Description
There are many factors which might cause a student to drop out of a course of study; some of these are preventable. This paper describes the piloting of a survey tool designed to identify students at risk of not completing. Attendance was found to be the strongest predictor of module completion; low or declining scores on the survey were also predictive of students dropping out. The research for this paper was undertaken by a novice researcher in the Community of Practice Scholarship Program, which is funded through NCVER's Building Researcher Capacity initiative.Summary
About the research
Building the research capacity of the vocational education and training (VET) sector is a key concern for the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER). To assist with this objective, NCVER supports a community of practice scholarship program, whereby VET practitioners without research experience are given the opportunity to undertake their own research to address a workplace problem. Scholarship recipients are supported by a mentor, and NCVER publishes their research results.
Jeanette Learned participated in the 2009 community of practice. Jeanette is a head teacher at Blue Mountains College, part of the Western Sydney Institute of TAFE. To help teachers identify when intervention strategies to prevent student drop-out are required, Jeanette developed a tool to predict when a student was at risk of leaving a course.
The study involved piloting the survey tool with three classes at a medium-sized vocational education college in an outer suburban area. Attendance rates and final course results were also collected from the college records and matched to the survey data.
Key messages
- Attendance is a key factor in students passing modules.
- The survey tool was useful in predicting whether a student was at risk of leaving. The overall score calculated as a result of all attitudinal variables correlated well with the final module-completion rate, and students with falling overall scores dropped out before the end of the semester.
- Based on comments from some students, the author identified a potential 'Hawthorn effect', whereby the tool had the potential to improve class participation simply by prompting the students to reflect on their own performance.
The finding that it is possible to obtain useful feedback about student progress in the first few weeks of class suggests that teachers are in a good position to influence course completions.
Tom Karmel
Managing Director, NCVER