Enhancing Student Success in ODL:

1. Enhancing Student Success in ODL: • Unisa'sIntegrated Student Success & Support Frameworks and Strategies Presented at NADEOSA Conference, 30 August 2011 , Prof George Subotzky Executive Director: Information & Strategic Analysis, Unisa Dr Paul Prinsloo ODL Coordinator & Acting Director, IODL

2. Acknowledgements • The efforts of numerous DISA staff members in gathering and preparing information is acknowledged • In particular, the help and support of Robert Lightbody, admin Asst/caregiver to Prof Subotzky, was invaluable in preparing this presentation

3. Background • Enhancing student success is a worldwide challenge • This challenge is particularly formidable at Unisa, which now has +340 000 mainly non-traditional, older, part-time, underprepared students • They face challenging socio-economic circumstances, particular work-related and domestic responsibilities, which impede on student success

4. Focus • To address this, Unisa recently developed an integrated Student Support & Success framework, which is a central component of the implementation of its ODL plan • This presentation focuses on: • A brief background • Elements of the framework • The conceptual model of all factors impacting on student success • The profiling, assessing & predictive modelling of risk • An overview of the tracking system • Key assumptions & principles of student support

5. National 5-Year Graduation, Retention & Attrition Rates, 2000 Cohort Source: Scott et al, 2007

6. The Nature of the Problem • Unisa’s course success rate has steadily risen to 62,4% in 2010 – just below the new 2013 ministerial target of 63% • Cohort analyses indicate that: • First-year dropout in various qualification levels can be as high as 70% • Many students stop out of studies more than once for various academic and non-academic reasons • Time-to-completion is generally satisfactory • The main challenge in improving student success remains retention

7. Imperatives to address the problem • Unisa has a moral obligation to ensure that enhancing student access in the ODL environment is accompanied by effectively enhancing success • Persistent failure and dropout has significant financial implications for students and, increasingly, for Unisa • Ongoing poor success, retention and graduation rates diminish student and staff morale as well as institutional reputation

8. Unisa’s Student Success Framework Conceptual Modeling M & E Student Support Framework Identifying what is relevant, measurable, available & actionable Data Gathering via Tracking System, including Surveys Statistical & Analytic Modelling producing Actionable Intelligence

9. SHAPING CONDITIONS: (predictable as well as uncertain) • Social structure, macro & meso shifts: globalisation, political economy, policy; National/local culture & climate • Personal /biographical micro shifts TRANSFORMED STUDENT IDENTITY & ATTRIBUTES: • STUDENT • IDENTITY & ATTRIBUTES: • Situated agent: SES, demographics • Capital: cultural, intellectual, emotional, attitudinal • Habitus: perceptions, dispositions, discourse, expectations • Domains: • Intra-personal • Inter-personal • Modalities: • Attribution • Locus of control • Self-efficacy • Processes: • Informed responsibility & ‘choice’ • Ontological/epistemological dev. • Managing risks/opportunities/ uncertainty: Integration, adaptation, socialisation & negotiation FIT FIT FIT FIT FIT FIT • THE STUDENT WALK: • Multiple, mutually constitutive interactions between student, institution & networks • Managing complexity/ uncertainty/ unpredictability/risks/opportunities • Institutional requirements known & mastered by student • Student known by institution through tracking, profiling & prediction Retention/Progression/Positive experience Success Choice, Admission Learning activities Course success Gradua-tion Employ-ment/ citizenship FIT FIT FIT FIT FIT FIT TRANSFORMED INSTITUTIONAL IDENTITY & ATTRIBUTES: • INSTITUTIONAL • IDENTITY & ATTRIBUTES: • Situated organisation: history, location, strategic identity, culture, demographics • Capital: cultural, intellectual, attitudinal • Habitus: perceptions, dispositions, discourse, expectations • Domains: • Academic • Operational • Social • Processes: • Informed responsibility & choice • Managing risks/opportunities: • Transformation, change management, org. learning, integration & adaptation • Modalities: • Attribution • Locus of control • Self-efficacy • SHAPING CONDITIONS: (predictable as well as he uncertain) • Social structure, macro & meso shifts: globalisation, internationalisation, political economy, technology, social demand • HE/ODL trends, policy • Institutional biography & shifts; Strategy, business model & architecture, culture & climate, politics & power relations

