Re-thinking Student Induction
Mark Lee Gale Dawson
School of Computer Science Learning Development
University of Birmingham University of Birmingham
B15 2TT B15 2TT
m.g.lee@cs.bham.ac.uk g.dawson@bham.ac.uk
ABSTRACT
The paper will report on a two year project to radically re-design our approach to student induction.While we
recognise that student induction is a process that occurs throughout the student life-cycle, our original
approach to the early induction of new udergraduate students was largely lecture-based and involved key
staff giving presentations on our expectations of the student cohort in terms of dilligence, work ethic and time
keeping etc. Student feedback on this approach tended to be poor. Worse we found it to be ineffective in
preparing our students for the work ahead and we believe contributed to poor retention figures in the first
year.
We believe, a key short coming was that we wasted the high levels of enthusiasm and motivation most
students have directly prior to arriving at university and this lowered their expectations not only of the content
of the degree but also of what we expected them to achieve in their first year. Therefore we redesigned our
early induction to consist of a full week prior to the start of term (week 0) which we called "Welcome Week."
This week consisted of a series of intensive activities centred around teamwork and enquiry-based learning.
Student feedback after the first year of "Welcome Week" was extremely positive.
Our approach to Welcome Week has been widely disseminated across campus and is now the "standard
model" for facilitating the early academic and social engagement of students at our institution. In particular it
has been adopted by other science and engineering disciplines. Therefore we will also discuss some issues
concerning adapting our programme of computer science-based activities to other disciplines.
Keywords
Induction, Student engagement, First year experience, Retention.
1.
0B INTRODUCTION
The transition from school/college to university life is one of the most challenging events in a student's life
and can often mean the difference between successful completion of their studies and early withdrawal from
studies. Therefore we must take student induction seriously and where possible improve on current practice.
Many students withdraw from higher education during the first few weeks of study. This suggests the
importance of starting to build institutional and disciplinary engagement and commitment as early as
possible. This can be achieved by helping students to understand the programme they are able to participate
in, developing communities of learners and encouraging the formation of friendships and social networks’
(Crosling, 2007:173). This paper will consequently report on work we have done over two years to redesign
how we approach the early induction process for Computer Science students at Birmingham.
Induction is a time and resource consuming activity. However, the advantages of good student induction
should not be underestimated. If we can scaffold and facilitate the transition from school/college to university
approaches to learning (e.g. independent and enquiry based) at the very start of the degree then not only will
the first year experience be improved but learning and teaching will be facilitated throughout the degree. We
argue therefore that time and effort spent during early induction is very worthwhile.
2.
1B BACKGROUND
Much of the research on improving student retention suggests that students are more likely to continue and
succeed if they are engaged in their studies and have been encouraged to develop networks and
relationships with their fellow students (eg Crosling et al, 2008). It suggests that this is more likely to happen
where the curriculum is innovative, responsive to the diversity of students’ needs, and promotes academic
and social engagement as well as active learning.
This is done by:
• Considering alternative and innovative approaches to learning, teaching and assessment
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© 2011 Higher Education Academy Subject Centre for Information and Computer Sciences
• Integrating and embedding ‘study skills’ into core learning and teaching activities
• Personalising the First Year Experience
Wingate and others have argued that discipline-based pre-induction and early induction activities need to
prepare students for the transition to learning in HE. ‘A holistic, subject-specific approach is needed to
support all students in the complex process of learning to learn in higher education’ (Wingate 2007:391). This
is further confirmed by Shaw et al (2007) who argue that ‘embedding academic development in mainstream
teaching and learning’ is likely to ‘enhance student retention, progress and achievement’ (Shaw 2007:50).We
therefore need to:
• make our expectations explicit
• fill the gaps that many students have about studying in HE
• encourage students to ‘start engaging with discipline specific material at an earlier date’
• help students to understand the programme they will be participating in
• begin to develop a community of learners
• encourage the formation of friendships and social networks (peer support and personalisation)
QAA advice (QAA, 2008a) on the first year experience is to take a longitudinal and multi-layered approach to
enhancing the academic and social transition of students through facilitating the following key features:
• early understanding of HE-level learning
• formative assessment and feedback
• engaging and challenging learning experience
• enquiry-based, collaborative, small-group work, project-based learning model
• embedding progressive skills development
• reflective skills within a subject context (PDP)
• social networking and peer support
• early staff/peer interaction – e.g. personal tutoring
• introducing employability skills from the beginning of first year
• students understand the value of their degree programme in terms of their potential future careers
• discipline-based support for transition
• co-ordinated, responsive, and resourced
• involves collaboration between academic and administrative staff, and central services
Three key recommendations of the QAA report on enhancing the first year experience through the
personalisation of the first year experience are (QAA, 2008b pp83 – 86):
• Staff should give proactive support to first year students at an early stage and acknowledge that,
regardless of their backgrounds, they need time to adjust to the university learning environment.
