4: Student Equity Profile: University of South Australia

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• Introduction
• Commencing Undergraduate Students
• Basis of Admission
• Basis of Admission-Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Students
• Attrition Rates
• Success Rates
• Student Withdrawals-First Semester 1995
• Summary

Introduction

Reflecting its strong commitment to equity, 47 per cent of the University of South Australia's 1995 operating grant-funded students fell into at least one of the equity groups originally outlined in A Fair Chance for All (DEET 1990) and used since then for institutional and national equity planning and reporting. These groups are:

• women in research degrees and in the fields of study in which they are identified as under-represented on the basis of institutional data (Agriculture, Architecture and Building, Business and Economics, Engineering and Science at the University of South Australia), that is, women in non-traditional studies (or WINS);
  
• people from low socio-economic social backgrounds (low SES);
• people from rural and isolated areas;
• people from non-English speaking backgrounds (NESB);
• people with disabilities; and
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, or Indigenous, people (ATSI).

Higher education institutions have focussed on these groups for the purposes of their annual equity plans and Aboriginal Education strategies for reporting to DEETYA in profiling processes since 1991. For the purpose of this study, the authors have adopted the definitions recommended in Equity and General Performance Indicators in Higher Education (Martin 1994) and subsequently endorsed for trial nationally by DEETYA and the AVCC (Appendix 2). Unless specified as WINS, throughout the project 'women' refers to all women. With the inclusion of all women, the percentage of students who fall into at least one of the equity groups increases to 72 per cent. The addition of external students as an equity group further increases this percentage to 74 per cent.

Table 4.1 below provides the breakdown of the University's 1995 total operating grant-funded student numbers by equity group. There is extensive overlap between these groups with, for example, 49 per cent of low SES students also identified as rural or isolated, 4.4 per cent as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander and 20.3 per cent as external. While external students are not an equity group defined in the national higher education equity framework, their mode of study, their relative isolation compared with the on campus students, and the high proportion of equity category students who are studying externally persuaded the authors to include them as an equity category for the purpose of this project. In particular, 62 per cent of Indigenous (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) students and 33 per cent of rural/isolated students were studying externally in 1995.

Table 4.1: University of South Australia Student Population by Equity Group 1995

(Not including fee-paying overseas students)

Table 4.2 below provides an historical analysis of these figures since the University's foundation in 1991, collated from the University's annual Equity Plans. It should be noted, however, that a number of changes have occurred in the definitions used by the University to identify some of the equity groups over this period. This is particularly applicable to the NESB group which, prior to 1995, the University identified as all students who indicated at enrolment that they spoke a language other than English at home. From 1995, the definitions recommended by Martin (1994) and adopted nationally have been used by the University for all equity groups and the new indicator for NESB is included in parentheses for 1994 and 1995 only (refer Appendix 2).

It should also be noted that data on students with a disability were collected on the University's Student Records Information System for the first time in 1995. While manual records of students with a disability who self-identified were kept by the Equal Opportunity Unit prior to this, it has not been possible to undertake the statistical analyses outlined later in this chapter for students with a disability. Because of this paucity of data, the relatively small number of students involved, and problems with the definition, data collection and verification method, both within the University and nationally, no analysis of students with a disability has been included in this report.

Table 4.2 reveals steady progress in the participation rates of all targeted equity groups at the University, except those from a non-English speaking background. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participation rates have also fluctuated but are still amongst the highest in the country. In all target groups, except NESB and some WINS areas, the University of South Australia has significantly higher participation rates than the other two universities in the State, and generally higher than national rates (Table 4.3). Of particular note are the access and participation rates for students from low SES backgrounds which are around twice the participation and access rates of the other two South Australian universities. As indicated earlier, the objectives of the University's new low SES entry program, USANET, are to at least maintain this high rate of entry and participation and if possible to increase these rates so that they are comparable to the representation of low SES people in the South Australian population as a whole.

Table 4.2: Participation Rates of Equity Groups at the University of South Australia 1991-1995 as a Percentage of Total Operating Grant Funded Students

Table 4.3: Access and Participation Performance Indicators(1), Adelaide University, Flinders University, University of South Australia and Australia-wide 1995

Commencing Undergraduate Students

Early in its discussions, the project's advisory committee determined that the study should concentrate on the commencing undergraduate student population at the University of South Australia. All further statistical analyses in this chapter therefore focus on this group. Table 4.4 below provides a breakdown of these commencing undergraduate students, by equity category, for the years 1992-1995.

