Let’s not wait, let’s get on with beating the attainment gap – the time for talking is over!

How do you develop a strategy for narrowing the attainment gap, what are the challenges and how would you address them? This was the topic of a presentation I was asked to give recently at a job interview and researching it proved to be a timely engaging activity that produced a lot of useful information. So, thought I would share the fruits of my research which has largely been culled from a combination of a range of reports and academic sources, alongside my own observations and reflections. I can’t claim to have the answer and would be happy to be part of a debate if anyone is interested enough to have that discussion.

THE CHALLENGES

The university at which I work is predominantly white, in a predominantly white city on the south coast of the UK. On the programme for which I am course leader, we have, over the last few years, seen an increasing number of BAME (I am aware that this term is somewhat problematic, but it is what is being used so have adopted it here) joining the course. Some of the students fly while overs seem to struggle to connect with the university experience and many struggle to progress. The experience for students who may already be feeling alienated from society, its institutions and in particular education, is perhaps compounded by a feeling of objectification as they try to integrate into a social setting that is at once unfamiliar and has expectations about their capabilities for navigating this strange and alienating experience that are perhaps questionable.

The literature suggests that early on in the encounter with the university, staff need to make “positive interventions including creating a sense of belonging, building social capital, enhancing the student experience, and developing more wide-ranging learning and teaching initiatives” (Dixon-Smith 2017). I would suggest that this needs to go beyond induction sessions and welcoming socials to actually embedding interventions into the first few weeks of the entire experience. Not only within but around the classroom. Such a holistic approach suggests that “changing institutional cultures is key to addressing differential outcomes, and this requires commitment and action from senior staff. Whole institution approaches succeed when they combine ‘bottom-up’ interventions with embedded strategic senior support” (Mountford-Zimdars et al 2015)” which means that you can’t expect to deal with this on your own.

And this is an issue for those of us at the coal face witnessing the problem but with little opportunity to make any sort of effective change. It is extremely disempowering and disheartening as there is a clear and obvious need. Yet taking action seems almost impossible in the face of institutional inaction.

A MANIFESTO FOR CHANGE

Yet, finding solutions is not that hard since there has already been a lot of research, case studies, evaluations of best practice. Key findings from research on the attainment gap show the following to be the most influential factors in closing the gap (UCA 2018):

• Frequent and meaningful conversations with tutors are the key contributing factor in BAME student success.
• Formative assessment has gap-narrowing effects – lower-performing students gain the most.
• Interrogating course and unit-level data can help you identify priority areas for interventions.
• We are all ethnically and institutionally positioned – collaboration with students and colleagues can help us to address this in our work.
• Curricula tend to accord with the social and cultural backgrounds of academics – addressing the balance of ethnic backgrounds and expertise in your course team and course content and materials can help narrow the attainment gap.

Among the recommendations made two stand out: staff as change agents and students as change agents which suggests we can do this together through collaboration, partnership and cooperation. Should there be a mind to tackle the issue at an institutional level since none of this is going to happen if it is left to one or two people chipping away on their own. So, here are some ideas and suggestions, mostly culled from other people’s research and case studies.

STAFF AS CHANGE AGENTS

1. Giving ownership to academic leaders at a programme level:

The research suggested that not everyone was up to speed with the same data and that in some cases action plans were being generated from perceived rather than actual data and consequently this limited the impact on differences in attainment e.g. gender is bigger attainment gap – a common comment from staff who perceive this as a greater problem yet the evidence doesn’t support this perception (Barefoot, H., St John, J., Yip, A. 2018):

Discussing national, institutional, faculty/departmental level data is important to provide context. However, to simulate change at programme level, teams need data relating directly to their programme. Institutions should manage the provision of this data to ensure adherence with data protection act regulations (UCA 2018).

2. Provide multiple opportunities for engagement with the agenda:

Sometimes it doesn’t stick the first time!

The most effective leadership to stimulate programme level change came from programme leaders who had previously engaged in staff development activities associated with race equality and BME attainment. Personal action plans could include staff development such as: attending unconscious bias training; reading literature associated with BME attainment gaps; attending university conferences or workshops; considering changes to their own practice through using top tips for BME student success and/or inclusive practice guidance; reading about critical race theory and white privilege (UCA 2018).