10. Student as Situated Agent Intra-Personal Inter-Personal Psycho-logical Attributes & Outcomes • Background: • Demographics • Past SES • Educ. Background • Family Background • Role Models • Current SES & Life Circumstances: • Time & Opportunity • Stability & Support Academic Readiness & Ability Meta-Cognitive Skills Student Walk Integration, Engagement & Transformation Success • Student’s Effective Management of: • Life Circumstances & Risks • Learning Expectations & Opportunities Course Success Formative Assessment Graduation Fit: Academic Choices & Activities Utilisation of Admin/ Support Services Fit with Institutional Culture & Practices • Satisfaction • Graduateness • Institution’s Effective Management of: • Academic & Support Processes/Risks • Student Profile/Risk & Communication Institution as Situated Agent Institutional Services, Practices & Culture Quality of Academic Services Social: Institutional Culture & Practices Quality of Admin Services

11. Proposition 1 Student success is broadly interpreted as course success, retention, progression through the main phases of the student walk, and ultimately successful graduation and effective entry into the labour market and/or citizenship. Success also incorporates a positive student experience as a result of student-centred service excellence and efficient operations provided by the institution.

12. Proposition 2 Student success and positive experience is the outcome of sufficient fit between the transforming identity, attributes and performance of both the student and the institution through all phases of student walk.

13. Proposition 3 Fit arises when elements of the student and institutional identity and attributes (capital and habitus) are optimally aligned at each successive stage of the student walk. Fit at these various points is the outcome of the specific individual student and institutional preconditions.

14. Proposition 4 In order for fit to arise at each successive stage of the student walk, relevant transformative changes in the identity and attributes of the student and the institution are required.

15. Proposition 5 The student walk comprises a series of multiple, mutually constitutive interactions between the situated student and the situated institution and between the student and his/her various networks through all points of the walk (Articulation with ODL model)

16. Proposition 6 The formation and transformation of student and institutional identity and attributes is continuously shaped by overarching conditions at the macro, meso and micro levels

17. Assessing Academic Risk • It is self-evident that the lack of academic readiness constitutes a major risk to student success. • DCCAD has developed an instrument for academic self-assessment, to be administered during the second half of 2011. • The tracking system tracks, profiles & predicts academic risk, utilising the predictive model, drawing from all factors identified through statistical analysis • As indicated, all this information will be circulated to relevant roleplayersin the Student Support Framework

18. Assessing & Addressing Non-AcademicRisk • In the ODL context, non-academic factors impact strongly on student success. • Tracking, profiling and prediction of students' non-academic readiness/risk is therefore essential to the integrated student success and support frameworks. • A key source of information is the Student Profile Survey which provides information on: • students' socio-economic and educational background, • current socio-economic status and life circumstances, • metacognitive skills and knowledge and • psychometrics focusing on relevant attributes and aptitudes. • This information allows the segmented profiling of Unisa's highly heterogeneous student population. This involves the definition of various student risk categories, based on the permutations of three key student-related factors impacting on success, namely: academic ability, metacognitive/psychological attributes and skills, and life circumstances.

19. Assessing & Addressing Institutional Risks • The conceptual model identifies mutual responsibility for success • Assessing & addressing all institutional risks is therefore a central component of the framework • The tracking system, as part of Unisa’s emerging Organisational Intelligence Framework, tracks all relevant academic, operational and administrative processes to provide dashboard scorecards and early alerts of identified risks to relevant roleplayers • Other processes such as QA, risk management and internal audit processes also contribute to mitigate risks

20. Overview of the Tracking System • It incorporates relevant student and institutional information, academic and non-academic information and qualitative and quantitative information. • It tracks students' academic progress at the institutional, college, school/department, qualification and course levels. • It also tracks key administrative and academic processes • It provides customised automated early warnings of student-related and institutional risks to success. • These are circulated to the appropriate roleplayers(tutor, e-tutor, e-coach, counsellor, lecturer, supervisor, administrative & support departments) within the student support framework, according to approved procedures, roles and responsibilities. • By means of segmentation techniques and data mining, risk profiles of students can be created utilising the tracking system information and other sources so that at-risk groups can be targeted for specific proactive support interventions.