Table 4.4: Commencing Undergraduate Students(1) at the University of South
Australia by Equity Category 1992-1995 as a Percentage of Total Commencing Students

The undergraduate commencing population has a higher representation of most equity categories, particularly the Indigenous, low SES and rural/isolated groups, than does the total University population. This partly reflects the high institutional attrition rates of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students (who are likely to be from both low SES and rural/isolated backgrounds) and the postcode-based definition of socio-economic status and rural address. During their progress through university study, particularly into postgraduate study, students' postcodes of home address are more likely to become urban and of a higher SES as they move closer to their campus of study and/or away from their original home. Students from equity groups are also less likely to be enrolled in postgraduate courses than are other students, with the exception of NESB students and external students whose representation increases at the postgraduate level. Over the last four years too, there has been somewhat erratic but nevertheless general progress in access to the University for all equity categories, except those from a non-English speaking background, again boosting commencing numbers in relation to the total. The NESB group is the only one with a lower representation in 1995 than in 1992. The proportion of external and rural/isolated students particularly has increased over this time.

Table 4.5 illustrates the level of overlap between the various equity groups. In particular, it reveals the high level of correlation between the women, Indigenous, external, low SES and rural/isolated student populations. For example, of the 242 Indigenous students, 67 per cent were women, 64 per cent were external, almost 52 per cent were low SES and almost 60 per cent were rural/isolated. The table also illustrates that the NESB student population is the least likely to overlap with other equity groups, with the exception of women and low SES students.

Table 4.5: University of South Australia Commencing Undergraduate Student Population by Equity Categories 1995

Basis of Admission

Table 4.6 provides analysis, by equity group, of the major bases of admission to the University.

The bases of admission incorporated in Table 4.6 are:

• final year of secondary school (between 47 per cent to 52 per cent of commencing undergraduate students);
  
• incomplete higher education qualification, or higher education transfers (an increasingly important group to the University, now nearly 25 per cent of commencing undergraduates);
• mature age special entry, Special Tertiary Admissions Test or STAT (now between 7 and 8 per cent of commencing undergraduates);
  
• complete or incomplete TAFE qualifications, or TAFE entry (about 8 per cent of commencing undergraduates);
  
• other special entry, including the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander special entry test (around 2 to 3 per cent of commencing undergraduates);
  
• other (undefined) mostly direct entry students who are not admitted via the South Australian Tertiary Admissions Centre SATAC (now just over 5 per cent of commencing undergraduates); and
  
• for 1995 the new Associate Diploma in University Studies (now the Diploma in University Studies) has been included as a separate method of entry. These data should be considered as a subset of the 'other' category in which this award's students are included for the purpose of reporting to DEETYA.

The 'other' category has fluctuated substantially in numbers over the years between 4 and 9 per cent of commencing undergraduates, with a relatively high proportion of Indigenous students admitted this way in both 1994 and 1995. All students admitted to bridging courses and to the remote area Antep program, for example, are admitted directly and not through the State's Tertiary Admissions Centre. In 1995 this included the students entering the Associate Diploma in University Studies. The basis of admission data cannot then be automatically transferred from the SATAC system to the University's enrolment system and thus may not be recorded at all on the enrolment system, or are recorded as 'unknown'. In these cases, the basis of admission defaults to 'other' for the purpose of DEETYA reporting.

Since a study such as the current one is dependent on accurate data, it is unfortunate that correct data on basis of admission are not available for this reasonably large group of students which includes high numbers from equity groups. For example, it is known that many of these students were in fact admitted through the Faculty of Aboriginal and Islander Studies' special entry test. Some also would have been admitted on the basis of previous TAFE or university study and possibly some on the basis of Year 12 study. This project has revealed a number of concerns with the reliability of basis of admission data, both with its collection internally and its method of reporting nationally. For example, the current basis of admission of incomplete or complete TAFE qualification can include both those students selected on this basis and students selected on other bases but who have undertaken some previous TAFE study or have an existing TAFE qualification. In view of the interest being taken in methods of university entrance (particularly TAFE transfers) and progression, a national review of collection methods may be appropriate. The University of South Australia is currently undertaking such a review internally.

