Higher Education Research Snippets – November 2012 – Snippet 2
Can universities reduce disappointment, and improve retention, among 1st year students?

The 2012/13 batch of fresh-faced first year students are now just over a month into university life. Many will already be reflecting on how their early university experience compares to the expectations they had prior to attending the institution. With students now looking for even more from their institution in the era of £9,000 fees, the issue of ‘keeping students happy’ has never been more pertinent for universities (especially given the cost of students dropping out will typically be around £20k-30k). With this in mind, we wanted to use our latest Research Snippet to assess the extent to which students feel their early university experience has matched their expectations, and what universities can do to mitigate disappointment.

Our annual Higher Expectations survey contains several questions relating to initial student satisfaction. We start the fieldwork for the 2012/13 round in just over a week, but in this Snippet we will look at data from the past five years (almost 60,000 interviews with new first year students).

Which student groups are most likely to be disappointed?

In general, most students’ experience exceeds or at least matches expectations. Only a small proportion are disappointed, with just over one in eight not having expectations met (14%). However, this varies considerably between individual institutions, ranging from only 5% at one institution to as high as 33% at another.

Levels of disappointment tend to be higher amongst certain student groups. For instance, students from lower socio-economic groups and with fewer UCAS points are more likely to be disappointed in their early university experience. Clearing students – who, admittedly, are more likely to come from lower socio-economic groups and have fewer UCAS points – are significantly more likely than students in general to have had an experience which didn’t meet their expectations (as shown below).

University experience compared to expectations
	All students %	Clearing students %
Doesn’t meet expectations	14	18
Exceeds expectations	38	35

Do any early interventions alleviate disappointment?

Open days have some role to play in forming expectations amongst prospective students. As shown in Figure 2, students who don’t attend an open day at their current institution are significantly more likely to have had an experience which didn’t meet expectations. And perhaps of particular note to universities who attract large numbers of Clearing students, open days are particularly effective in reducing disappointment amongst those students who go through the Clearing process.

University experience compared to expectations
	Didn’t attend open day %	Did attend open day %
Clearing students whose expectations haven’t met	20	15
All students whose expectations haven’t been met	16	13

Induction activities also play a part in ensuring expectations are met or exceeded amongst new students. Figure 3 demonstrates that the more induction activities participated in, the less likely expectations are to have not been met. Similarly, induction activities have a particularly positive impact amongst students who have gone through Clearing.

Conclusions

Most students are positive about their early university experience. However, there remains a significant body of the student population (and certain student groups in particular) who feel their university experience hasn’t met their expectations. These students will become more important as institutions focus more on retention. Students who are most engaged with their institution, through attending open days and undertaking induction activities, are least likely to feel disappointed in their early university experience. Of course, open day attendance and induction participation is ultimately up to the individual student, but ensuring these measures are fun, widely available and well publicised should help reduce student disappointment.

Higher Expectations is a set of reports on the student verdict on recruitment, marketing, admissions and fees – all set in the competitive context to provide full benchmarking, key performance indicators, and access to the entire results database for subscribers. Fieldwork for Higher Expectations 2012/13 will take place this November with reports coming out from April 2013.

John Newton, (Senior Project Manager, Higher Education)
john@youthsight.com
020 7288 8789