Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs
Eleanor Ramsay
Deborah Tranter
Robert Sumner
Steven Barrett
University of South Australia
October 1996
96/8
Evaluations and Investigations Program
Higher Education Department
©Commonwealth of Australia 1996
ISBN 0 644 47329 0
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process without prior written permission from the Australian Government Publishing Service. Requests and inquiries concerning reproduction and rights should be addressed to the manager, Commonwealth Information Services, Australian Government Publishing Service, GPO Box 48, Canberra ACT 2601.
This report funded is under the Evaluations and Investigations Program of the Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs.
The views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs.
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4. Student Equity Profile: University of South Australia
6. Summary and Recommendations
Appendix 1: University of South Australia, Mission Statement
Appendix 2: Definition of Equity Groups
Appendix 3: Withdrawing Students Questionnaire (available in print copy only)
Appendix 4: Persisting Students Questionnaire (available in print copy only)
Appendix 5: Interview Survey Instrument
We would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the contribution of all of the people who assisted in the preparation of this report. Invaluable assistance with obtaining and analysing data was provided by James Crockart, Lachlan Murdoch, Graeme Poole, Peter Cucchiarelli and Chris Phillips of the Planning Unit and Julie Perry of the Information Technology Unit at the University of South Australia. We would also like to thank Mary Piscioneri, Vanessa Lowe and Anne Every for their assistance with data entry and preparing the final report. Our thanks are also extended to the large number of staff, current and former students of the University who generously gave their time and without whose assistance this study would not have been possible.
An advisory committee for the project was appointed by the Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs (DEETYA) in consultation with the project directors. The committee comprised Mr Lawrie Kupkee (DEETYA), Associate Professor Eleanor Ramsay, Pro-Vice Chancellor (Equity and External Relations), Dr Robert Sumner (Manager: Planning), Ms Deborah Tranter (Senior Planning Officer), Associate Professor Roger Harris (Director: Centre for Research in Education and Work), Associate Professor Mary Ann Bin-Sallik (Faculty of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies) and Mr Greg Giles (Project Officer: University of South Australia Student’s Association).
Finally, we are most grateful to the Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs for providing funding for this study.
Eleanor Ramsay
Deborah Tranter
Robert Sumner
Steven Barrett
The University of South Australia was established on 1 January 1991 and is the largest university in South Australia with a total enrolment of about 23,000 full-time and part-time students. Its antecedent institutions had developed a strong commitment to providing high quality tertiary education for students from a wide range of backgrounds, a philosophy extended and made more explicit by the University. Such commitment translates operationally into an ongoing strategy to embed equity principles and perspectives into policies, procedures, structures and curriculum. In terms of the University's selection and entry policies and procedures, this has resulted in the development of an extensive range of entry avenues and criteria.
An outcome of the University's broad admissions policies is that it has a high percentage of students who fall into at least one of the equity categories. In an effort to identify relevant strategies to ensure successful course outcomes for equity group students, the following three key issues were addressed in this investigation:
Student attrition is a result of a complex relationship between students and the teaching and learning environment. The Student Integration Model developed by Tinto (1975), and the Model of Student Departure developed by Bean (1980), can be integrated into a single analytical framework (Cabrera, Castenada, Nora and Hengstler 1992) to provide insights into these relationships. The policy discussion paper on advancing the national equity framework (DEET 1995) supports this analytical framework by moving the focus of addressing educational disadvantage in participation and outcomes from the equity student groups to the higher education system as a whole, including the relationship of different groups of students to the system.
This study was conducted in two phases. The first analysed historical and current statistical data in order to determine patterns of participation and outcomes for particular groups of students. The second analysed data collected from a survey of all commencing undergraduate students who withdrew from the University of South Australia during the first semester in 1995 and of a control group of students who persisted with their studies during the same period. A small number of respondents who had withdrawn were interviewed, as was a small group of key student support staff, such as student counsellors. Although external students are not an equity group identified in A Fair Chance for All (DEET 1990) they have been included as a special group in the equity group analysis in the report because of the considerable overlap between some equity groups such as Indigenous students, and those studying in the distance mode.
