability Tests (CATs) and teachers’ professional judgement (Haight 2006). While test results provide hard data which appears to be objective, professional judgement involves a discretionary decision and the literature is of limited practical use in guiding the ways in which these decisions might be taken. In addition, there is little to guide practitioners with respect to identifying those with the potential to benefit from emerging or alternative models of HE.
Evidence from practitioners
A national survey and a local questionnaire of practitioners both found that the overwhelming majority of respondents used the term ‘potential to progress to HE’ rather than the more holistic term, the ‘potential to benefit from HE’. These results indicate that there is a disjuncture between the intended and the actual focus for the identification of the Aimhigher cohort. This is not surprising since judgements about the ‘potential to progress to HE’ sit within the remit of school-based practitioners whereas ‘potential to benefit from HE’ is an opaque term for those with limited knowledge of the HE sector and the skills it requires.
Test results are useful to teachers and have the great advantage that they yield quantitative results which appear to be objective. The majority of respondents to both the local questionnaire and the national survey used SATs as an indicator of potential and, in Aimhigher West, this was usually combined with results from other data sources such as Fischer Family Trust (FFT), Cognitive Ability Tests (CATs), or the Middle Years Information System (MidYis). Although this data acts as a filter to identify the groups of learners, the final assessment about a learner’s potential needs to be informed by teachers’ professional judgement. The questionnaire and the survey showed that nearly all teachers use their professional judgement in conjunction with test data to identify learners’ potential for HE. This moves the decision beyond the apparently objective facts into the realm of subjective assessments and there was little agreement about the attributes that respondents considered as indicators of potential for HE. This suggests that professional judgement is being exercised in different ways in different places and this inconsistency warrants attention for the future.
A key finding from the interviews with schools and the discussion with the partnership’s Local Area Co-ordinators (LACs) is that the triangulated approach to identifying potential was clearly in evidence. Respondents indicated that test results provided a starting point and then the selection process would be further informed by teachers’ professional judgement. The selection process was often described as ‘a collaborative effort’ with relevant colleagues feeding into these discretionary decisions.
Although a consensus emerged that professional judgement was important, respondents pointed to a continuum of practice and that many factors might justify inclusion in the Aimhigher cohort. The responses coalesced around considering the young person’s attitude to school work, openness to new ideas, self motivation and sense of purpose and these findings resonate with those from the Fair Enough report (UUK 2003) which identified four characteristics - an ability to be self organised, to work independently, to be motivated to learn and to display an interest in the subject area – as important for student success.
Disabled learners and young people in care (YPiC)
Disabled learners and YPiC have been identified as priority target groups in their own right by virtue of their under-representation and regardless of their socio-economic status. The evidence suggests that the identification of potential in these two groups can be contentious, that many factors combine to cloud its recognition and practitioners working with these groups have been obliged to develop their thinking and practice in ways which inform the selection of the wider cohort.
For disabled students, the selection process is essentially similar to that for other learners from under-represented groups. Aimhigher co-ordinators consider their test scores and use their professional judgement to assess the extent to which they have HE potential as the basis for inclusion in the Aimhigher cohort. The dilemma is that, with disabled students,
“What you see is not necessarily what you get.” (DSAWP member)
Disabled students can show a dissonance between their oral and written responses, their performance in one subject area compared with another, their ability to work independently, their reading levels and so on. The inclusion of a disabled learner in the Aimhigher cohort can become a self-fulfilling prophecy as it indicates that the school considers them to have ability and this, in turn, boosts their confidence and raises their level of performance. For these reasons interviewees suggested that the non-selective developmental approach is particularly relevant for disabled students.
This raises a debatable point. HE potential might only become fully apparent in disabled learners after their confidence has been raised by participation in Aimhigher events. Rather than identifying those with HE potential and then offering them an activity programme, this evidence suggests that, for some disabled learners, HE potential might best be identified after they have taken part in the activity programme. Indeed one network member argued for extending the cohort to include all disabled students as “they need to be given a chance” to demonstrate HE potential.
