Widening Participation:The St George’s approach

Kenton Lewis – Head of Widening Participation & Student Recruitment

OverviewWhat I will talk about

Widening Participation – some basics Alternative approach to WP ‘thinking’ Contextualised assessment www.tasteofmedicine.com

OverviewWhat I won’t talk about (much)

SGUL as ‘best practice’ to be replicated Work experience Multi Mini interviews

Widening Participation

Aspiration, facilitation, retention Strong New Labour connection, but existed long

before Open University, post-92 Universities Selecting and recruiting institutions Regulation (e.g. OFFA, WPSA) Election!

Implications of WP

AGAINST FORLowering standards Equality of opportunity for the individual

Costly for Universities and society(interventions, extra support etc.)

Limits social exclusion and the associated problems(Social mobility)

WP students more likely to drop out Employment / economic benefits

(Good for individual, good for society)

Mass HE lowers the market value of a degree

(less delineation between individuals)

Avoiding ‘waste of natural resources’

(not missing out on talent)

Social engineering that disadvantages Independent School students

Better relations between staff and student

Devalues non-University education/career paths Greater diversity = healthier learning environment

ACTIVITY Primary Yr 7 Yr 8 Yr 9 Yr 10 Yr 11 Yr 12Yr 13 /

Adult learners

PRIMARY PRACTICE

WWW.TASTEOFMEDICINE.COM

EXPERIMENTS ROADSHOWS

CLINICAL SKILLS TASTER DAYS

SPRING & SUMMER SCHOOLS

DEVELOPING REFLECTION

INTERVIEW PREPARATION

SCHOOL COLLEGE VISITS

OPEN DAYS

STUDENT AMBASSADORS

Outreach work(medicine and healthcare)

Age5 18+

Academic thinking about WP

Equality or equity? “Treating unequal people equally is just as

unfair as treating equal people unequally”

The Govt. position follows a ‘Deficit Model’ Academic research looks at identity and culture Sociological models

students are “different” not “lacking”

Academic thinking about WP

The culture of a University can be (is) a barrier “I’m not a University type” – no family history of HE Identify with comfortable likely to succeed not recognise feel alien less likely to succeed Successful WP needs change in HE culture Elite should not mean Elitist Be wary of terms “WP Student”, “WP University”

Adjusted Entry Criteria

“Treating unequal people equally is just as unfair as treating equal people unequally”

In order to measure potential we look at how far you have had to travel

We recognise performance in relation to your peer group, NOT the national average

Adjusted Entry Criteria

“students from independent schools appear to consistently do less well than students from other

schools and colleges, when compared on a like-for-like basis […] For the most highly selective higher education institutions [we] find that students from LEA schools do consistently better than similar students from independent schools “ (HEFCE)

Adjusted Entry Criteria

Traditionally assessed on actual and predicted academic performance, then assessed at interview

Guaranteed interview if AABb (AAAb from 2008) OR if ≥BBCb AND 60% higher than school average School average data published online by Govt. All applicants need to perform well in a blind

multi mini interview

Methodology

Data collected from existing records held by the Institution

Anonymised database created and analysed in SPSS

Looking at examination performance Three distinct groups of students:-

Methodology

Students with lower grades from ‘eligible’ schooln=34

Students with higher grades from ‘eligible’ schooln=87

Students with higher grades from ‘non-eligible’ schooln=387

(cohorts 2003/4 – 2006/7)(Ongoing research looking at transition into the profession)

What did we find?

‘Adjusted criteria’ students perform just as well on the course as those coming in with higher grades

(no statistically significant difference) A larger proportion of ‘adjusted criteria’ students fail

on their first attempt at examination(though not statistically significant)

This scheme has widened participation(in terms of state education and ethnicity)

Any questions?

klewis@sgul.ac.ukEmail if you want a copy of the presentation and/or stats

Mean scores‘AC’ status Number Mean Std Deviation Std error mean

1st year final mark(old scheme)

AC 26 65.08 8.957 1.757

Non-AC 264 66.49 8.994 0.554

1st year final mark

(new scheme)

AC 8 65.29 4.869 1.721

Non-AC 288 64.89 9.463 0.558

Indicative figures for all cohorts combined

1st year final mark

(combined cohorts)

AC 34 65.41

Non-AC 552 65.69

Failure at first attempt

Percentages

PASS FAIL NOT TAKEN TOTAL

AC 76.5% 20.6% 2.9%* 100.0%

Non-AC 85.0% 14.1% 0.9% 100.0%

Eligible 82.6% 16.3% 1.2% 100.0%

Non-Eligible 85.2% 14.0% 0.8% 100.0%

*n=1