The results show that a complete or incomplete prior TAFE qualification has been an important admission avenue for many equity group students to the University of South Australia, except those from non-English speaking backgrounds, while the mature age entry test does not appear to be a common entry route for any equity group. Undergraduate students admitted to the University in 1995 and surveyed in the second phase of this study cited their desire to study in a field that really interested them and to gain entrance to an attractive career as the most important reasons for enrolling. These motivations were dominant for each equity group as well as the total group of respondents, with the exception that those external students who did not withdraw indicated that advancement in their present job was the major reason for enrolling. Students from the specialist access Associate Diploma in University Studies, taught entirely in the distance mode at present, echoed the importance of this motivation.
While all students tended to find teaching staff helpful and their courses interesting and relevant to future plans, these views were stronger among those students who did not withdraw, the persisting group. Both withdrawing and persisting groups however raised concerns over matters such as heavy workload, teaching methodology, large class sizes, being unsure of course expectations and feeling a lack of being motivated and encouraged by staff. Among equity groups, non-English speaking background students—particularly those who withdrew—tended to report more negative course experiences.
All groups expressed similar perceptions of their transition experiences. Time management difficulties, general transition concerns and a lack of an adequate understanding of expectations at university were the dominant issues selected by each group. Among equity groups, those who withdrew tended to raise more concerns than those who persisted. Problems combining study and family/social/ community responsibilities, problems combining paid work and study commitments, and financial problems were identified as the most significant personal issues by all groups. Equity group students who persisted with their studies were less likely to indicate problems combining study with either paid work or other responsibilities, than were those who withdrew.
The groups which reported the highest levels of concern regarding their university experience tended to be the Indigenous and non-English speaking background students, together with external students. Amongst the range of student support resources surveyed, students made the most use of the library and the computing facilities, indicating that they were reasonably satisfied with these resources. External students and Indigenous students who withdrew were the least likely sub-groups to make use of the general support resources available, a significant finding in the context of the concerns these students indicated with respect to their experience of the university teaching and learning context, and their attrition rates relative to other groups. It should be noted however that a range of specialist support resources are provided for both these groups of students and further research into their use and the degree of satisfaction with these resources should be undertaken.
The majority of commencing students who withdrew in the first semester 1995 did so before the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) cut-off date. Attrition rates for Indigenous students were very high and those for external students were also well above University average rates with considerable overlap among students comprising these two groups. Success rates (including weighted average marks) for Indigenous students were low in comparison with those for non-Indigenous students and those for external students were also lower than the University average. Success rates for low socio-economic status (SES) and rural/isolated categories were around the University average while women students were found to be consistently above average performers. Students from non-English speaking backgrounds experienced below average success but also relatively low attrition rates indicating a high motivation to stay enrolled.
In terms of reasons for withdrawal, personal, employment and financial issues, academic preparation and the course itself dominated, although there were variations in importance given to these reasons across equity groups. For students who withdrew early in the semester, acceptance of an offer to a preferred course, either within or outside the University was important. As the semester progressed, financial and then employment and personal issues dominated as major reasons for withdrawal. Younger students, including many school leavers, were most likely to withdraw to take up another course offer, or because of induction, transition or personal reasons. For older students, many of whom were admitted via TAFE, mature age entry or special entry, employment and financial issues were a major consideration. For all groups, including the Associate Diploma group, but excepting school leavers, employment issues were important reasons for withdrawal.
The outstanding feature emerging from the foregoing analysis is that Indigenous students and external students, and to a lesser extent non-English speaking background groups, have compounded difficulties in progressing through university studies. This is reflected in higher attrition and lower success rates for these groups of students compared to the University's student population as a whole. The University wishes to better understand the relevance of characteristics shared by these groups in relation to their experience of university study, and how and why this interaction contributes to their different rates of attrition and success. Even more critically, it wishes to identify changes which can be introduced to its processes and programs to improve the quality of the teaching and learning environment for its diverse range of students and hence reduce these differential outcomes.
Major recommendations are:
Recommendation 1
Recommendation 2
Recommendation 3
Recommendation 4
Recommendation 5
Recommendation 6
Recommendation 7
Recommendation 8
Recommendation 9