Table 4.6: Basis of Admission for Commencing Undergraduate Students at the University of South Australia by Equity Group 1992-1995

In 1995 the new direct entry Associate Diploma in University Studies accounted for almost two per cent of commencing undergraduate enrolments. This course was specifically targeted to mature age para-professionals as an entry pathway to a degree qualification, with full credit to be given in the degree for studies in the Associate Diploma. It has no pre-requisites and is primarily offered externally. The first cohort enrolled in this course had a very high proportion of women and students from rural/isolated and low socio-economic backgrounds. A second semester intake (not included in these statistics) focussed on bi-lingual school services officers and other ethnic community workers, most of whom came from non-English speaking backgrounds.

Despite a problem with the reliability of mature age entry data prior to 1994, Table 4.6 reveals some strong trends. In particular, it appears that the TAFE entry basis of admission provides an important route for all equity target groups except those from non-English speaking backgrounds. All other equity groups have relatively high representation amongst TAFE entrants, with only the 'other' and 'other special entry' groups having greater representation of equity students. Conversely, it appears that mature age entry (the STAT test) is the least likely method of entry for targeted equity groups with all equity groups largely under-represented, including external students. This is an interesting finding with respect to changes in University entry and diversity of student intake, given the origins of and assumptions about this mode of entry.

The Year 12 and incomplete higher education groups of entrants are more complex. School leavers include relatively high proportions of women, NESB, low SES and rural/isolated students but low proportions of Indigenous and external students compared with their distribution in the overall intake. Higher education transfers have relatively high proportions of women, Indigenous, external and NESB students (except in 1993) but lower proportions of low SES and rural/isolated students. This latter finding may reflect the student populations of the other two South Australian universities from which many of these students have transferred. It may also indicate that those with previous experience in higher education have moved from their parents' home address to establish their own home with a different socio-economic status from that of their parents.

The graph at Figure 4.1 illustrates the equity group categories by basis of admission for 1995 and further supports the analysis above. It reveals that, compared to the University average, or total, external students and Indigenous students are much less likely to have been admitted on the basis of Year 12 or mature age entry and much more likely to have been admitted by TAFE entry or other means. Indigenous students are also five times more likely to have been admitted via other special entry than any other group of students. Students from non-English speaking backgrounds are the most likely group to have been admitted via Year 12 or incomplete higher education and the least likely group to be admitted via TAFE or other special entry. Students from non-English speaking backgrounds are also unlikely to be admitted via the mature age test. Students from low SES backgrounds are marginally more likely to be admitted via secondary school, TAFE and other special entry and slightly less likely to be admitted via incomplete higher education or mature age entry. A relatively high proportion are admitted via the 'other' basis of admission. This pattern is similar for rural/isolated students, with the differences more marked, particularly in the cases of incomplete higher education and mature age entry, where rural/isolated students are relatively under-represented, and the 'other' basis of admission, by which a reasonably high number of rural/isolated Indigenous students are admitted directly to the University, with no basis of admission code recorded.

Figure 4.1: Equity Groups by Basis of Admission at the University of South Australia 1995

Basis of Admission-Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Students

Table 4.7 illustrates that in 1995 the largest group of commencing undergraduate Indigenous students was admitted via the basis of admission recorded as 'other'. This includes the direct applicants to the remote area Anangu program and to the several bridging programs offered by the University. As discussed earlier, this high proportion of Indigenous students recorded as 'other' has meant that an accurate analysis of basis of admission for this group is not possible. Despite this inaccuracy, records do show that significant numbers are admitted as higher education transfers (23 per cent) and TAFE transfers (17 per cent), with Indigenous students more than twice as likely as non-Indigenous students to be recorded as admitted on the basis of previous TAFE study. Of the 56 Aboriginal students admitted in 1995 on the basis of a previous incomplete higher education course, 28 (or 50 per cent) had undertaken their previous study at the University of South Australia or one of its antecedent institutions.

Table 4.7: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commencing Undergraduate Students at the University of South Australia by Equity Characteristics and Basis of Admission 1992-1995

Indigenous students are unlikely to be admitted through the mature age entry test and are less likely to be admitted on the basis of final year secondary results than are non-Indigenous students. They are, however, more likely to be admitted on the basis of other special entry, in this case the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander entry test which is administered by the Faculty of Aboriginal and Islander Studies but is open to Indigenous applicants to courses in all faculties. The basis of entry profile for Indigenous students for the years 1992-1994 generally follows similar patterns to that for 1995 except in 1994 where the 'other' and 'other special entry' categories probably represent a more realistic picture of admission.

