Delivering and Evaluating Participation After Access - by Liz Austen & Colin McCaig (Hardcover)

About the Book

Delivering and Evaluating Participation after Access is a timely response to the rise in discussion about how Higher Education (HE) providers support participation for disadvantaged students in HE.

Book Synopsis

Delivering and Evaluating Participation after Access is a timely response to the rise in discussion about how Higher Education (HE) providers support participation for disadvantaged students in HE. Chapters expand on the notion of widening participation (WP) work as being purely about getting students into HE, and considers the questions of engagement, retention, attainment and progression.

This is the first major work on the design, delivery and evaluation of student success activities by HE providers. Featuring contributions from expert practitioners in many areas of student success in the UK HE system, this edited volume presents four case studies that explore interventions to enhance success (what institutions do) and how they are evaluated for effectiveness (how institutions know if they work). The case studies offer a range of perspectives including disciplinary variations in pedagogy and practice and different evaluation approaches.

This practical, research-informed guide for HE providers that are seeking to integrate access and student success strategies across the student lifecycle, highlights a new synthesis of discourses and practices drawn from fields such as WP outreach, quality assurance and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion. Taken together they provide us with a unique take on how these policy/practice regimes have migrated into the student success space.

Review Quotes

This book addresses the complexities of supporting student success in higher education. The authors identify a gap in understanding and evaluating the experiences of students referred to as 'widening participation.' The focus shifts from merely gaining access to higher education to participating successfully within it. The book also examines changes in the positioning of the student lifecycle within a marketised sector.

The first section outlines the editors' positionality and provides a critique of the political economy influencing contemporary policy development. It includes an analysis of how higher education evaluation has evolved to support a changed student agenda and its relationship to increasing regulation, aimed at avoiding failure rather than enhancing quality. Further chapters include case studies that offer insights into interventions such as financial incentives, designing inclusivity, professional identities, and their relationship to pedagogical positioning and student outcomes.

The concluding piece by the editors calls for a new discourse on evaluating participation effectiveness, post access. This is based on excellent critical analysis throughout the book, which positions effectiveness in a more sophisticated manner than within the prevalent market-driven higher education economy.

The book is a must-read for everyone interested in ensuring that all students benefit fully from their higher education experience.

--Stella Jones-Devitt, Independent HE practitioner and Visiting Professor, Leeds Beckett University.

This book is an essential read not just for those working on widening access or student success, but anyone in higher education genuinely committed to providing opportunities for those from all backgrounds. As well as highlighting what could be done to improve the higher education experience of students from underrepresented and otherwise disadvantaged groups it points to the challenges in understanding what impact could and should mean where this work is concerned. This work must encompass all of what higher education providers do from what they teach and how they do it to how they and their student's are funded. The Labour government elected in 2024 has said that access and success in higher education for those from underrepresented and otherwise disadvantaged groups it's no 1 priority for higher education. This won't be an easy commitment to meet by any means. Reading this book will help them achieve it.

--Professor Graeme Atherton, Associate Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Regional Engagement, University of West London, Vice Principal, Ruskin College and Head of the Ruskin Institute for Social Equity (RISE)

About the Author

Liz Austen is Head of Evaluation and Research (Student Experience, Teaching and Learning) at Sheffield Hallam University.

Colin McCaig is Professor of Higher Education Policy in the Sheffield Institute of Education at Sheffield Hallam University.