21. Senate STLSC Student Success Forum School/College TLSC Academic Department Professional Structures Admin Structures DSAR DSAA TSDL DCCAD Lecturer/Supervisor/Online Mentor/Tutors/Regions SMPPD DISA Library Library Student Support Coordinator USGS Dean of Stud. Academic Affective Admin TRACKING SYSTEM Profiling, Tracking & Predicting Risk at the level of Student/Module/Qualification/Institution Operational Processes Communication/Engagement Student Information • Application/Registration • Study Material • Assessment Management • Finance • HR • College/School/Department/Regions • E-Tutor/F2F Tutor/Online Mentor • Counsellor • Call Centre • Admin Department • Tutorial Attendance • myUnisa/Library • Student Course Evaluation • Applications/Registration • HEMIS • Assessment Performance/Scores • Academic Readiness Self-Assessment • Student Profile Survey • Student Satisfaction Survey • Exit/Tracer Surveys • ICMAs

22. The Unisa Student Support Framework describes student support as... • i. Student-centred • ii. Efficient and affordable • iii. Formalised and planned as well as informal and spontaneous • iv. Integrated coherently into the main learning experience • curriculum planning • planning of formative and summative assessment • offering of tutorial and counselling services and • the use of technologies. • v. Offering appropriate, and where possible, customized student support

23. Unisa Student Support Framework • Identifies three distinct (but related and often overlapping) phases for student support: • Entry phase (advising, profiling, diagnostic testing, orientation, etc) • Teaching and learning phase (cognitive and emotional development, formative and summative assessment, student tracking system and timely interventions) • Exit phase (towards registration, graduation, lifelong learning, etc)

24. The implementation of the above conceptual framework sees the roll-out of three types of student support, namely • Administrative support (registration, assignments, materials, etc) • Academic support (cognitive subject related support) • Affective or pastoral support (emotional, personal development support)

25. Key Principles & Assumptions i. Not all students require the same type of support (academic, non-academic and administrative) throughout the whole of the semester, or at all. Not all students want the same type of support iii. Not all students who need different types of support recognise or acknowledge this. iv. Unisa commits itself to provide all students with well-integrated systems and effective systemic support. v. Any student should have access to reliable and effective support when they need it.

26. Key Principles & Assumptions (2) vi. Unisa proactively identifies students’ potential and risk and provides appropriate support for students to develop their potential and to address their risks through well-designed and appropriate interventions based on a careful segmentation of students’ potential and risk-profiles. vii. Self-assessment of potential and risk is a crucial part of increasing the self-efficacy of students and ensuring that students are aware of their potential for being successful and/or risk of failure. viii. Students’ needs for support differ according to different factors which identified in the conceptual and predictive models.

27. Key Principles & Assumptions (3) ix. Student support (academic and non-academic support) does not need to be face-to-face. There is a range of technologies available which allows student support at Unisa to take advantage of synchronous and asynchronous forms, which, if used appropriately and effectively, may form part and parcel of a total student support strategy. x. Student support contains both academic and non-academic elements and is delivered in an integrated and well-coordinated way by different stakeholders, internally and externally (such as industry, etc).

28. Conclusion • To address the imperatives of enhancing student success, Unisa has developed an integrated student support and success framework comprising: • Conceptual and predictive modelling of academic, non-academic (affective & administrative) risk • Gathering required information by the tracking system and other sources • Analysing this information in order to track, predict and profile risk • Addressing this through the Student Support Framework • Evaluating impact over time • Feedback has indicated that the framework is innovative, cutting-edge and in alignment with best practice • Over time, the effectiveness of the conceptual and practical foundations of the framework will become apparent

29. Thank you!