Abstract
Widening participation initiatives in higher education have grown overall student numbers while also increasing the diversity of student cohorts. Consequently, enhancing student experiences and outcomes has become increasingly challenging. This study implemented personalised emails in two first-year mathematics courses as a scalable strategy for supporting students with diverse needs. Impact on student experience and outcomes was assessed through surveying and statistical comparisons to previous cohorts. It was found that students perceived the personalised emails favourably and believed the intervention would contribute to them achieving better grades. This translated to a statistically significant improvement in both student experience and academic performance in one of the courses. The results imply that personalised emails are well-suited to courses taken in students’ first semesters of university study, aiding those transitioning to the higher education environment by fostering feelings of belonging, supporting effective engagement, and easing navigation of university systems and processes.
Highlights
There has been a strong drive internationally toward improving access to and participation in higher education, given the social and economic benefits of more educated populations (Devlin et al, 2013)
This article focuses on the Australian context, where these agendas have been progressed via significant public policy changes over the last decade, including the cap being lifted on student enrolments (Norton, 2014) and raised widening participation targets (Gale & Parker, 2014)
These factors combined with many Australian universities removing hard prerequisites for entry to STEM programs, has meant a growing proportion of students are attempting STEM degrees without the mathematical grounding demanded in years past (King & Cattlin, 2015)
Summary
There has been a strong drive internationally toward improving access to and participation in higher education, given the social and economic benefits of more educated populations (Devlin et al, 2013). This article focuses on the Australian context, where these agendas have been progressed via significant public policy changes over the last decade, including the cap being lifted on student enrolments (Norton, 2014) and raised widening participation targets (Gale & Parker, 2014) These developments have grown overall student numbers while evolving the backgrounds of those pursuing higher education. Research has shown that students from non-traditional backgrounds tend to have poorer outcomes across progression, retention and completion measures (Edwards & McMillan, 2015; Kahu & Nelson, 2018) This is attributed to non-traditional students experiencing greater challenges integrating into the social and academic spheres of university life (Tinto, 2006). Students from nontraditional backgrounds tend to be over-represented in these attributes, contributing to the significant discrepancy in outcomes (Edwards & McMillan, 2015; Gale & Parker, 2014)
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