The Retention Plan
The Retention Plan was approved by Academic Services Committee on 11 June 2008 and Academic Board on 27 June 2008. The approved plan is accessible via download as a:
- Word Document (770kb)
- PDF (430kb)
The highest priority areas for intervention are:
- Development of interventions directed at students placed on Conditional status
- Review of processes associated with course switching within Curtin with the objective of reducing impediments to students seeking to change course
- Development of processes which identify and support at-risk students as early as possible
- Further development of student mentor programs for students, with a focus on enrolling areas with lower than average retention rates
- Development of the links between University courses and future career pathways
- Increase on-campus student accommodation
In support of these major goals, the Retention Plan identifies a substantial number of specific programs.
The Office of Strategy and Planning has an information portal at http://planning.curtin.edu.au/reportal.cfm. Staff may use this site to access current retention statistics.
Overview of Retention Plan Development
Development of the University’s Retention Plan has been a four stage process, guided by a Steering Group. Input from interested staff and students is welcomed at any time, and should be submitted to Dr Jim Elliott (Student Retention Manager).
Stage One: Development of Draft Retention Plan and Key Implementation Goals
Task One: Overview Curtin Retention data in context of wider theoretical understanding of student retention
- What characteristics are shown in our retention data?
- What do these data suggest for key target areas for retention planning?
Task Two: Review of the resources and programs that Curtin already has in place to address retention
Task Three: Identification of critical gaps in retention resources and programs
Task Four: Refinement of the Draft Retention Plan - with especial attention to outcome statements
Task Five: Identification of key goals for implementation 2008-2010
- Tasks
- Timelines
- Responsibilities
- Budget/Resourcing
- Evaluation (KPIs)
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Stage Two: Draft retention strategies
Staff members were invited to submit comments on the retention strategies generated by the Steering Committee.
Generating Possible Intervention Strategies
The Retention Plan Steering Group suggested a substantial number of possible ways of intervening to improve student retention. These strategies were then ranked by the group on the criteria of:
Potential Impact
"Potential Impact" is a broad judgment which fundamentally refers to whether the proposed retention strategy would make a significant difference to retention. This will generally mean a quantitative difference to retention statistics, but there may also be qualitative arguments in favour of particular interventions that do not necessarily affect large numbers of students
Difficulty in Implementation
"Difficulty in Implementation" fundamentally refers to the complexity of the strategy/intervention and the level of resourcing required.
Urgency
Urgency obviously reflects how soon you believe we should make a start on implementing the proposed retention strategy.
The items listed below those which ranked highest in this process. These items scored highly on at least two of the three criteria. Some similar items have been clustered together.
| Potential Retention Intervention Strategies | Comments |
|---|---|
| Our Relationship with Future and current students: Ensuring information for prospective students is accurate and timely – and matches subsequent experiences of the university. Building a stronger working relationship between Prospective Students Service, First Year Transition, Careers Service and Alumni Treatment of students with respect by staff – with consideration for the possible availability of “customer service” training for staff Address students’ perceived lack of flexibility of the University on particular admin issues (e.g. fee payment schedules) → setting a new framework of flexible decision-making for individual student’s circumstances |
There has been concern expressed that recruitment materials should reflect what is actually delivered. The first item in this section refers to ensuring both
1. the appropriateness of recruitment materials and processes and 2. the quality of the student experience both in teaching/learning and in the wider sense of an over all Curtin student experience. The intent of the second item is to help build a seamless movement through the roles of future student, beginning student, current student, completing student, graduate, and alumni.The final two items derived from discussions about building respectful working relationships between students and staff. It was observed that respectful behaviour is not expensive, but lack of respectful behaviour is. |
| The Transition period: Continued embedding of O Week and subsequent transition programs within academic areas Delivery of O Week program to late arriving students (including as much on-line as is feasible). Introduction of “University 101” style units more widely. OR introduction of some of the content of such “surviving and thriving at uni” units within current 1st year units Further use of mentoring programs (senior student: new student): largely school-based but possibly including specific issue mentoring groups Inclusion of retention and transition as a required item within school plans – with particular emphasis in areas with high attrition rates |
The Orientation Best Practice Checklist is a beginning on developing a Quality Assurance process across the whole of Curtin. On-line delivery of O Week to late arriving students is feasible. However, we wish to encourage as many students as possible to attend O Week in person. On line delivery should not give a message that O Week attendance is optional or unnecessary. Mentoring programs are already under development for 2008. Information for students on the planned programs is available at the New-to-Curtin web page. It is proposed to expand these programs to additional schools in 2009. Guidelines for staff on developing mentor programs exist. The extent to which schools address retention as a specific item in their plans is not known. It is suspected that it is variable. (The available Faculty Plans barely mention the issue). Focus on retention at school level is likely to lead to more tailored and targeted interventions. |
| Connecting to sources of help: Raising student awareness of the range and availability of support services Raising staff awareness of the range and availability of support services Interventions directed at assisting students on Conditional status – especially development of written agreements/plans aimed at returning to Good Standing Interventions directed at identifying and supporting at-risk students as early as possible Developing appropriate interventions at the point when a student is withdrawing (e.g. exit interviewing, signature from course controller, on-line information pop-up providing support service information, etc) For CREs - Developing effective ways of delivering support services |
There are some indicative data that the students we lose do not make the best use of support services. For example, Counselling Service information sessions for students on Terminated status showed that approximately 80% of these students had not accessed any support services. We may therefore need to consider processes that are somewhat more proactive in linking students to sources of support. The trial of an on-line referral system in Humanities has had satisfactory results so far. The introduction of an active intervention process in CBS in second semester 2007 with students on Conditional status is also showing promising results. There plans in progress to intervene more actively with this target group in 2008. There are a number of potential interventions at the point when a student is withdrawing from enrolment. Most would be directed at assisting the student to return to study in future rather than seeking to prevent the withdrawal at that time. Ways of delivering support services to regional campuses are currently under investigation. |
| Financial and practical support: Improve publicity of Commonwealth Learning Scholarships Reviewing/revising availability and accessibility of financial support services More scholarships and/or other financial support available to 1st year students (current perception is that many require completion of 1st year for eligibility) Extending availability and awareness of student loans Increasing on-campus student accommodation |
Issues to do with student financial support have been under review in 2007. Most of the items on this list are likely to be implemented in 2008. Developing further student accommodation is also under active consideration. This item was seen as high impact and high priority, but likely to take some time to come to fruition. |
| English language issues: Development of English language support programs – such as English language bridging and/or remedial units at low or no cost Early English language diagnostic testing → remedial support |
Issues to do with English language competency are being discussed in a wider context than the Retention Plan and are presented in summary here. |
| Indigenous students: Tracking and supporting CAS students who move on to undergraduate programs within Curtin Preparatory skills programs directed at block release CAS students |
Devising ways of supporting CAS students who move into undergraduate programs is a matter currently under consideration by CAS. A mentor program is under development in CAS to assist both Block Release and Bridging students. |
| Learning Support: Introduce Peer Assisted Study Support (PASS) programmes where appropriate Increased delivery of in-house discipline specific learning support Further development of The Learning Centre initiatives such as the “Study Smart Saturday” Further targeting of Student Learning Support "Pathfinder" program to mature-aged students |
The Pass program at the University of Wollongong provides a model that might be applied to Curtin. |
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Stage Three: Revision of draft plan on the basis of feedback received.
