Contribution
Description: This study is located within a context of widening participation in higher education in the U.K. which has resulted in an increase in part-time and flexible study options. The paper aims to examine the perceived expectations of two groups of part-time students regarding study support, and to contrast this to their perceived experience of this support. The research is in response to a recognition that part-time students, in the H.E. institutions under study, are not accessing available study support; in particular, to engage with those students who are failing to access, seem unwilling to access, or are unable to access the assistance that is declared to be available, in institutional teaching and learning policies. The purpose of this study is to ascertain variation in perceptions of study support, in order to more clearly and precisely identify the learning support needs of the target student group.
Methodology: Student perceptions of study support will be analysed using a phenomenographic approach (Marton and Booth 1997). Forty students from a variety of part-time study disciplines, across two Higher Education Institutions, will be interviewed about their expectations, and experiences, of study support. The unit of analysis will be the students' conceptions of study support in each institution, and thus the focus will be on qualitative variations in the ways in which the students conceptualise, and experience, study support.
The different meanings that students assign to study support will be used to form categories of description. The aim is to offer a hierarchy of empirically grounded and logically consistent categories of description of the ways in which students experience study support (termed the 'outcome space') The outcome space for each institution can be compared to ascertain both areas of commonality, and of variability, in order to establish internal institutional recommendations, and to extrapolate from this analysis those recommendations that might be generalisable across institutions.
Conclusions: By examining the outcome space that is experienced in this situation, a number of recommendations and suggestions can be proposed regarding the nature of good practice with respect to models of study support for students studying part-time.
Similarly, it is anticipated that this study will examine how the tensions and conflicts that arise through a lack of shared meanings and aspirations can serve as an indicator of the need for a common understanding of the range of student profiles in higher education.
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