Section IV: Conclusions and Recommendation Section IV: Conclusions and Recommendation

Sections I and II of the study indicate both the scope and complexity of the problems in students’ transition from secondary to tertiary education. Section I documents the national scale of these problems and shows that initial student experiences of tertiary teaching and learning continue to affect students success.

Section II is a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the key factors affecting students’ transition experiences and their performance in the first year of tertiary study.

Section III examines the transition process from a system-wide perspective. The analysis clearly shows the diversity in the commencing student, and universities have student bodies with quite different characteristics.

Perhaps the most important outcome of this research for institutions is the clear signal that while some transition issues will be common to all institutions and groups within each transition cohort, some are specific to particular institutional environments and student groups. It is for this reason that we contend that transition issues are ultimately best addressed at the institutional level.

What is lacking at the moment, and would be most helpful, is strategic guidance as to how institutions might go about identifying and addressing the particular transition problems which their students may confront and a process enabling their success in doing so to be recognised and measured. Good process could be rewarded with specific financial encouragement for those who effectively identify needs within their own institution and implement and monitor identified solutions and their outcomes.

It is recommended that national guidelines and parameters be developed to assist institutions themselves to identify and implement a manageable strategy for improving the transition experiences of their students, and to apply best practice standards to their own institutional circumstances. Each institution could choose to comply with such a code of practice - or Transition Charter - and be rewarded or not according to its demonstrated success in meeting its terms.

In the first place, institutions must assess their own variations from the common models of transition issues developed here and in the broader literature. Institutions must then devise and develop appropriate mechanisms and strategies, set clear objectives and expected outcomes, create effective measuring, monitoring and review processes for those outcomes, reshape transition strategies in light of ongoing experience and feedback, document results and, ideally, disseminate those results within the tertiary system more broadly. This process must also bring together academic, administrative and student support staff, to ensure that all relevant areas of the institution accept involvement in and ownership of institutional strategies. The Charter could therefore include an expectation that institutions create a dedicated body for coordinating and managing transition programs devised according to the particular structure and needs of the institution.

It is impossible to attempt to provide a template of ‘transition problems and solutions’ for all institutions, beyond the basic expectation that institutions must acknowledge common transition problems and identify particular transition problems, take steps to address those problems, and document their efforts against the objectives they specify. As indicated, the differences between universities¾ location, size, age, characteristics of the undergraduate population, and so on¾ preclude a simple or single set of strategies with which all institutions should comply. The research also suggests that programs which will most effectively meet the range of transition issues we have identified must be grounded and nourished within the ‘everyday life’ of universities, in their teaching and learning environments and in their student support services, rather than developed and implemented from above. Qualitative data (which involved students from six different universities in Melbourne) suggest that the quality of face-to-face teaching, the extent to which students are ‘welcomed’, their social interactions with teachers and other learners in classrooms, and their early experiences of course advice and support services are the most crucial variables in successful transition, and that the most important period is in the first few weeks of orientation, teaching and assessment. It is accordingly very important that transition is ‘owned’ as an issue and a challenge within departments, centres and faculties, and not just by the institution as a whole.

We also believe that a Transition Charter dedicated only to encouraging compliance with specific pre-determined goals will be an unwieldy and ineffective instrument. The most effective emphasis would be to reward good practice, innovation and an active commitment to tackling transition problems. Moreover, the literature suggests that ‘transition activities’ of some kind are already being designed and trialled, often with good results, on many Australian campuses. Within each institution, there is likely to be an active group already conducting outcome-focused research, devising First Year Experience Projects or Transition Initiatives, or working on university-school liaison. The approach we are suggesting starts with the proposition that a Transition Charter would recognise existing good practice and initiatives, foster innovation and encourage new linkages within institutions, and reward institutions for meeting objectives, for monitoring, and for effective reshaping and revision of their strategies.

Of course, our research, other studies being conducted at Monash, and the literature on transition at both Australian and overseas institutions, provides a comprehensive starting point and guidelines for the development of strategies which are likely to be effective in identifying and overcoming the transition problems of many students in many institutions and under many circumstances. These general strategies and initiatives are largely in the areas of student learning, teaching practices and development, and the planning and delivery of student services. They range from the provision of information and student orientation to the development of teaching and learning environments which recognise students’ existing skills and learning orientations and foster both their successful acquisition of disciplinary knowledge and their more general capacities for ongoing independent learning and skill development. These strategies are likely to be of benefit in any transition environment, and institutions could adopt versions of these as initial transition commitments as they develop and innovate their own package of transition initiatives.

The research suggests that most institutions could initially investigate:

