Burgess Adrian P, Horton Matthew S, Moores Elisabeth
College of Health and Life Sciences, Aston University, Birmingham, UK.
Aimhigher West Midlands, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK.
Heliyon. 2021 Jul 8;7(7):e07518. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e07518. eCollection 2021 Jul.
Despite substantial financial commitment to widening participation activities internationally, robust evidence demonstrating 'what works' in facilitating disadvantaged learners to access Higher Education (HE) is remarkably sparse. Much effort has been directed at measuring immediate post-intervention changes in the aspirations, attitudes and behaviours thought to drive access to HE, rather than actual access itself. Here, we present an innovative quasi-experimental study of a multi-intervention outreach programme (UniConnect) consisting of 1,386 learners from the Aimhigher West Midlands database whose HE application results were known, while controlling for multiple variables, including estimates of deprivation. The results showed that any engagement with UniConnect, no matter how limited, was associated with an improved chance of achieving a place in HE, but the type of engagement, the extent of engagement and the combination of types of engagement all mattered. The more learners engaged with UniConnect, the greater were their chances of HE acceptance, but the benefit of each additional engagement beyond five or six engagements was small. To our knowledge, these findings are the first to indicate the number, type and combinations of interventions that are most effective in supporting progression to HE. These results therefore have important implications for future practice, enabling funding for such work to be used for optimal impact. Furthermore, we found large differences in success between schools, even when controlling for several other variables; a finding which has important implications for future evaluation research.
尽管在国际上为扩大参与度的活动投入了大量资金，但能有力证明在帮助弱势学习者进入高等教育（HE）方面“什么有效”的证据却极为稀少。许多努力都集中在衡量干预后短期内那些被认为推动进入高等教育的志向、态度和行为的变化，而非实际进入高等教育本身。在此，我们展示了一项针对多干预外展项目（UniConnect）的创新性准实验研究，该项目由来自西米德兰兹郡Aimhigher数据库的1386名学习者组成，他们的高等教育申请结果已知，同时控制了多个变量，包括贫困估计数。结果表明，与UniConnect的任何接触，无论多么有限，都与获得高等教育入学资格的机会增加相关，但接触的类型、接触的程度以及接触类型的组合都很重要。学习者与UniConnect接触越多，他们被高等教育录取的机会就越大，但超过五六次接触后，每次额外接触的益处就很小。据我们所知，这些发现首次表明了在支持进入高等教育方面最有效的干预措施的数量、类型和组合。因此，这些结果对未来的实践具有重要意义，能使此类工作的资金用于实现最佳影响。此外，我们发现即使控制了其他几个变量，学校之间的成功率仍存在很大差异；这一发现对未来的评估研究具有重要意义。
