Approaches to Learning and Social Identity: Attracting Mature Students into Higher Education

1. Approaches to Learning and Social Identity: Attracting Mature Students into Higher Education Chris Howard and Peter Davies IEPR Staffordshire University

2. Summary • National strategy ‘flexible’ entry routes. • May ignore the wider psychological, social and economic factors. • Findings from a multi-functional approach to evaluation: 1) Approach to learning a mature student adopted influenced their decision to participate in HE. 2) Interaction with ‘social’ identity explained whether students progressed to HE.

3. Overview • Mature students and participation in HE. • Approaches to learning and mature students. • Intervention • Methodology • Findings • Discussion

4. Mature Students and Participation in HE • Mature students - aged 21 years or over. • Less likely to have the ‘standard’ entry requirements for HE. • Targeted by ‘flexible’ entry routes to ‘prepare’ them for study(DfES, 2003, a, b) • May ignore the wider psychological, social and economic factors.

5. Approaches to Learning and Mature Students • Assumption within HE that mature students often lack the skills to ‘successfully’ learn. • Perform equal to (Richardson, 1994b, 1995) or better than younger students (Hoskins et al. 1997). • More likely to adopt a deep approach to learning compared to younger students (Duff, 1999; Richardson 1994 a; Richardson et al. 1999). • Richardson (1994a) argues age difference in terms of motivation, life experience and the educational system.

6. Approaches to learning and mature students • Alternative hypothesis - more mature students adopting a deep approach progress to HE compared to those adopting a surface approach. • Existing knowledge or conceptions of learning in HE may influence their decision to participate. • Mature students are more likely to gather information from existing mature students rather than official sources(Ross et al. 2002).

7. Approaches to learning and mature students • Potential students who adopt a deep approach may experience high perceived self-efficacy to learn. • The converse applies to learner adopting a surface approach. • Self efficacy refers to a feeling of having the skills and capabilities to perform certain actions or behaviours (Bandura, 1995, 1997).

8. Intervention for mature people • The HE Full Circle project was based in the West Midlands. • Two activities: Step up to HE and Open College Network (OCN). • Activities provided information about HE - assumed 1) mature people lacked information about HE; 2) experienced low perceived self-efficacy to learn in HE. • Difference in the practitioners (HE teachers vs student ambassadors), time (96 vs. 20 hours) and setting (university vs. community centre).

9. Methodology • Critical realist research design: • 1) Case by case approach (Byrne, 1999) • 2) Mixed methods (McEvoy and Richards, 2006) • 3) Deductive (theory testing – intervention’s objectives) and inductive (data driven) principles used. • 4) Data analysis - Data triangulated to infer active mechanisms.

10. Methodology • 36 participants (n=21 Step up and n=15 OCN). • All mature, age ranged 21 to 60 years. • 41 item questionnaire • Cronbach alpha coefficients ranged from .7 to .8 • 4 focus groups with students on their experience.

11. Quantitative Data • 47 % (n=17) progressed to HE (n=4 from OCN and n=13 from Step up). • Logistic regression was conducted using 11 independent variables. • model was statistically reliable χ2 (12, N=36) =30.483, p < .05 distinguish between those who progressed to HE and those who did not. • Overall, between 57 and 76 percent of the variance in the participants’ responses could be accounted for by this model. • The deep approach variable was the only individual significant predictor: z = 3.83, p < .05 • Small sample size, these data are therefore tentative.

12. Qualitative Data • The concepts of deep and surface approaches to learning emerged from the focus group data. • Within data set, 27 expressed a deep approach whereas 9 expressed a surface approach. • ‘I really feel turned on to learning; I am going home , getting out my old biology books. It is really great! I am trying to understand everything I learn, not just on this course but everyday things and I try and apply it to other things.’ Step up student 7

13. Qualitative Data This course gave me information about what presentations are at university and also a bit about what subjects there are and what you can do. To be honest I would just do what you need to go through a degree and pass, I think I would worry a bit about it though wondering if I could cope with the work’ OCN student 12

14. Qualitative Data • 27 participants felt ‘prepared’ (high perceived self efficacy to learn and fit in) after the intervention. Students adopted a deep approach to learning. ‘I am confident about going to uni now and feel like I have made the right decision. The course has made me see that I will be able to go to uni and do the assignments and I won’t stick out like a sore thumb from the other students because I was worried before that because I was older, everyone else would be like eighteen years old and I have found that isn’t the case. It is diverse people of all ages and backgrounds’ OCN student 8

15. Qualitative Data • 9 students (adopting a surface approach) felt unprepared. ‘ I am not sure that going to university is the right decision for me. I know who I am as a learner and things like independent study are not for me, I thought a lecturer would tell you what you needed to know and you go off and remember. I don’t feel confident that I could do it (refers to learning), so I don’t think I will go’ Step up student 3 • Learning was conceived as a ‘fixed’ concept.

16. Qualitative Data • 22 students experienced a sense of group or social identity (n=17 deep learning and n= 5 surface learning) with other students. ‘We all got on with each other as a group, a lot of us are from similar backgrounds and we support each other’ OCN student 6. • However ‘in’ and ‘out’ group effects. ‘This girl was on the course and we did not really got on with her because she has got an accent, she is not from around here and is posh’ Step up student 20.

17. Causal Mechanisms

18. Discussion • Implications for designing strategies for mature students. • Investigate role of identified causal mechanisms with other groups - younger students and different contexts etc.