Steps should be taken to treat students as individuals and to personalise their experience in small
but significant ways, for example by getting to know their names, taking attendance in large classes
or encouraging small group discussions. The importance of socialisation within this adjustment
process should not be underestimated.
• Students need time to learn how to learn, particularly if they are first generation entrants into HE and
have little social and cultural capital resource. Staff should make space in the curriculum to teach
students how to learn, for example to address issues of meta-learning, even though this is perceived
to take time away from discipline-based tuition. The beneficial consequences are seen in the
empowerment of students, the creation of autonomous and independent learners and the facilitation
of learning communities and systems of peer support.
• HEIs should develop and implement policies on, for example, attendance monitoring, PDP, buddy
systems and personal tutoring, in order to help students personalise their first year experience.
3.
2B OUR INTAKE
Our first year cohort is typically around one hundred students over four different degree programmes and a
small number of half degree programmes (typically shared with Maths). 80% of our intake will take either our
standard Computer Science degree with the rest evenly split between more specialised degrees in Artificial
Intelligence and a major/minor degree involving Business Management. Like most computer science
degrees, we have relatively few female students compared to other subjects and approximately 25% of our
students will be from the local area.
Our previous approach to the early Induction process was accomplished through the use of several lectures
which focussed on deliverying the essential information required for study at Birmingham such as degree
programme information, progression, mitigations and plagiarism. We also invited a talk from the careers and
library services.
At the time we did not evaluate our induction procedure but there was unease as to its effectiveness. While
we cannot attribute a single cause, our drop rate for the first year (and in particular the autumn term) was
high compared to other computer science departments nationally. In addition, our experience was that there
was a significant minority of our first year cohort who were unmotivated and often relatively disconnected
from the School's culture.
At the same time, we received funding for a "Learner Independence" Project from the University of
Birmingham's Learning Development Unit. The focus of the project was the "first year experience" and
therefore we made student induction a focus. Our first step was analysing how our current first year viewed
their induction experience. We discuss the student voice in the next section.
4.
3B THE STUDENT VOICE
Student feedback on the ‘Welcome’ they received at discipline level suggested that the following factors were
useful and others were a concern
• Students would like their induction session to include a social element
• Student would like the teaching/learning style of their programme, contact hours and the required
workload to be explained.
• Student would like the required standard of their assignments to be explained with specific examples
where possible. Consistent guidelines on how to format work for submission would be useful.
• Student mentors would like to be more involved in the planning of Welcome activities for new UGs
• Students would like the role of the personal tutor (and other staff) roles to be explained and to have
standard regular meetings with them.
• Complicated timetables can be a source of stress for students.
• Students like their welcome to include some motivational/ enthusiastic presentations about their
chosen subject, give an outline of their course
• Students would like to hear from successful alumni during their induction.
• Some induction activities are not helpful for students at the beginning of their course – library talks
when they have not been to the library, plagiarism talks when they don’t have any assignments to
relate it to.
4.1
7B Welcome Issues
From our evaluation, we identified several key areas and challenges to successful induction.
Enthusiasm and raising expectations
We believe that most students have a high degree of motivation and enthusiasm at the start of their studies
which can be wasted by a poor approach to induction. We wanted an induction which would maintain and
increase the enthusiasm the students have for the rest of their studies.
In addition, the induction should set a standard of work which challanges and engages all students and sets
a standard for the rest of the first year. Accomplishing this is difficult due to the differences in ability,
experience, motivation and learning styles among the student cohort upon arrival.
Pre-arrival
Our questionnaires reveal that students often spend an anxious summer vacation waiting for the beginning of
their university career. Moreover students often have questions about university life which are not necessarily
covered by the usual information we send. Despite this students also report that they feel swamped by the
amount of generic information sent to them over the vacation from central services and increasingly take
summer jobs prior to University. Therefore we felt the need to facilitate the opportunity for students to both
social network and find out information but in a manner which was not intrusive or time consuming.
Student Inclusion
All induction activities should be as inclusive as possible. However, students have a diverse range of
individual needs. For example, the following groups may have specific needs that should be addressed:
• International students (especially students without strong English language skills)
• Students with learning difficulties or disabilities
• Local students
• Mature students (and parents/carers)
• Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) groups
• Religious groups
• Other widening participation groups (eg those with no previous family involvement in HE)
Often it is difficult to predict some students’ specific requirements/needs until the student has arrived, but
‘what is evident is that changes stimulated or necessitated by a particular group of students benefit all
students, and thus have a positive impact on the achievement and retention of the whole cohort’
(Crosling,2008: 182)
A particular area of concern is local or "stay at home" students. Approximately 25% of Birmingham students
are from the local area and decide to stay at their family home or live locally during at least their first year.