Aimhigher West’s policy with respect to YPiC reverses its normal procedures. As circumstances make it especially difficult to identify potential in YPiC, the partnership has decided that all YPiC should be deemed to fall within the cohort unless there are particular reasons for their exclusion. This decision adopts the non-selective developmental approach in respect of YPiC and turns the usual Aimhigher practice on its head. It has been taken because YPiC often experience considerable disruption to their education as they move between family home and foster homes and are challenged by family issues, making it difficult to identify their HE potential. Indeed, it was argued that participation in the Aimhigher programme might help to reveal the latent potential of YPiC.
Interestingly, this developmental approach was recommended but not adopted for disabled learners and it echoes the developmental approach to learner identity noted in the literature review. It views HE potential as an outcome of Aimhigher activities rather than as a criterion which qualifies learners to participate in Aimhigher activities. This is a fundamental distinction between two distinct conceptions of learner potential. The non-selectivity of the developmental approach puts it at odds with the policy advice (HEFCE 2007, 2008) which indicates that learners should have shown at least some evidence of potential for HE before they are included in the cohort. This issue goes to the heart of this study in terms of how flexible and sensitive the identification of potential for HE can be if it is carried out by educational professionals against a background of finite resources.
Recommendations
The evidence collected for this study suggests that Aimhigher co-ordinators take considerable care to identify learners’ potential and that there is extensive evidence of good practice. To help to embed good practice, to promote its adoption across the partnership and to develop a systematic approach, Aimhigher West might like to consider the following recommendations.
Aimhigher West should consider the ways in which they could bring school-based co-ordinators together to identify good practice and to use this as the basis for a common approach towards identifying potential. In particular they might:
1. encourage schools to adopt the triangulated approach to cohort identification and help to build support networks between schools to promote and embed good practice.
2. stimulate discussion between Aimhigher school-based co-ordinators about the ways in which and the criteria on which professional judgement is exercised.
3. develop the Learner Progression Matrix and the Learner Identity Inquiry to harmonise approaches to potential to benefit from HE.
4. promote a dialogue between those in schools who select the Aimhigher cohort and those who teach and support students within HE to explore the overlap between the qualities that promote progression to HE and those that enable entrants to benefit after HE entry.
5. clarify the distinction between HE potential as an outcome of Aimhigher activities and HE potential as a criterion which qualifies learners to participate in Aimhigher activities.
6. ensure that all Aimhigher co-ordinators consider learners’ potential for the full range of HE opportunities.
Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION
Introduction
Widening participation in higher education (HE) was a key part of New Labour’s strategy to improve upward social mobility. HE can make a real difference to people’s lives in terms of job satisfaction, quality of life and earnings potential and yet the chance to enter HE is weighted heavily in favour of those from upper socio-economic groups who remain over-represented in the HE student population. Social background rather than academic ability can be the decisive factor determining whether or not a young person applies to enter higher education. Consequently, policies to extend HE to lower socio-economic groups were initiated in the early years of the twenty first century to counter myths that HE is ‘not for the likes of us’ (Archer et al 2003). The focus of Aimhigher and HE outreach initiatives has been to change these perceptions of higher education amongst young people from lower socio-economic groups and their key influencers so that they can consider HE as a realistic option. Aimhigher is essentially a ‘demand side’ initiative designed to change the social composition of HE applicants.
Widening participation has two dimensions, extending across the student lifecyle (HEFCE 2001). Firstly, programmes such as Aimhigher reach out pre-HE to groups that are currently under-represented in higher education. They seek to raise attainment and extend opportunities to those from lower social groups so that they at least consider progressing to HE. Secondly, widening participation features after young people have entered HE. Participation implies that entrants have the necessary knowledge, study skills and characteristics to benefit from their experience in higher education, and succeed in realising their educational objectives. Widening participation is not about lowering academic standards, nor is it about ‘setting students up to fail’. Hence selecting the ‘right’ students to take part in Aimhigher activities and other aspiration raising programmes is crucial to their successful participation. Aimhigher partnerships across England take considerable care to identify students from under-represented groups who have the ‘potential to benefit from higher education’ but might not consider progression to be a realistic option unless they received additional support and encouragement.