• the creation of an effective liaison and coordination service between schools and universities, which includes structures for collaboration between school and university teachers (especially in the ongoing identification of skill and learning orientation outcomes of completed secondary education, and of different expectations and attributes developed in different school environments), and strategies for providing information and experience of university study which are sufficiently flexible to address the needs of different types of schools and specific student populations (including rural, NESB, and so on);
• prospective student information services tailored to provide both school leavers and other categories of entering students with:
• realistic course advice, focussing especially on changes in learning and teaching environments, the demands of university study, and the objectives, content, emphasis and career and vocational outcomes of specific courses;
• information about the nature of school to university transition; and
• where possible, direct contact between prospective and current students and between prospective students and relevant academic staff within specific courses;
• early academic orientation and advising programs, specifically designed to capture mismatches between course expectations and course experiences;
• pre-commencement social orientation programs, such as host schemes, course-specific orientation activities and other initiatives designed to facilitate interactions among commencing students and between commencing students and more senior undergraduate students;
• an overall orientation strategy, combining teaching areas, student services and student organisations, designed to facilitate the embedding of new students in the learning and social activities of the campus and the university and to provide the best possible balance between academic and social orientation;
• strategies to encourage ‘corporate identification’ with and among a cohort of first-year students, especially in faculties and courses where very few students will share most of their classes;
• where possible, course and subject adjustment procedures which allow students who identify course and interest mismatches an early opportunity to transfer or redesign course programs;
• course-specific mechanisms for ‘tracking’ first-year students within teaching areas which will foster early and effective identification of students experiencing measurable difficulties (prolonged non-attendance, early difficulties with assessment tasks, and so on);
• the inclusion of an ‘assessment practices adjustment’ strategy in first-year courses, which mixes common features of Year 12 study skills and assessment practices with each teaching area’s agreed first-year assessment practices in a defined transition period (for example, providing for smaller, task-based assessment as a significant feature of first semester courses, or nominating a draft essay as an assessment task);
• the provision of small-group teaching in first-year courses, and, where possible, collaboration between teaching areas to provide first-year students with the opportunity to enrol in specifically tagged ‘common groups’ in separate subjects;
• course designs which foster an adjustment to tertiary-style independent learning, specifically in terms of explanation and assessment of specific research, reading, writing, investigative and analytical skills central to independent learning, and introduction to library, computer, audiovisual and support services for independent learners;
• provision of appropriate collaborative learning opportunities, including enhancing existing collaborative environments (tutorials or directed laboratory demonstrations, for example) and devising new structures like study groups and peer mentoring by older undergraduate students;
• appropriate assessment models (including self- and peer-assessment) to encourage collaborative learning and learning communities;
• support and adequate resourcing for student learning communities, including the provision of specified ‘study spaces’ close to library, computer or other learning resources;
• the opportunity for effective training and refresher courses for all undergraduate teachers in teaching techniques for small groups, lectures and practical demonstrations focussing especially on skill recognition and assessment-based skill development in first-year teaching;
• training for all first-time and especially sessional teachers in first-year teaching techniques;
• strategies for sharing of information between teaching areas, especially as regards identifying and promoting good teaching practice, and evaluating other transition strategies such as student mentoring;
• identification, support and resourcing of ‘teaching communities’, including groups with a specific focus on transition and first-year teaching, within and across teaching areas;
• creation of a core unit and coordinator positions within the university administration to monitor and maintain transition programs, including the links between academic support and development and more general counselling and health services, with a mandate to assess and seek continual improvement in faculty, support unit and university-wide performance;
• creation of a dedicated oversight group linking academic staff, key administrative areas and student services, and ensuring that transition activities and programs are rooted in the day-to-day teaching and activity of the university;
• identification of key personnel within each faculty to liaise between the core unit, the oversight group, and department-level first-year coordinators, and to facilitate the identification of transition as a core acticity at faculty as well as university-wide levels;
• provision of ‘first-year coordinators’ in all departments with specific responsibilities to:
• oversee the implementation of transition strategies, including training for academic staff and postgraduate tutors;
• implement individual programs relevant to the specific transition issues in that department and faculty (for example, mentoring, ‘academic orientation’, or common tutorials);
• serve as a point of contact for first-year students experiencing transition difficulties, and as a liaison between students and support services; and
• implement and manage faculty- or department-specific services like first-year study groups and other forms of collaborative and informal learning;
• development of feedback mechanisms among undergraduate students and particular target groups (such as distance education students, mature-age entry students, rural students, and so on) to evaluate the effectiveness of existing programs, gain student input into strategy planning, trial innovations and revise programs; and
• development of strategies to monitor student exit from courses and from institutions, including surveys, interviews and career and course counselling, and to effectively share and disseminate information on student exit and potential ‘early intervention’ strategies among first-year coordinators, key personnel in faculties, centres, departments and student services, and transition groups on other campuses and in other institutions.

These strategies and initiatives will be combined and focused in different ways in different institutions and even on different campuses. However, there should also be a basic set of expectations in the area of transition. Accordingly, we suggest that in the first instance each institution should be encouraged to develop:

• appropriate strategies for identifying and predicting key transition problems among its incoming student population, and students most likely to be at risk, taking into account the accumulated knowledge in the literature and about comparable institutions;
• mechanisms to ensure the routine collection, analysis and dissemination of quantitative and qualitative information concerning incoming students’ attitudes, skills, approaches to learning, adjustment difficulties and expectations of tertiary education;
• appropriate mechanisms for addressing problems related to specific teaching and learning environments, where units with undergraduate teaching responsibilities are required to identify and develop both existing and feasible teaching, administrative and student support initiatives for improving students’ successful transition to university learning;
• appropriate mechanisms for addressing institution-wide transition issues, so that relevant administrative service areas with responsibilities for the provision of realistic and accurate information to prospective students, orientation, student services, academic and teaching development, and other related activities, are required to identify and develop specific strategies for improving and monitoring the planning and delivery of services;
• feedback and monitoring mechanisms incorporating students, teaching staff, teaching area support staff and administrative service staff, to allow for ongoing re-evaluation of transition problems and of the initiatives and strategies described above; and
• appropriate mechanisms for collecting and assessing relevant documentary evidence in key areas (including but not restricted to student learning outcomes and satisfaction; course transfer, amendment and withdrawal; changes in assessment practices; academic staff development; and rates of retention, progress and completion) by which institutions can report on the implementation of their own objectives, assess the effectiveness of their strategies for identifying, addressing and monitoring transition issues, and make further strategic responses.

Recommendations: