A presentation from the STEM Annual Conference 2014.
The transitions from school or college to university and from first year to second year are often very challenging steps within the student journey. In many American universities students who are failing in semester one are identified and required to participate in an academic probation programme that is aimed at supporting them to get back on track. Similar formal programmes are rare in the UK. In order to tackle progression issues it was decided to adopt a similar practice in the Faculty of Science Engineering and Computing at Kingston University.
An Academic Probation Programme (APP) was designed and implemented. All first and second year students who failed 2 or more 15 credit modules in the first semester were identified (n= 498) and instructed to undertake the Programme. Students were required to:
- Complete an on-line Academic Self-Assessment exercise and then discuss it with their Personal Tutor.
- Attend an Academic Success Workshop which covered: effective learning strategies/ study skills; resources and support available to students and University regulations on reassessment progression and dismissal.
- Make at least one visit to the Faculty Academic Skills Centre with a draft of an assessment.
The nature of the support provided and an evaluation of the programme’s impact will be presented. The programme had a positive impact on progression for example for level 5 students who failed 50-75% of their credits in semester 1 44%(n=98) of them who followed the programme progressed to level 6 whilst only 21%(n=70) of those that did not follow the programme progressed.