Table 4.7 also reveals that the University's Indigenous student population possesses a number of characteristics relevant to this study in much greater proportions than the total commencing undergraduate population. Indigenous students are six times more likely to be studying externally and more than twice as likely to be rural/isolated or low SES. They are also more likely to be mature aged women with family responsibilities. In addition, while the definition currently adopted by DEETYA for NESB does not include Indigenous students, 17 per cent of Indigenous students in 1995 indicated that they spoke a language other than English at home. Most of these students were enrolled externally in the remote area Anangu program. For these Indigenous students in particular, an extensive range of support mechanisms are in place to assist them through their studies in such remote locations and in an endeavour to increase both retention and success rates.

Attrition Rates

Table 4.8 provides a breakdown of apparent attrition rates(1) for commencing undergraduate students at the University of South Australia by equity group, in comparison with apparent attrition rates for the total student body. The national apparent attrition rates for the total student body for the years 1992/93 and 1993/94 were both 24 per cent(2) , higher than those for the University of South Australia.

Table 4.8: Attrition Rates for Commencing Undergraduate and all Students at the University of South Australia by Equity Group 1992-1995

With the exception of the NESB group in 1992/93, commencing undergraduate students have consistently higher attrition rates than the total University population. This difference is particularly marked for Indigenous students, for whom attrition rates are very high amongst commencers, with more than half in 1992 and 1994 not continuing into the following year. The attrition rates for all Indigenous students are lower than those for Indigenous commencing students but are still much higher than for the non-Indigenous population. (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander student attrition is being researched concurrently with this study in a separate Evaluation and Investigation Program (EIP) project being directed by the University's Dean of Aboriginal and Islander Studies, Professor Colin Bourke.)

The Aboriginal Education Policy Task Force established by the Commonwealth Government in 1988 found that Aboriginal people are by far the most educationally disadvantaged group in Australia on a range of indicators (A Fair Chance for All). This educational disadvantage is further compounded for those students in the remote area program (Antep) in the Pitjantjatjara lands for, although the University provides them with significant additional support, these students speak little English and have few of the more general support mechanisms taken for granted by urban students (e.g. secondary schools, libraries and comprehensive health and community services). The conditions under which these students live and study are so different from those generally experienced by other students that it has been argued that alternative measures of success should be developed for them. The EIP study mentioned above is expected to make a number of recommendations on performance indicators for Indigenous students, including some relating to this particular group.

In relation to both commencing undergraduates and the total student population, women and NESB students tend to have the lowest attrition rates of the equity groups, with rates near or below the University average for commencing undergraduates. Students from low SES backgrounds also appear to have attrition rates at or near the University average in both population groups. However, rural/ isolated and external students (with considerable correlation between these groups and Indigenous students) generally have higher than average attrition rates. The high rates of attrition for external and Indigenous students are statistically significant (p=0.05). These trends are further corroborated by the equity performance indicators prepared for the University's Equity Plan, as outlined in Table 4.9 below. These performance indicators compare the apparent retention rates of the targeted equity groups with their comparator category (e.g. women to men, NESB to English Speaking Background or ESB). They illustrate that the major areas of concern in relation to the relative attrition of equity group students are with Indigenous students and rural/isolated students. The comparison with 1994 national data indicates that this University of South Australia finding reflects national trends but unfortunately only one year's comparable data are available, preventing any trend analysis.

Table 4.9: Apparent Retention Rate Ratio(1) Performance Indicators 1994 and 1995 by Equity Group for University of South Australia and Australia

Table 4.10 below provides an analysis of attrition rates for commencing undergraduates at the University of South Australia by basis of admission and equity group. Students admitted on the basis of their final year at secondary school (around 50 per cent of commencing undergraduates) have consistently lower attrition rates than students admitted via other means, except in the case of mature age entry students in 1992/93. (As with Table 4.6, mature age entry data prior to 1994 are not reliable and should be largely ignored). In 1992 and 1994 the other special entry and 'other' bases of admission had the highest attrition rates across virtually all equity groups. In 1993, however, attrition rates for these groups were lower and students admitted on the basis of TAFE qualifications had the highest rate of attrition, with one exception.

Further investigation of basis of admission and equity group reveals that school leavers from non-English speaking backgrounds and female school leavers have the lowest attrition rates, with those from low SES backgrounds also less likely to withdraw than other groups. The students most likely to withdraw are the external students and Indigenous students with rates of withdrawal of these students in relation to bases of admission varying over each of the three years considered.

Table 4.10: Attrition Rates for Commencing Undergraduate Students by Basis of Admission and Equity Group at the University of South Australia 1992-1995