Student Retention
The Retention Team is continually trying to understand how best to improve student outcomes, particularly those from structurally disadvantaged equity groups.
Our work crosses multiple aspects of student life and university systems, and as such our research focus uses different lenses to view the challenges of understanding what helps students succeed.
These include the factors contributing to completely disengaged students, targeted support of disengaged students using learning analytics and non-submission of early assessment items to identify students, and assessment support with embedded tutors.
Research lenses
Our research can be placed in one of three areas.
Disengaged students
Not all students are fully engaged with their studies, and some; dramatically so. They remain enrolled past census date, accumulate a student debt but never submit any assessment items. They fail their subject with a mark of zero; a Zero Fail. We are investigating who these students are, why they exhibit this behaviour and ways to change it.
One key observation has been that students who are completely disengaged from their studies and do not submit any assessment items in their first session (All zero fail grades in the plot below) are very unlikely to find success in their second session.
![Plot showing flow of students with all or some zero fails in their first session. Most withdraw (59%) and in their second session, for those that continue, around 60% get all zero fails and the rest are split between some zero fails, majority fails (with no zero fails), or a majority pass).]](https://cdn.csu.edu.au/__data/assets/image/0006/4065198/Research-Figure-1-Ghost.png)
Performance of students who receive a zero fail in their commencing session of study. Receiving a zero fail in the first semester of study (left) significantly reduces the chances of success in the second semester of study (right). All zero fail is a is a zero-fail grade in all units of study. Some zero fail is at least one zero-fail and some other grades, passing or non-zero fails.
An active area of this research is the role that the intersection of equity groups plays in highly disengaged students.
For more details read Ghostbusters.
Targeted support of disengaged students
The Retention Team works closely with subject coordinators to monitor commencing student engagement pre-census. By monitoring early assessment submission and LMS activity we can accurately identify disengaged students. As shown in the figure below, those students not found to be at risk generally perform well. Of those identified as at risk, students who have successful dialogue (blue) and receive targeted support perform better than those who do not (grey). The grade below FL (a fail with a non-zero mark) is a zero-fail, indicating the student did not submit any assessments.
The challenge still remains how best to intervene with at-risk students, an active component of our current research. For more details read Peering into the crystal ball of the disengaged.
Embedded tutors
The Embedded Tutors Program provides subject-specific one-on-one or small group tutorial support in selected first-year undergraduate subjects. Meeting with a tutor for draft assessment feedback or ‘feedforward’ on assessments which allows students to incorporate suggestions into the assessment prior to submission, significantly increases the mark for that assessment and provides confidence for students to perform better in later assessment items without a tutor. This research aims to explore how we can better support first-year students, particularly those from non-traditional backgrounds.
Selected publications
Teakel, S., Linden, K., & Bradshaw, E. R. (2024). Empowering first-year social work students: improving student success and retention with a discipline-specific tutor to provide feedforward on assessments. Social Work Education, 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1080/02615479.2024.2324917
Van der Ploeg, N., Linden K., & Noelia Roman (2024) Understanding university failure: Zero-fails, COVID-19 and commencing student outcomes at an Australian University, Higher Education Review and Development. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2024.2315041
Gibbs, L., Linden, K., Teakel, S., & Dell, E. (2024). Initiatives supporting student retention in early childhood teacher education qualifications. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, 49(1), 17-31. https://doi.org/10.1177/18369391231220050
Linden, K., Teakel, S., & Clatworthy, D. (2024) Embedded tutors: Enhancing student success and academic integrity with a pedagogy of kindness in first-year university. Journal of Applied Learning and Teaching, 7(Sp. Iss. 1). https://doi.org/10.37074/jalt.2024.7.S1.4
Irwin, P., Magee, D., Weiley, S., Teakel, S., & Linden, K. (2024). Improving student success and retention in first-year nursing through embedded tutor support. Nurse Education Today, 106134. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2024.106134
Teakel, S., Linden, K., Neil van der Ploeg & Noelia Roman (2023) Embedding equity: online tutor support to provide effective feedforward on assessments, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2023.2232955
Linden K., Neil van der Ploeg & Noelia Roman (2023) Explainable learning analytics to identify disengaged students early in semester: an intervention supporting widening participation, Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management. https://doi.org/10.1080/1360080X.2023.2212418
Linden, K. (2022). Improving student retention by providing targeted support to university students who do not submit an early assessment item. A practice report. Student Success, 13(1), 67-73.
https://search.informit.org/doi/abs/10.3316/informit.356405806663167
Linden K., Teakel S., & Van der Ploeg, N. (2022). Improving student success with online embedded tutor support in first-year subjects. “A practice report.” Student Success, 13(2), 42–50.
https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.544300688830856
Linden, K., Van Der Ploeg, N., & Hicks, B. (2021, December). Ghostbusters: Using learning analytics and early assessment design to identify and support ghost students. In Back to the Future–ASCILITE ‘21.
Hicks, B., Linden, K., & Van Der Ploeg, N. (2021, December). Opportunities to improve learning analytics for student support when using online assessment tools. In Back to the Future–ASCILITE ‘21.
Linden, K., Van Der Ploeg, N., Hicks, B., & Locke, K. (2021, December). Increasing student grades in large online subjects: Combining tutorial support with technology. In Back to the Future–ASCILITE ‘21.
Linden, K., van der Ploeg, N., Hicks, B., & Gonzalez, P. (2020). Peering into the crystal ball of the disengaged: What happens to students that do not submit an early assessment item?. In 37th International Conference of Innovation, Practice and Research in the Use of Educational Technologies in Tertiary Education: ASCILITE 2020 (pp. 48-53). ASCILITE.
van der Ploeg, N., Linden, K., Hicks, B., & Gonzalez, P. Widening the net to reduce the debt: Reducing student debt by increasing identification of completely disengaged students. In 37th International Conference of Innovation, Practice and Research in the Use of Educational Technologies in Tertiary Education: ASCILITE 2020