We believe the current financial situation will result in increasing numbers of students staying at home for at
least part of their studies.Our internal data and experience confirms that students who live locally are at
higher risk of withdrawal compared to those students who live in halls. Our evidence also suggests that
some of this cohort are less likely to engage with the School. Holdsworth and Patiniotis (2004) ‘highlight the
difference in experience between halls and home students. Home students see university as an extension of
college – just a change of bus route – and have little interest in university life beyond attending lectures’
(Gorard,2007:90) Moreoever our previous induction activities overlook the needs of these students and
indeed campus wide activities often unintentionally exclude local students (for instance organised by the
Guild of Students during the evening).
Inclusion is also an issue for students of different cohorts within the same School. Ideally, we want to limit the
duplication of information but if there are differences in the curriculum this runs the danger of making some
content redundant for different degree cohorts. In the School, this has become less of an issue with the
implementation of a "common first year" for all single honour students in the School. However, this still
leaves a small group of students (those taking Business Management as a minor and students on the half
degrees) with a different timetable and programme requirements than the main cohort.
5.
4B REDESIGNING OUR INDUCTION
We designed our Induction Week within the following framework:
Academic contact is restricted to half days throughout the Week
This allows for activities from the rest of campus - notably the Guild of Students and the Careers Service to
schedule events.
Each day to focus on the actual doing of a particular learning activity
For example, the intention was to schedule an actual computer programming laboratory session rather than
just give a lecture-based talk on the rights and wrongs of computer use.
Extensive use of student led activities via the use of student mentors
Our intention is that every formal session is followed by a student-led activity where the freshers are
encouraged to reflect on the session.
5.1
8B Scheduled Sessions
We scheduled the following activities during the week:
Local Students Session
We arranged a Local Students event on the first day of Welcome Week which we publicised by sending
information about the event only to students living in the West Midlands area. This event involved an
introduction to the School and key staff and some group acitivies (based on writing pseudocode for a
recursive solution to the Towers of Hanoi problem).
Treasure Hunt
Welcome Week is started off for all students with a treasure hunt across campus. We arranged the students
into groups and then gave them a series of riddles which described various parts of the campus. The
intention was that students would then discover key locations such as the library and main lecture theatres.
At the same time we were able to process student registrations.
Computer Lab session
We arranged a session in the first year labs. This was a challange since we cannot assume that all students
have done any prior programming and we did not want to introduce our key programming language (Java)
since that would be repeated in Week 1. In the end we used Logo & turtle graphics. In future we might try
another programming language or environment such as Greenfoot.
Industry Talk
In the first year of running Welcome Week, we invited an industry speaker to talk to our students taking a
minor degree in Business Management since our straight honours students need to attend a module fair on
the same day. However, this is only a small number of students and we encouraged our straight honours to
attend if they wished. To our surprise the entire year attended. This year we invited all students.
Introductory lecture on Computer Science
This lecture was designed to be both challenging yet not part of the programme curriculum. The intention
was to stretch the students but also allow for discussion of any difficulties the students faced. This session
was followed by a social reception in the School where students were encouraged to meet the rest of the
teaching staff and assistants.
5.2
9B Other Activities
In addition to the activities above, we arranged the following as student-led activities.
Web-based social networking
We invited all freshers to join a "CS Freshers" facebook group during the summer vacation which was run by
our student mentors (current second years). 95% of our first year joined this group and the group proved
useful in providing both an initial point of information and an oppotunity for social networking.
Timetabling
Rather than give our students a timetable for the Autumn Term we give them a blank timetable and with the
help of student mentors allow them to construct their own timetable with the explicit instructions that they
should block out spare time for coursework. This approach has shown a marked improvement on our
previous practices.
5.3
10B Evaluation
During the two iterations of Welcome Week we collected feedback from the students. In all aspects the
students rated our Welcome Week extremely highly. In particular we achived 90% agreement that the
Welcome Week both motivated students for further study and prepared students for lecture-based and
laboratory-based teaching. The students were also extremely positive about the role of the student mentors.
Our approach to Welcome Week has been widely disseminated across campus and is now recognised as
best practice. In addition, it has been adopted by at least four other academic units on campus.
6.
5B CONCLUSIONS
Students have moved from being passive ‘recipients’ of our design for early induction to being partners in
planning and organising the process. By being inclusive and building on student’s strengths and motivation
the changes have facilitated early student academic and social engagement. Setting high standards from the
start of the course and challenging our students is not incompatible with scaffolding the transition to learning
in a research-intensive university.
7.
6B REFERENCES
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