Understanding first-year students’ transition to university: A pilot study with implications for student engagement, assessment, and feedback
| Date | 01 May 2017 |
| Published date | 01 May 2017 |
| Author | Alasdair Blair |
| DOI | 10.1177/0263395716633904 |
| Subject Matter | Learning and Teaching in Politics and International Studies |
research-article2016
Learning and Teaching in Politics
and International Studies
Politics
2017, Vol. 37(2) 215 –228
Understanding first-year
© The Author(s) 2016
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students’ transition to
https://doi.org/10.1177/0263395716633904
DOI: 10.1177/0263395716633904
journals.sagepub.com/home/pol
university: A pilot study with
implications for student
engagement, assessment,
and feedback
Alasdair Blair
Department of Politics and Public Policy, Faculty of Business and Law, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK
Abstract
This article discusses the findings of a pilot study that examined the adjustment experience
of first-year students to university study. Based on a sample of 51 first-year students at one
UK university, the article finds that while the majority of students considered that workloads,
nature of assessment, level of independent reading, and learning were broadly in line with their
expectations, they were less satisfied with the support provided in terms of contact time with
tutors and feedback on performance. These results thus provide a mixed picture, whereby
academic workload and content are in line with students’ expectations, but students do not fully
comprehend what tutors want in assignments, despite knowing where to go for support.
Keywords
assessment, feedback, first-year experience, student engagement, transition
Received: 25th January 2015; Revised version received: 16th August 2015; Accepted: 1st September 2015
Introduction
Over the last two decades, one of the most written-about areas of higher education (HE)
has been the student experience which has been reflected in the teaching and learning
literature focused on the study of Politics. Research in this area has sought to address
concerns such as active learning (Haack, 2008), assessment and feedback (Blair et al.,
2013c), employability (Ashe, 2012), the use of simulations (Kaunert, 2009; Raymond and
Usherwood, 2013), and teaching research methods (Clark, 2011; Ryan et al., 2014). As
the number of students entering HE increased from the early 1990s onwards, concern
Corresponding author:
Alasdair Blair, Department of Politics and Public Policy, Faculty of Business and Law, De Montfort University,
Leicester LE1 9BH, UK.
Email: ablair@dmu.ac.uk
216
Politics 37(2)
began to focus on the impact of having a larger and more diverse student body, with, for
example, questions being asked about the level of student support (Lightfoot, 2004;
Mycock, 2007). Yet, despite the expansion in the Politics teaching and learning literature,
one area of notable omission has been the study of student transitions into HE. This is
surprising on a number of fronts. First, the last two decades have seen a significant expan-
sion in the number of students studying HE in the United Kingdom, which has in turn
resulted in challenges relating to, among others, class sizes, student engagement, and
different learning needs. Second, Politics degree programmes tend to be ‘book heavy’
with a greater focus attached to independent reading and concurrently less contact time
which raises such potential areas of investigation as time management. Third, while a
focus of attention in the literature has been attached to active learning and problem-based
learning (PBL) as a means of engaging students, this has not gone so far as to examining
the implications of adjustment in the first year. Fourth, within UK universities, there has
been a shift towards viewing students within an economic context as retention has become
an ever-more important issue for the financial operations of universities. Fifth, both uni-
versity and academic departments have been subject to increasing scrutiny through league
table performance and external benchmarks, such as the National Student Survey (NSS),
with the resulting potential for student experiences to be shaped from their first year
onwards. Finally, the very fact that the study of student transitions has been subject to
considerable discussion within the wider teaching and learning literature raises questions
about the extent to which the Politics teaching and learning community is engaging with
academic communities external to themselves.
It is with these issues in mind that this article seeks to address this lacuna through an
investigation of student transitions in the first year. The research for this article formed
part of a larger project that examined students’ experiences of assessment and feedback,
of which the primary focus of attention had been attached to the second and third year of
university study. That research highlighted that there were gaps between the feedback
provided to students and what they wanted and needed to improve their performance and
understanding (Blair et al., 2013a, 2013b, 2013c, 2014; Blair and McGinty, 2013). Based
on this research, and the wider literature on the first-year experience, a concern emerged
that students were not developing the necessary skills to effectively engage with feedback
from the outset of their studies. At the same time, there was also a concern that feedback
practices and academic structures were not creating the necessary environment where
students felt they could discuss matters with academic staff and their peers. This conse-
quently led to a research question about the impact of the first-year experience, particu-
larly with regard to establishing practices and strategies that could lead to the provision
of more targeted and meaningful feedback which students could act upon. To investigate
these issues further, an empirical survey was undertaken of first-year students, of which
particular focus was attached to gaining an understanding of the practicalities of their
adjustment to university study. This included finding out how their experience compared
to their expectations, the aspects of transition that they found the most difficult, and the
manner and frequency by which they interacted with academic staff.
Sat against this background, the article proceeds in five stages. First, it outlines the
nature of existing research on student engagement, with particular reference to the first-
year experience. Second, it sets out the nature of the study and the research method
adopted. Third, it examines the views of students in relation to their first-year transition,
with the findings being grouped into the themes of expectations versus reality, under-
standing what is required, and engagement and interaction. Fourth, it discusses the nature
Blair
217
and significance of the research data. Finally, building on this analysis, the article identi-
fies recommendations to improve the support provided to students in the first year of their
university studies.
The first-year experience
Research into student engagement has become a concern of universities and governments
across the world, with a number of countries operating large-scale student experience sur-
veys. This has included the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) in the United
States and the NSS in the United Kingdom. Since it was introduced in 2005, the NSS has
provided a review of the experience of students in the final year of their university study
and has become an important barometer used by university managers for measuring the
health of an academic subject area as well as serving as a critical key performance indica-
tor (KPI) of a university as a whole. The NSS forms part of a broader range of performance
indicators, which include the annual Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) and Higher
Education Academy (HEA) Student Academic Experience Survey, and the likes of the
Times Higher Education Student Experience Survey. These surveys are, however, slightly
different from the NSS. For example, the HEPI–HEA survey does not go so far as to pro-
duce institutional-level data and instead focuses more on such issues as student contact
hours and workloads. The Times Higher Survey does include institutional-level data, with
the focus tending to be on social life and the university environment. These developments
are part of a broader trend towards competition among universities, particularly in England,
as set out in the White Paper Higher Education: Students at the Heart of the System (BIS,
2011). A direct implication is that academic discipline areas can be subject to review and
threatened with closure if they do not receive a strong endorsement in the various league
tables upon which they are measured. University managers defend such actions as being
necessary because of the significance attached to league table performance (of which the
NSS is an important factor), which in turn have a bearing on student recruitment and the
overall financial health – and viability – of a university. The significance of these issues
has been accentuated by the marketisation of HE in England, which has been accelerated
by the decisions taken in the autumn of 2010 and 2013 to, respectively, replace the public
funding of HE with student fees and to lift the cap on student numbers in 2015. But while
the NSS is in this context an increasingly important unit of analysis, it is also a rather broad
examination, which does not differentiate between each academic year of study.
This is instead an area of focus in Australia, where universities, since 1994, have
undertaken surveys of the first-year student experience on a 5-yearly basis. The focus...
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