Retention and progression of vocational and work-based students

Amelia Rout at Staffs etc LLN (their name's too long to type!) has sent me a copy of their interim report from their Retention project. It's work in progress, but they're trying to counter the claims of a 2008 HEPI paper that claimed that vocational students have higher drop-out rates and lower final degree classifications than academic students. Staffs LLN claim to have found that a) this is only true for some types of course - for part-time programmes, for instance, vocational students apparently have LOWER drop-out rates than 'traditional' students; b) in those cases where it is true, it's the typical background profile of vocational entrants (e.g. socio-economic factors) that contributes to their higher withdrawal rates, not necessarily to do with vocational qualifications in themselves. See here although the report isn't downloadable from their website as yet.

Their quantitative data was obtained from HESA (they note that attempts to collect data that would enable identification of vocational/work-based learners and tracking them into HE from their partner HEIs and colleges proved 'unfruitful'!). They also collected qualitative data via telephone interviews and focus group studies.

There's a hard copy of the report in my 'Reports' box file if anyone wants to see it; I also have it electronically. I don't think it's been released externally as yet so it's not for circulation outside this LLN.

Emma

First new model Progression Agreement signed

Paul and I witnessed the first signing of our new model Progression Agreement between Strode's College and Bucks New University on Thursday 8th October. Strode's was represented by Principal Frank Botham and Bucks by Ruth Gunstone, Deputy Dean; the event took place at Strode's Open Evening.
Strode's courses in performing arts, music and media have been aligned to BA(Hons) courses at the University and workshops are already being planned. Courses in art and design are expected to follow soon.
The two institutions clearly have confidence in each other and this has undoubtedly facilitated the signing of the agreement.

Research Skills Learning Materials for land-based students

We now have a copy of the Research Skills Learning Materials DVD that's been produced by Jennie Litten-Brown and Becky Morgan for students in the land-based sector. It has a lot of video clips of different animal behaviours. If anyone wants to look at it it's on my desk - I'm meeting with Becky on Thursday morning so will feed back my own comments plus any others then.

One suggestion I'll be feeding back is that some sort of contents page would be useful as it would be useful to be able to skip to various parts of the DVD. According to the cover it's supposed to also contain a molarity calculations lecture but I can't find this at the moment.

Emma