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JAPP: Abstracts

Volume 4, Number 1, Winter 2006

Systems or students? Paradoxes in New Labour widening participation policy post 1997
David Thompson

This paper builds upon the author’s experience of managing a four-year widening participation outreach project aimed at bringing level 1 higher education (HE) programmes to community venues for the benefit of non-traditional students. It is founded upon student feedback from this project and subsequent research into retention and progression issues for students from low-participation neighbourhoods. The paper reviews aspects of policy-making regarding access to HE and discusses this in the light of contributions from other authors in the field of widening participation research. The aim of the paper is to ask readers to consider whether the right balance has been struck between policies that are directed towards students’ perceived shortcomings and the need for a fundamental review of institutional systems, and indeed if this latter option is achievable. In doing so, it reveals a series of paradoxes in policy, resulting in the dichotomy between students’ needs and current systems. I argue that ways need to be found that bridge this gap.

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Tackling social exclusion through online learning: a preliminary investigation
Wendy M Knightley

This paper reports adults’ experiences of higher education (HE) using information
and communication technologies (ICT), or online learning (OLL). The study aimed: (i) to investigate the potential of online learning for overcoming barriers to participating in education by the socially disadvantaged; (ii) to identify perceived benefits and drawbacks of this mode of studying; and (iii) to establish how ‘online’ students might be better supported in their learning. Quantitative and qualitative data were obtained through telephone and in-depth face-to-face interviews with adults studying various higher education online distance learning courses with the UK’s Open University (OU). Results indicate that online courses may provide adults with a convenient and flexible opportunity for re-engaging with education. There were several factors that encouraged participation in OLL courses and led to their successful completion, including the variety of multi-media components and the opportunity for electronic interaction and collaborative learning with peers. It is suggested that technological perspectives can provide one route to overcoming barriers to participation in education – and in the community – by the previously disaffected members of our society.

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Effective Learning Service – A developmental model in practice
Kate Figg, Chris Mcallister and Angela Shapiro

This paper explores the perceptions of users and non-users of the Effective Learning Service, a centralised learning support unit in Glasgow Caledonian University. It reviews research and feedback undertaken in the academic year 2004–5 that evaluated usage, user satisfaction, and staff and student perception of the service, to determine levels of success and areas for development. Stakeholders of the service value the provision, especially the flexible delivery. The typical user is female, with a high proportion of mature and access students and a significant proportion of international and dyslexic students. However, some students may not identify their own learning needs or may view support as indicative of failure. High numbers of students from three academic schools use ELS: the Caledonian Business School, Nursing and Midwifery, and Health and Social Care. The ELS experience demonstrates that there is room for centralised and departmental support where learning skills are developed as part of a process of personal, academic and professional development. Further research is needed to develop strategies that support different cohorts of students and to explore why male students tend not to use ELS.

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Making the connections: what can Lifelong Learning Networks learn from credit transfer in British Columbia?
Sue Hatt

Learners with vocational qualifications have fewer progression opportunities and face greater uncertainty than those with A levels. HEFCE has invited HE and FE institutions to work together to build Lifelong Learning Networks (LLNs), enabling learners to transfer their credits between institutions as their educational career develops. Drawing on an Action on Access research study of widening participation in British Columbia (BC), I explore the lessons that emerging LLNs in Britain can learn from Canada. LLNs are more ambitious than the BC system: they are intended to cater for vocational learners, to include diverse institutions and to offer guaranteed progression. In BC, learners progress along academic routes, institutions are more homogeneous, and learners can only access programmes that have spare capacity. The BC experience highlights the importance of trust in partners’ standards so that institutions can be confident that transfer students will not endanger their reputation. Finally, a flexible credit-based transfer system is complex in practice. A student-centred advice and guidance system is central to transfer success. The BC experience indicates that movement between institutions can work, to serve the needs of learners. Against this background, the launch of the LLNs offers great potential for British institutions to work together to open up opportunities for vocational learners, and the emerging networks will progress towards their objectives more quickly and more smoothly if they take note of the lessons from British Columbia.

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What will adult guidance look like in 2016?
Jonathan Brown

This paper is based on a talk given at the Conference of the West Lothian Adult Guidance Network at Livingston in June 2006. The title had been suggested by the organisers as a way of looking at imminent changes in careers guidance services. It draws on a talk given earlier at Stirling in late 2005 and the feedback received there. In preparing this version for printed publication much of the flavour of the spoken original has been retained. The paper approaches the future by considering the position of each of seven participants/ actors in the guidance process. These seven are:

For each actor issues of continuity (called ‘trends’ in the talk) and discontinuity (called ‘jokers’) are considered.
Although the focus of the talk was adult guidance and the specific context was Scottish developments in relation to what was happening in the rest of the UK, the method could well be used to better understand other access issues. It may well be that the conclusion of such a process would be equally uncomfortable.

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