Student engagement and retention

Communication centers exist primarily as a complementary student service (Strawser, Apostel, Carpenter, Cuny, Dvorak, & Head, 2019). As an integral campus student services, centers must place an overarching emphasis on student engagement. Student engagement, according to NSSE, is the time and effort students put into their educational activities and the institutional deployment of educational resources. Communication centers, to continue to prove their value to institutions, must continue to build programming and initiatives that are worthy of students’ time and get students to participate. To address engagement concerns, the authors of this essay offer ten best practices for building and sustaining student engagement in the communication center. The best practices are universal and transferable, meaning, any center, no matter the vision or the resources, could theoretically implement the ideas.

Abstract: The argument I will develop in this essay is that the foreign students are a latent human resource who can assist with overcoming English monolingualism in the Australian population. Foreign students, properly rewarded, can be a major source of skills transfer. Every one of those students is a walking compendium of language and cultural skills that Australians need to know.

Institutions of higher education are tasked with the job of accommodating students
with disabilities (Davis, 2015). An institution that empowers the disability community
is expected to boost expectations, support, assessment and feedback, and involvement
of students (Tinto, 2012). Navigating university life presents unique challenges for
students with disabilities in recruitment and admission (Palombi, 2000), environment
(Strange & Banning, 2000), out-of-class activities (Kuh, Schuh, Whitt, Andreas,
Lyons, Strange, Krehbiel, MacKey, 1991), career and academic advising (Belch,
2000), and funding opportunities (Belch, 2000). This qualitative study was designed
to engage both registered and unregistered students with a disability of their
experience in higher education. Themes that emerged from the interviews were:
students and their challenges, self-perception and perception from others, navigating
university life, and the foundation of resilience.

The current article examines the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) five benchmarks: level of academic challenge, level of active and collaborative learning, student-faculty interaction, enriching educational experiences, and a supportive campus environment to assess the student engagement experiences of student athletes at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). This literary analysis explores the quality of student engagement among student athletes at HBCUs and its impact on learning, development, and retention. Findings show support for the continued success of HBCUs student engagement efforts among student-athletes. Recommendations and areas in need of further research are also outlined to provide a more holistic account of student engagement efforts at HBCUs.

Undergraduate student researchers assisted with the design, delivery, and analysis for a project investigating low attendance at timetabled teaching sessions. Data was gathered from 208 students representing all four faculties on three Anglia Ruskin University campuses (i.e. Cambridge, Chelmsford, and Guild House, Peterborough), and comparison data was gathered from University Centre Peterborough.

Results show that, contrary to anecdotal evidence, poor attendance is not the result of content hosted on the VLE, financial decisions made by fee-paying ‘consumers’, disaffected ‘tap-in’ system users, or employment, but is in fact a complex combination of factors based around an unevenly distributed timetable

Organisations in the educational sector are being influenced by several aspects such as political environment, deteriorating financial aid from the government, rising aspirations of first generation learners in higher education and so on. Along with this, it is also noteworthy to mention that the society is investing huge amount of human, financial and material resources in establishing and running institutions of higher learning. This makes it imperative to study the effectiveness of educational institutions which are non-profit organisations. The study therefore attempts to ascertain the factors influencing organisational effectiveness in the educational sector. The researcher has identified four variables that are expected to influence organisational effectiveness measured in terms of perceived gains from post-graduate education. The factors identified include organisational health, psychological wellbeing of students, satisfaction with quality of campus life and student engagement. The study has adopted the descriptive method of the correlational type. The sample comprised of 273 post graduate students of University of Mumbai selected randomly through stratified random sampling techniques. When analysed using multiple regression techniques, it was found that (9.28%, 8.32%, 18.34% and 23.42% of the variance in perceived gains from post-graduate education is contributed by organisational health, psychological well-being of students, satisfaction with quality of campus life and student engagement respectively. In all, 77.05% of the variance in perceived gains from post-graduate education is explained by the variables included in the study. Almost one fifth of the variance in the perceived gains from post-graduate education is contributed by organisational health and student engagement. The findings of the study suggest that any effort to enhance organisational effectiveness should focus on improving organisational health and student engagement.

Recently self-efficacy studies focus on the educational context, with a particular focus on teacher profession. The main purpose of this study was to explore teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs with respect to age. All data were collected through Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale (Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk-Hoy, 2001). Participants in this study were located in three cities in Albania. The analysis of data was based on the response of 850 teachers. In terms of the three subdimensions of the self- efficacy scale, the results indicated that with age increases even self-efficacy in student engagement, in instruction strategies and in classroom management.

