Mature students in Higher Education

In a previous study it has been suggested that there are six stages that adults move through before they feel ready to participate in higher education, and proposed a chain-of-response (COR) model to describe the process. In this study we examine the reported experiences of nine adult entrants during the second year of a work-related degree course. The analysis of the previous studies accounts of the process indicated that a sequential model of the type introduced did not adequately describe the process of induction experienced. Here ‘induction’ is taken to mean something more than the short institutional induction process organised by the university. What participants in this study described was a gradual transformation that occurs in each individual until they are ready to accept the identity of ‘student’ – a transformation that not all achieved, even those who appeared to be meeting all course requirements. On the basis of this analysis we propose a threshold-of-induction (TOI) model, based on the COR model. We argue that, while our data confirm the importance of the elements captured in the COR model, a threshold model represents the journey through induction experienced by these adult learners more authentically.

The UK student profile is becoming ever-more diverse (HESA, 2012), with the range of capabilities, expectations and attitudes of those students likely following suit. Figures indicate (NSS, 2012) that students continue to be comparatively dissatisfied with feedback provision and that differences in experience exist between diverse student groups. Delivery of feedback via recorded audio file has been found to mitigate a number of commonly-reported issues and elicits a positive reaction from students (Merry & Orsmond, 2008). This project evaluates two groups of students’ (part-time, mature learners and ‘traditional’ undergraduates) overall response to audio feedback, revealing support for the technique, particularly amongst traditional undergraduates and those with learning disabilities. It also finds that for a proportion of mature learners the receipt of audio feedback had a strong emotional impact.

This book examines the university experiences of first-in-family university students, and how these students’ decisions to return to education impact upon their family members and significant others. While it is well known that parental educational background has a substantial impact on the educational levels of family and dependents, it is unclear how attending university as a first-in-family student translates into the family and community of the learner. With the continuing requirements for higher education institutions to increase the participation of students from a range of diverse backgrounds and educational biographies, this is a major gap in understanding that needs to be addressed.
Exploring how this university participation is understood at an individual, familial and community level, this book provides valuable insights into how best to support different student requirements. This book will be of great interest to students and researchers in the fields of education and sociology, as well as policy-makers in education and diversity initiatives.

http://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9781137582836#aboutBook
DOI: 10.1057/978-1-137-58284-3

"Non-traditional, mature students face a number of complex psychological and structural barriers to higher education and their journeys are often characterised by initial aspirations and later disappointments, when classed, gendered and relational positionings conflict with students’ identities and contribute to their withdrawal from academia (Mannay 2012; Mannay and Morgan 2013; Reay et al 2010). As academics it is not enough to chart these difficulties; rather we need to seek opportunities to create a more inclusive environment so that we do not simply widen access at the point of entry but ensure that non-traditional students complete their undergraduate study.

In response to this challenge, the research project explored the student experience by asking non-traditional students to engage with innovative and reflexive process of sandboxing. This approach was developed drawing on sandplay therapy in which patients create three-dimensional scenes, pictures or abstract designs in a tray filled with sand and a range of miniature, realistic and fantasy, figures and everyday objects (Weinrib 2004). Although there have been objections to taking psychoanalysis outside of the clinical situation of the ‘consulting room’ (Frosh 2010), the method proved useful in engaging participants at an affective level and the data production drew upon psychoanalytical sensibility; which was psychoanalytically informed rather than psychoanalytical.

For one group of participants, the scenes created represented the experience of their first year as an undergraduate; and for the other group, who had enrolled for the following academic year, their scenes focused on their expectations, hopes and fears around embarking a trajectory in higher education.  Data production was facilitated on a one-to-one basis and participants were asked to talk through their visual sandbox scenes with the researcher. The elicitation process was characterised by a largely uninterrupted flow of talk with an attentive listener whose role it was to try and understand what is being said, so that the psychoanalytical paradigm became relevant and practical in the context of qualitative educational research.

This presentation will discuss the usefulness of the sandboxing technique as a tool of qualitative research as well a reflecting on the associated difficulties with the method.  There will also be a focus of the themes that arose from the data production process and these will be explored in relation to the ways in which institutions can work meet the needs of non-traditional students. In this way the research draws on the affective accounts of participants to influence policy and best practice; aiming to improve student experience for marginalised cohorts and to engender retention and success.


References
Frosh, S. 2010. Psychoanalysis outside the clinic: interventions in psychosocial studies. Basingstoke: Macmillan
Mannay, D. 2013. ‘Keeping close and spoiling’: exploring discourses of social reproduction and the impossibility of negotiating change and maintaining continuity in urban south Wales. Gender and Education, 25 (1), pp. 91-107.
Mannay, D. and Morgan, M 2013. Anatomies of inequality: Considering the emotional cost of aiming higher for marginalised, mature, mothers re-entering education. Journal of Adult and Continuing Education. 19 (1), pp. 57-75.
Reay, D. Crozier, G. and Clayton, J. 2010. "Fitting in" or "standing out': working-class students in UK higher education. British Educational Research Journal 32(1), pp. 1-19.
Weinrib, E. L.  2004. Images of the self: the sandplay therapy process. Temenos: Cloverdale, CA.
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This book, by Cathy Stone and Sarah O'Shea, is written for educators and educational policy makers, students, prospective students, their families and their friends. It is the result of the combination of two separate pieces of research by the authors, conducted with a total of 37 students, each of whom was interviewed during 2006 about their experiences of being at university. From these 37 individual stories, seven have been chosen for this book as illustrations of the experiences of mature-age female students in higher education.

As readers will discover, each of these women has a unique story to tell, yet despite the differences in their situations, common themes emerge. The challenges and triumphs that are part of the lives of so many mature-age women in higher education are represented within the stories of these seven. 

Above all, what emerges from these stories is a message about the transformative powers of education and the inherent value in facilitating, encouraging and supporting mature-age women to participate in education,
discover their academic potential and achieve their goals.