AIM OF THE STUDY

This research work seeks to find the causes of dropout from Access to Higher Education courses and the practices that can encourage completion of those courses, especially among the people from deprived areas, while intending to answer the following research questions:

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1. What are the causes of dropout among Access to HE learners?
2. What practices can encourage successful completion on this program?
3. What are the factors that can influence these practices?

RATIONALE FOR THE STUDY

Contribution to professional development

To close the Gap in literature

Access to HE offering second chance

The benefits of HE participation for individuals and the society

Economic growth

Government policy

 LITERATURE REVIEW

FE sector

The FE system is expected to be the powerhouse where skills needed at all levels in sustaining a competitive and advanced economy will be developed; making the society fairer and offering equal opportunities that will not be based on background, but on talent and effort (DfES, 2006). However, as key priorities of inclusion, raising standards and widening participation are addressed by colleges, FE teachers are faced with more challenges and changes (Huddleston and Unwin, 2013). Moreover, learning is to be understood as a cultural practice and does not simply occur in a cultural context; that is, learning culture should not be taken as the environment or context where the learning takes place, but the social practices by which people learn (James and Biesta, 2007).

 Access to HE

Access to Higher Education Diplomas prepare those without traditional qualifications for university study (at degree level), making it possible for people who left school without the required qualification to go back to the university (Access to HE, 2017). They are full level 3 qualifications like A-levels (CAVA, 2017).

Ethnic minorities, women, working-class and disabled people were the targeted social group on the access courses, which was designated as ‘the third route’ into higher education (DES, 1987 as in Reay et al, 2002).  However, students from minority ethnic groups, those having disabilities and those from disadvantaged areas were found to tend not to perform as well as those not having these characteristics and having the same previous educational attainment (HEFCE, 2015). 

Theoretical framework

Giddens’ theory of Structuration and Bourdieu’s theory of Reproduction provide the theoretical framework for this study. Giddens’ theory is used in explaining the duality of structures, in terms of structure and agency, as it pertains to the Access to HE program, while the theory of reproduction helps in getting a good understanding of why students drop out from the access courses in relation to their individual backgrounds. Habitus, which refers to a basic set of principles by which the identity, judgements and actions of an individual across variety spheres of life are structured (Jackson and Hogg, 2010) is used in understanding the complexity of the choices made by these students to either complete their courses or drop out from them.

METHODOLOGY Ethical issues With most universities having ethics committee, whose demands must be complied with, approving all research in which human subjects are involved (Silverman, 2017), in the same way ethics approval was sort from the University of Leicester’s ethics committee before the commencement of this research. Method of data collection Six colleges are being used across three counties in the East of England and interview, which is an interaction between two or more people having a particular purpose in mind (Kumar, 2005) is the main method of data collection. Coordinators and tutors on Access to HE courses (one on a Science related course and one on a Non-Science related course) were given face to face interviews in each college. Students who have dropped out from Access to HE program and students who completed their access to HE courses, but decided not to proceed to HE were given telephone interviews, while focus group interviews were set up with students continuing with their Access to HE courses (two groups with students on Science related courses and two groups with students on Non-Science related courses in each college) in order to have their views. Data analysis Subsequently, data are being analysed as they are collected, using Thematic analysis, with Nvivo used in coding, to answer the research questions.

Contribution to knowledge The findings are expected to close the gap in literature and give a better insight into the way Access to HE program is conducted to benefit the whole society. CONCLUSION This proposal gives a brief summary of the research work, though the work is still on-going.

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