OBJECTIVES Remediation is usually offered to
medical students and doctors in training who underperform
on written or clinical examinations.
However, there is uncertainty and conflicting evidence
about the effectiveness of remediation. The
aim of this systematic review was to synthesise the
available evidence to clarify how and why remediation
interventions may have worked in order to
progress knowledge on this topic.
METHODS The MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL
(Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health
Literature), ERIC (Educational Resources Information
Centre), Web of Science and Scopus databases
were searched for papers published from 1984 to
April 2012, using the search terms ‘remedial teaching’,
‘education’, ‘medical’, ‘undergraduate’ ⁄ or
‘clinical clerkship’ ⁄ or ‘internship and residency’, ‘at
risk’ and ‘struggling’. Only studies that included an
intervention, then provided retest data, and reported
at least one outcome measure of satisfaction,
knowledge, skills or effects on patients were eligible
for inclusion. Studies of practising doctors were excluded.
Data were abstracted independently in
duplicate for all items. Coding differences were resolved
through discussion.
RESULTS Thirty-one of 2113 studies met the
review criteria. Most studies were published after
2000 (n = 24, of which 12 were published from 2009
onwards), targeted medical students (n = 22) and
were designed to improve performance on an
immediately subsequent examination (n = 22).
Control or comparison groups, conceptual frameworks,
adequate sample sizes and long-term followup
measures were rare. In studies that included
long-term follow-up, improvements were not sustained.
Intervention designs tended to be highly
complex, but their design or reporting did not enable
the identification of the active components of
the remedial process.
CONCLUSIONS Most remediation interventions
in medical education focus on improving performance
to pass a re-sit of an examination or assessment
and provide no insight into what types of extra
support work, or how much extra teaching is critical,
in terms of developing learning. More recent studies
are generally of better quality. Rigorous approaches
to developing and evaluating remediation interventions
are required.

A reference work for specialists in student counselling and for those who employ counsellors in mental health services. It provides an analysis of research in this area and provides useful information on the extent and severity of student mental health problems and the effectiveness of counselling and psychotherapy across the student population. This is the first publication to systematically identify, assess and review research in this area.

Postsecondary institutions have increasingly attempted to discover innovative methods to promote student engagement and persistence, thus combating student attrition. In recent years, the higher education landscape has been flooded with intervention strategies sourced in early alert systems that utilize technological components to encourage student connections to institutional support entities. Whether homegrown or commercially developed, early alert systems provide cost-effective means of bolstering student persistence while depleting limited financial resources. While early alert systems have the potential to be a useful and cost-effective tactic to provide students with platforms for connections to faculty, academic advisors, and support resources, their development and implementation provides challenges. This study was based on Tinto's student development and Astin's student engagement theories. The purpose of this study was to uncover and analyze student perceptions of early alert system usage as a retention tool, an area of research lacking depth. The entire undergraduate student enrollment (N = 21,437) during the fall 2014 academic semester at East Carolina University was invited to complete an on-line survey requesting student opinions of campus utilization of the Starfish™ early alert system. A total of 4,658 student responses were collected. A series of statistical tests were used to assess differences in student perceptions of early alert system usage. General student opinions of early alert system structure and differences within student population groups and demographics were also discovered through data examination. Additionally, results of the analysis showed statistical significance indicating that early alert systems serve as conduits between students and the institution, impacting their

This article maintains that Tinto's theory of college student retention misses the mark for minority students. With its implicit suggestions that such students must assimilate into the
cultural mainstream and abandon their ethnic identities to succeed on predominantly White campuses, Tinto's framework is faulted not only for overlooking the history of ethnic oppression and discrimination in the U.S. but also for being theoretically flawed. An alternate model based
on cultural integrity and Bourdieu's notions of cultural capital and habitus is delineated. A program that instills these qualities in inner-city Black and Hispanic adolescents as they prepare
for college is described.

When students enter into the college and university setting, they become part of a community. As they continue throughout their academic careers, students develop relationships with various stakeholders and undergo personal situations, which can either facilitate or hinder their level of engagement and involvement with the academic communities they are a part of. The university setting provides a platform where there are multiple stakeholders in a large, complex system, which inevitably, may also come with many conflicts. The literature shows that student engagement and involvement on campus has been linked to perceived positive experiences and feeling of connectedness to their alma mater, as well as the increased likelihood that alumni will be active with their campuses. This quantitative methods dissertation consolidates the fields of conflict analysis and resolution with the study of student affairs to prove that there are certain variables that significantly prevent and significantly facilitate student engagement and involvement levels on campus. The study was built on a theoretical platform developed, titled the Hypothetical Algebraic Formula for Student Engagement (HAFSE) and used multiple regression, stepwise regression and observance of bivariate scatterplots and trend lines to discover that feeling of connectedness to student service’s staff, the student body and academic advisors; number of hours dedicated to studies, number of children, and number of hours worked, of all variables observed, have the most influence on student engagement and involvement. These 6 variables held true, across all academic levels, in a national sample of 309 students enrolled in institutions across 46 states in the US. The findings of this study can help both theorists and practitioners of conflict analysis and resolution and in the field of student affairs to identify the complex needs and wants of students of the 21st century, for the purposes of enhancing students’ experiences in the campus setting.

