The University of Essex have experienced a significant reduction in early student withdrawal from their course by taking a broader view of engagement and activating more targeted support.
Richard Stock, Academic Registrar at the University of Essex, explains how, with the help of StREAM, the institution has moved away from attendance as the sole measure of engagement and how this broader view of engagement has allowed them to identify students with very low engagement and focus support on those most at risk of early withdrawal.
Supporting every student from every background to achieve outstanding outcomes is at the heart of the University of Essex’s Strategic Plan, and data is playing an increasingly important part in delivering our ambitions.
A key element of our Education Strategy is the responsible use of data as a tool for the development, wellbeing and success of all our students. Over the last five years, we have worked with StREAM by Kortext to embed a new Learner Engagement Activity Portal (LEAP), which provides a holistic view of student engagement based on attendance at teaching, library use and interactions with our VLE. We have moved away from attendance at teaching as the sole measure of engagement and now take a broader view to enable us to target support and interventions.
How our Learner Engagement Activity Portal works
The LEAP data enables both interventions to support individual students and analysis of institutional trends to support the strategic development of our education offer and to understand the impact of interventions. It also supports students to take control of their learning. LEAP data also forms part of our lead indicators to support meeting our KPIs so we can identify issues early and take action. The data underpins the operation of our new Student Engagement Policy, which provides a framework for monitoring and managing engagement to prevent student withdrawal based on support and mutual decision-making.
The Policy framework consists of three stages of intervention throughout the academic year, guiding our academic departments, schools and student services to target support for students whose engagement is low and to understand and address barriers to engagement. It sets out checkpoints for using LEAP data to identify actions and referrals.
Continued reduction in student withdrawals
Our initial focus has been to use LEAP to manage the risks around student continuation and student withdrawal to meet our commitments to support everyone to fulfil their potential. Through interventions based on LEAP data, since 2018, there has been a continued reduction in the number of students withdrawing by the end of the academic year where they previously averaged very low engagement at week six of the Autumn term. A comparison of the status of the students identified as having very low engagement in week six at the end of the academic year shows a dramatic improvement.
In 2018-19, 88% of these students had withdrawn by the end of the academic year. In 2021-22, this had reduced to approximately 20%.
An ethical use of data policy
Data is extremely powerful, and for Essex, it now plays a vital role in supporting delivery of our mission across education and research. We have explicitly acknowledged and articulated the importance of the responsible use of data. For LEAP, we developed an ethical use of data policy early on, in partnership with the University community, including students, with approval by the University Senate.
Getting even more from the data
Since 2016, we have shifted attitudes from some initial scepticism to hunger for more. The predominant issues raised about LEAP now relate to wanting the tool to do more rather than whether we should be using data in the ways we are. This has been achieved by listening to concerns, reiterating our focus on the benefits to deliver our mission rather than as an end in itself, the ethical use of data and demonstrating and promoting the value and impact.
Essex was one of the first institutions to see the potential of engagement analytics and we remain ambitious. We want to develop LEAP continually so it becomes a tool for transforming the outcomes of all students as well as identifying and supporting those at risk of early withdrawal.
To learn more about how the University of Essex is using StREAM read the case study.