A draft Retention Plan was developed. Comments on the draft plan were invited from interested members of the Curtin community.
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Stage Four: Adoption of the Retention Plan
The plan was formally adopted in June 2008. Implementation of the various retention strategies will take place over 2008-2010.
Composition of the Steering Group
| Staff | |
|---|---|
| University Support Services Director - Ms Michelle Rogers |
Retention Project Staff - Dr Jim Elliott (Student Retention Manager and chairperson) Ms Amy Dawson (First Experience/Transition Coordinator) |
| Faculty Deans T & L - Shelley Yeo Annette Seeman Ms Sue Jones A/Prof. Doug Yorke |
Ms Jennie Walsh Associate Director Student Relations |
| LSN and CRE representation - Ms Sonia Ferns |
Student Services representation - Mr John Rowe |
| International Office - Ms Karen Shanks |
Guild President |
| The Learning Centre - David Packer |
Student Assist - Mr Simon Roy |
| Michelle Webb - Coordinator, Indigenous Enabling Programs Centre for Aboriginal Studies |
|
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Overview of Curtin's Retention Data (as of 4 July 2007)
There has been a review of available Curtin retention data. A summary of these data indicates:
- Overall retention rate is little different between Domestic and International students - but the attrition occurs in different areas.
- Domestic students: at a Faculty level, the highest levels of attrition appear in Humanities, Science and Engineering and CAS. It is also a significant issue in particular schools.
- International students: Somewhat higher levels of attrition appears in Humanities and Science and Engineering. It is also a significant issue in particular schools.
- Internal versus external enrolment: External students generally have higher attrition. The disparity appears worst in Humanities and CBS.
- Gender: It is observed that where there is a large disparity between male and female enrolments, the minority group appears at greater risk of attrition. Women in Science and Engineering appear a little more at risk. Men in Social Science are slightly more at risk. Otherwise, there appear to be few obvious marked gender differences.
- Age: With some notable exceptions, older students are very clearly more at risk than younger students. This applies across all Faculties, all campuses and nearly all courses. This is the clearest variable in the retention stats. Exceptions include Social Work, CCS and Art - but these exceptions have not been consistent over 2004-06
- Commencing students versus continuing students: There is significant attrition amongst students from 2nd year onwards - demonstrating that retention is not simply a 1st year issue. Nonetheless, the 1st year is still probably the biggest single source of loss. Note: the data are highly variable across courses - which may be an indicator of frequency of course switching rather than attrition from the University.
- Entry via standard TER versus non standard TER: Non standard TER students appear at greater risk. The biggest disparity between the two entry modes is in Science and Engineering and Humanities. At school level, the difference in retention varies from year to year - but usually in favour of the standard TER. Interpretation of this variable is complicated by the inclusion of International students in the data. That is, a non standard TER can mean a large variety of different entry qualifications compounded by other variables.
- RPL>100: This does not seem to be an issue in itself. There has been concern that students admitted with significant RPL may miss Orientation and other transition support and not necessarily cope with academic content. This appears not to be so from attrition data. However, anecdotal evidence seems to support an opposite conclusion.
- Rural home address versus metro home address: This does not seem to be an issue in these data. The commonly held view that rural students may be at greater risk is not shown.
- ATSI students not enrolled in CAS: These students are small in number. Their attrition rates are higher than other non-CAS students - but are better than CAS students.
What do these data suggest?
- There is no single retention issue, and therefore no single intervention that will "fix" things.
- The nature of the University student population is an issue. By having substantial numbers of mature-aged students, we therefore have a larger number of at risk students. However, changing our retention data by recruiting a different kind of student population is very unlikely to be an effective strategy, unless implemented over a very long period. In the end, retention interventions have to work with the student population that we actually have.
- Targeted interventions may make a difference in particular areas:
- Humanities at a Faculty level
- Some specific courses
- Students enrolled externally
- Older students
- Because of the fragmented nature of other retention/attrition data, we should look at:
- Generalised interventions that benefit all students
- Specific student retention initiatives at enrolling area level
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