3. Target appropriate people:

A whole team approach promotes and embeds change in the culture of a community.

In addition to ensuring attendance by programme leaders, it is important to engage with other members of the teaching team (eg module leaders and year tutors). Ensure teams attend training together and, if possible, encourage students from the programme

to attend. Students from BME backgrounds, if given the opportunity to share their experiences, can provide personal context and aid understanding for staff. Students will also have excellent ideas and suggestions for changes within the programme (UCA 2018).

4. Set expectations for actions and follow up on progress:

Peer/self-review of action plans promotes ownership and builds a culture of action.

Ask for actions to be identified but also embed expectations into quality assurance processes. Annual monitoring reports should include inclusivity-related actions to reduce BME attainment gaps and periodic review and programme validation processes should

include requirements for demonstration of inclusivity as part of programme design. Having a monitoring process, or perhaps peer review of action plans, should ensure that actions are implemented. If not, programme leaders should expect challenge as to why changes have not been put in place (UCA 2018).

5. Remember that change takes time:

Recognise that not everyone will travel with you at the same speed!

Affective-based changes such as mindset changes and attitudinal changes take time. Not only will the programme leader need to recognise their own affective-based change but they will then need to influence others on their programme team (UCA 2018).

STUDENTS AS CHANGE AGENTS

Don’t try and do this on your own, get students involved, empower them to be decision makers, put them in the driving seat. “Students are collaborative partners in pedagogic knowledge acquisition and professional development, with the purpose of bringing about change. Decisions for action tend to be promoted by students and engaged with at subject and/or institutional level” (Healey 2013). If you really want to effect change than this has to be one of the most effective ways of doing it. An approach which will generate results quickly and lead to real change. Or at least, I believe this to be so and the research appears to bear this out.

Engagement needs to be (Healey 2013):

• Strategic level
• Credit / paid
• Embedded
• Student-staff (faculty) team
• Students in all years

Challenges (Marquis et al 2019):

• Churn (students)
• Hierarchy/hegemony (fight the power)
• Access/Inclusion (not just working with the engaged students)
• Language/understanding (jargon-busting)

EVALUATING IMPACT

The Office for Students (2019b) provides guidance on the evaluation and evidencing of impact for widening participation interventions. OfS have developed a self-evaluation tool that aims to initiate conversations about impact that are evidenced against an agreed set of standards.  It aims to enable the targeting of actions effectively and to generate evidence for supporting best practice. So, if the tools already exist for evaluating complex high-level impact why are we not using them? There is a clear need to evaluate as “stronger practice draws on and creates strong evidence” (Office for Students (2019a) and it maybe that the starting point for change is to get a snapshot of where we are. It may also be possible, with a little thought, to develop from this a simplified version that course/programme teams could use for self/peer evaluation? That might assist with the communication need as it would help identify for staff the situation as it is for them and their students at that point in time.

IN CONCLUSION

More research is needed – as ever. But that doesn’t mean we can just carry on talking since actually, the research has already been done, the tools already developed and evaluated.

We need to act!

Ultimately though, beating the attainment gap is good for everyone not just for the BAME students – it’s just good practice!

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barefoot, H., St John, J., Yip, A. (2018). Academic Leadership at the programme level to address the BME attainment gap. University of Hertfordshire.

Dixon-Smith, S. (2017). Co-researching beyond the category: a thematic analysis of a student-led focus group study into BME student experiences at the University for the Creative Arts. UCA.

Marquis, E., Guitman, R., Black, C., Healey, M., Matthews, K.E., Dvorakova, L., (2019). Growing partnership communities: What experiences of an international institute suggest about developing student-staff partnership. In: Higher Education, Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 56:2, 184-194.

Mick Healey (2013). Students as Change Agents. Keynote.

Mountford-Zimdars, A., Moore, J., Sanders, J., Jones, S. (2015). The Causes of Differential Outcomes for HE Students in England. HEFCE

Office for Students (2019a). Access and participation standards of evidence.

Office for Students (2019b). Evaluation Self-Assessment Tool -Practical Guidance on completing the tool.

UCU (2018). Manifesto for BAME attainment at UCA.