Linking research to support practices to improve first- year transition and experience: the importance of evaluating our support initiatives
(2025) European First-Year Experience Conference — Location: Leuven, Belgium (26.May.2025)
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Pre-Workshop - EFYE - Frenay 2025.pdf
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- Abstract
- 1. Background With over 30 years’ experience in implementing support programmes and initiatives, we can already draw a few observations. In terms of support programmes and activities to facilitate the success, perseverance and transition of first-year students, some of these activities and initiatives are repeated year after year, while others are introduced in response to new student needs. More often than not, however, this is done without taking into account the issues and objectives behind the activities, or even without providing clear information on the objectives of the proposed activities from the outset, or without taking into account students’ needs or encouraging them to express them. The choice of delivering support courses or activities, their sustainability or perpetuation, and their design are often based on the intuition of those involved in support, or on the latest trends. For example, summer courses have been organised before the start of the academic year for over 30 years at UCLouvain for students completing their secondary education and wishing to start a university programme. While students’ expectations may have varied to a greater or lesser extent, the objectives and activities offered, have remained more or less the same, without these choices having always been backed up by data from their implementation or from the stakeholders involved. However, we are seeing the evolution of the nature of support activities and initiatives, which address dimensions that were little present a few years ago: from support activities offered alongside study courses to support activities integrated into the curriculum and first-year credits; from general study strategies courses to activities that integrate study strategies with disciplinary content; from classic test anxiety regulation to a programme of emotion regulation. In terms of research, the last decades of research have seen a shift from the study of dropping out and failure to that of perseverance and success, from explanations based on isolated factors to integrated models. More specifically, success-supporting activities have gradually come to be understood in terms of their contribution to the student experience, so that they should be described and evaluated. There has been also evolution on the effects measured and the methods: mixed research, quantitative and qualitative, to triangulate the sources of data. Example: The first research carried out on UCLouvain’s summer courses in the 1990s focused mainly on their effectiveness in terms of success, without first addressing the specific objectives of this preparatory programme for the start of the academic year. However, in the research we have carried out over the last two years, we have been primarily interested in the contribution of these courses to the social and academic integration of students, the preparation of study strategies and the way in which students cope with the critical requirements or challenges facing any student making the transition to university (personal, content-related, organisational or social). Therefore, we hope to get a broader perspective of the first-year students’ university experience they face when transitioning from the start of the academic year to the first six months. As support professionals, we want to be able to prepare the first-year students as well as possible for the transition to university studies, but also for their future. So, shouldn’t we be questioning and documenting our practices? How can the data collected from students and support staff inform our decision, about the relevance of our activities and programmes? 2. Workshop Overview We propose the three following parts for the workshop. 2.1. Discussion and exchanges to describe and question the kind of support activities and practices, the participants are familiar with: • Do we support the students for their transition to university? • Do we target all students? Specific target groups? • On what do we support them? To do what? • How do you choose and plan your activities? Based on what data or sources? • Do we reach what we expect? 2.2. Discussion from selected samples of research results (interviews, focus groups, and survey) with first-year students, and what does it tell us about the expectations and needs of students? We will share some data we collected with first-year students: a survey done before the start of the academic year (from summer courses), extracts from focus groups following 3 groups of students, from August to February (first sixth months) and individual figures drawn by some of the students, sketching the evolution of their motivation during these first 6 months. We will then contrast the quantitative data from 2024 to some data collected in 1990, also with students attending summer courses prior to their academic year. 2.3. Discussion on the relevance to document and assess our support activities. What do we need to describe our support activities? How to document our practices and its effects? Why do we need to link research and support practices: to adapt, to adjust, to advocate for their relevance or to empower the different stakeholders? Both students, support staff (student counsellors, educational developers, teaching staff)? We will share a description tool, developed for and by support staff and researchers at UCLouvain and discuss its relevance and adaptation for the participants’ experience for the advocacy of our support practices. 3. Main Message : A take-home message is that, if ones propose first-year support activities or initiatives, it is of the main importance of integrating research both to choose, plan, deliver and assess our initiatives and the relevance of the chosen approaches, in an evolving environment and student population. Therefore, it is important to share materials that help to empower support actors (student counsellors, educational developers and teaching staff) and first-year students. It also helps to anticipate the future and the needs of the students.
- Affiliations
Citations
Frenay, M. (2025). Linking research to support practices to improve first- year transition and experience: the importance of evaluating our support initiatives. European First-Year Experience Conference, Leuven, Belgium. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/279223