Student Support Services:
|
VOL. 5, No. 1, 66-70
This paper was originally presented at the "Interaction and Independence" Conference on Student Support in Distance Education and Open Learning in Cambridge, U.K., September, 1989.
This discussion paper is very much in keeping with the "Interaction and Independence" theme of the conference. Our purpose in writing it is to raise questions and provoke an exchange of ideas about whether students in open learning systems should be allowed to choose or whether they should be required to take advantage of certain support services such as pre-admission advising and counselling. We make a strong case for going beyond making services available to students to requiring that they use them.
At Athabasca University, we have worked very hard over the past 12 years to develop a wide variety of services designed to give students the best opportunity for success. Athabasca is a distance teaching university with an open admissions policy serving a population of mainly part-time adult students who are spread out across every province and territory in Canada. The main mode of study is through print-based materials supported by individual telephone tutorials. Students often enter the institution with no recent educational experience and very little idea of the special demands of home study.
In response to the stated and perceived needs of our students, the Student Services department has developed a full complement of information, advising, assessment, and counselling services to which students can refer themselves. Over the years, we have refined, added to, and improved these services based on evaluation and our own and others' research. We know from our evaluations that students perceive the services as useful and helpful to their studies and, in the case of at least one program, we have even been able to show that support services can make a positive difference to completion rates. And yet, to this point in time, we have resisted the notion of making any of our services mandatory. Our open learning model is based on the assumption that self-directed adult learners will take responsibility for their own learning process, including making choices about whether they need information or advice about their studies. This notion has been reinforced by the belief by some (Thompson, 1989) that distance education institutions attract particularly self-motivated independent learners.
However, it is interesting to note that as early as 1979 when Daniel and Marquis wrote the "Interaction and Independence" paper after which this conference is named, they called this belief "short sighted." We would tend to agree with this assessment. The very fact that we have developed so many services to assist students reflects a recognition that they do not always have the resources necessary to ensure their own success.
Our first consideration of a move toward making certain support services compulsory was prompted by usage statistics. Although large numbers of students and prospective students do contact us and use the services which we have developed, our research tells us not only that these students are in the minority (from 10–35%, depending on the particular service), but also that only a minority of students are aware that these services exist (despite vigorous attempts to advertise and inform). In a recent survey (Young, 1988), some students requested the implementation of services which we already offered. As well, there is some concern that the students who do seek out the services may be the ones who need them the least. While we do not have evidence to support the latter suggestion, we are now beginning to think that we have a responsibility to systematically identify students most at risk and ensure that they have a better opportunity for success.
The change of direction from a strong philosophy of self-referral to one of intervention has been reinforced by a number of factors, the major ones being a clear institutional goal of improving completion rates, the recent availability of much better information about our student population, and the challenge of being more effective with fewer resources.
In 1988, in the face of many competing demands and shrinking government funding, a Strategic Academic Plan was developed for Athabasca which sets out major institutional goals. Improving completion rates by 10% by 1993 was one such goal. Student Services was cited as one of the key departments in helping to meet this target. The Strategic Academic Plan placed us in a position of direct accountability, and forced us to look at how we could make the most difference in terms of helping students to succeed. At the same time, the research centre at Athabasca began a study of "predisposing characteristics" of students which might have an effect on their success. Three hundred newly admitted students were interviewed, before beginning their first AU course, for the identification of characteristics such as educational preparation, socio-economic and demographic status, and motivational and perseverance attributes. These students were tracked for completion status on their first Athabasca course. Subsequent multivariate analyses revealed that probable student completion or non-completion could be predicted with about 70% accuracy, and that students fell into three distinct groups: those most likely to succeed, those most likely to fail, and those who fell in between these groups and who were referred to as being "at risk." Having this predictive capability is an exciting breakthrough in terms of development of support services, but with it comes a major responsibility to identify factors associated with success and risk, to use controlled experiments to test the effectiveness of services designed to help students become more successful, and to target services to specific groups at risk.
Student Services was faced with the question of how to balance our value of the adult learners' need for independence and freedom to choose against what we now know about their probability for success given no intervention. While we strongly believe that adult learners should be able to maintain their independence, we have learned that it is wrong to assume that they have the information they need to make sound decisions about their education or that they have the skills or background knowledge they need to meet their educational goals. Our department has decided, therefore, to develop a very directive pre- admission and pre-registration service, and to initiate controlled experiments to test the effectiveness of counselling interventions such as study skills training for "at risk" students. These steps are being considered a precursor to compulsory participation in at least some of the services offered.
New materials outlining the admission and registration processes will guide all prospective students through a series of specific steps designed to enable new students to determine more effectively whether they have chosen the appropriate institution and program, whether they have the requisite academic skills, and whether they can meet the special motivational and time demands of home study.
At the same time, Student Services is designing controlled experiments to evaluate the effects of specific interventions with "at risk" students. One such study will apply study skills interventions to groups of students at each of the three identified risk levels and to matched control groups. A number of criteria will then be used to evaluate the outcomes. While students will be invited to take advantage of these services during the experimental phase, our plan is eventually to make certain services mandatory if they are shown to be effective.
We believe very strongly now that we must move in the direction of an interventionist model of support services. We think having an open admissions policy brings with it a certain responsibility to provide "safety nets" in the form of information, advising and counselling services designed to help students become successful independent learners who can assess their own educational needs and meet the goals they set for themselves.
There are a range of issues to be faced when contemplating an interventionist action by a support service department within an open learning institution, not the least of which is to ensure that this change in direction is systematically evaluated for effectiveness in meeting stated goals. We plan to evaluate our change in direction in at least four ways:
Other issues and questions are still to be faced, and we present you with these for discussion:
Daniel, J. S., & Marquis, C. (1979). Interaction and independence: Getting the mixture right, Teaching at a Distance, 14, 29.
Thompson, G. (1989). Provision of student support in distance education: Do we know what they need? In R. Sweet (Ed.), Post-secondary distance education in Canada: Policies, Practices and priorities (pp. 43–50). Athabasca: Joint publication of Athabasca University and Canadian Society for Studies in Education.
Young, A. (1988). Northern regional office service evaluation. Athabasca University: Unpublished report.