Welcome enhancements: responding to feedback to deliver enhancements with impact.

Massie, Daniel

Abstract

This paper will cover RGU's institutional welcome, with a focus on the delivery of the Semester 1 2021 welcome offer, the evaluation of this project, and the actions taken as a result to make enhancements for the delivery of Semester 2's 2022 welcome. RGU (and the Welcome Group) is committed to making positive enhancements to the welcome experience to ensure a supportive and impactful experience for students. There is a consensus around the need to support students through the transition(s) to higher education (Gregersen et al., 2021). Current research discusses the need to get student transitions "right" (UPP Foundation Student Futures Commission, 2021) in the context of disruptions caused by COVID-19; it further outlines distinct ways in which we can conceptualise the student transition (Gale and Parker, 2014). In the context of post-pandemic activity and gaps in students' knowledge and experience, it is more essential now than ever to support students safely, positively and effectively with the transition to and through higher education – a key element of any HEI's welcome offer. RGU's longitudinal welcome offer is guided by 6 key principles that aid in this transitional support: Social Integration; Orientation; Information; Confidence; Motivation; and Inclusion. These principles guide the offer, alongside the ambition to provide students with the correct information at the time they most require it. The paper will discuss RGU's welcome survey, which was commissioned for Session 2021/22 in order to seek early feedback on students' experiences of welcome, induction and transition, so as to inform Welcome Group-led enhancement actions. The paper will detail the format and scope of this survey and go on the discuss key results in detail, articulating the impact on the student experience. It will then go on to outline key messages from the Semester 2 evaluation alongside recent comparison and disaggregation analysis we have conducted. The paper will demonstrate the continuous cycle of improvement under which the Welcome Group operates. This cycle goes some way towards achieving the integrated, coordinated and coherent First Year Experience (FYE) that research has flagged as a gap across institutions (Kift et al., 2010). The paper will do this by providing: 1) Clear examples of activities that we delivered; 2) How we carried out the survey and the feedback we received; 3) How we evaluated this feedback and data to create specific enhancements; 4) How these enhancements were implemented; 5) How these enhancements were themselves evaluated, with a view towards further planning for impact – a process of enhancements and evaluations that aligns with our aim of supporting the student experience and student transition.

Citation

MASSIE, D. 2022. Welcome enhancements: responding to feedback to deliver enhancements with impact. Presented at the 2022 RGU annual learning and teaching conference (RGU LTC 2022): enhancing for impact, 21 October 2022, Aberdeen, UK.

• Presentation Conference Type: Lecture
• Conference Name: 2022 RGU annual learning and teaching conference (RGU LTC 2022): enhancing for impact
• Conference Location: Aberdeen, UK
• Start Date: Oct 21, 2022
• Deposit Date: Mar 3, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 3, 2023
• Keywords: Undergraduate students; Transitions into higher education; Enrolment
• Public URL: https://rgu-repository.worktribe.com/output/1898861
• Related Public URLs: https://rgu-repository.worktribe.com/output/1839941 (Full Proceedings)