Prof. Vincent Tinto has been a most prolific and formative theorist in the domain of student affairs and has generated the most dominant sociological theory of student retention and student persistence. His most well-known and widely cited work is the 1975 research article " Dropout from Higher Education: A theoretical synthesis of recent research " which has inspired decades of research on student retention and success across the globe. Tinto (1975, 1993, 1997) developed a model of student attrition (or " dropout ") which explains student retention and success behaviour in relation to the university context. Tinto suggested that the degree to which a student is integrated into the academic and social life of the university, and the degree to which a student is committed to her or his studies and the goals of the university, are predictive of student persistence (Tinto, 1975; McCubbin, 2003). He thus sought to explain the intra-institutional impact on the student in terms of a " longitudinal model of institutional departure " based on an environmental input-process-output model (Tinto, 1993, p. 114). Tinto's revised Student Integration Model (1997) links the pre-university entry attributes of a student (such as family background, skills and abilities, prior schooling) to the institutional experience and ultimately to educational outcomes, student retention and success. Key explanatory factors in Tinto's revised model are the student's intentions, goals and commitments; students' institutional experiences linked to the academic and the social system; academic integration and social integration; and the quality of student effort and learning. Tinto described it as an " interactive model " of primarily " sociological " character (1993, p. 112). It is dynamic in so far as a student's goals and intentions are continuously reshaped through interactions with the university and its academic and social structures (see Figure 1).

The higher education sector is increasingly facing competition from tertiary providers at both a domestic and
international level. This has led to a range of ever more complex challenges with regard to the attraction,
maintenance and retention of the student base. There is an important need therefore to understand the factors
which contribute to positive perceptions of tertiary services and the way in which these affect the student
experience and drive student retention. The improvement of retention rates through the formation of meaningful
and long-term relationships with students is subsequently of high importance. This research explores students’
perceptions of the relationship that they enter into with their chosen tertiary institution and the effect that this has
on the development of student loyalty. In particular this research examines the salience of relationship appeal,
satisfaction, affective commitment and trust on student loyalty. A structural equation modelling approach was
adopted using a sample of 426 first year undergraduate students of a large Australian metropolitan university.
Importantly, next to satisfaction, relationship appeal was found to be the second strongest determinant of student
loyalty. This was then followed by affective commitment. Interestingly trust did not influence relationship
development. Conclusions, implications and opportunities for future research are presented. From a managerial
perspective, it is expected that uncovering first year students’ perceptions of the student-institution relationship
will enable higher education institutions to develop more targeted relationship marketing programs and increase
student retention.
Keywords: relationship appeal, relationship marketing, student loyalty, affective commitment, satisfaction,
higher education marketing

Low graduation rates are a significant issue for colleges. The majority of higher education institutions in the United States offer learning communities (LCs), which have been found to be effective for improving course success and persisting to the next semester. However, there is a gap in the literature regarding the effectiveness of LCs with different types of populations and different types of LCs. The purpose of this meta-analysis was to identify the most effective types of LCs. Research questions addressed the effects of different types of LCs on different student success outcomes for community colleges. The study was based on Tinto’s interactionist model of student departure and Astin’s model of student involvement. Studies examining the relationship between student success and participation in college LCs provided the data for the meta-analysis. A random effects model was used to generate the average effect size for 39 studies and 50 individual effect sizes. The results showed that LCs are most effective with community college students when they include additional support strategies, counseling is available to students, one of the linked courses is an academic skills course, at least one of the linked course is developmental, and the focus is on increasing course success or student engagement. The implications for positive social change suggest that LC programs implement two linked courses, include an academic skills course, focus on developmental courses, and provide access to a counselor and additional student support strategies. In addition, LC programs are most effective when the goals of the program are student engagement and course success.

This paper presents the results of a study conducted at a HBCU located in rural Maryland that examined perceptions of students participating in a six-week summer bridge program for low income, first generation, and at risk students. The Perceptions, Expectations, Emotions, and Knowledge about College (PEEK) survey was employed and the findings from pre and post testing were compared. LITERATURE REVIEW First-generation students are less likely than their counterparts whose parents have more education to be prepared academically for postsecondary education and when enrolled are less likely to succeed (Warburton, Bugarin, and Nunez, 2001). Further, the research consistently shows lower success rates of first generation college students (Terenzini, Rendon, Upcraft, Millar, Allison, Gregg, and Jalomo, 1996). Additionally Students from families in lower-income brackets are far less likely than those in higher-income brackets to earn a bachelor's degree (Mortenson, 1998; Thayer, 2000). The educational backgrounds of parents and family income level are not the only factors that contribute to the higher education success rates of students. Backgrounds characteristics such as high school academic records, low personal aspirations, and poor study habits have also been identified as contributing (Astin, 1996). To meet the needs of under prepared incoming college students summer bridge programs have been created and primarily, but not exclusively, serve students who have low family incomes and/or have parents that lack a college education. Ami (2001) found that the four-week summer bridge program in mathematics at the University of New Mexico increased the mathematics placement of students and Edwards, Kahn, and Brenton (2001) found that the Math Corps Summer Camp, a 6-week summer mathematics intervention program, resulted in significant mean increases in mathematics ability. Santa and Bacote's (1996) study sought to determine the effects of a summer bridge program on the academic, personal, and social development of minority and low-income students during their first year at Bronx Community College. Results from student tracking showed that 93% of the students who had participated in the summer bridge program persisted into their third semester of college. METHODOLOGY This study was designed to examine the backgrounds, perceptions, expectations, emotions, and knowledge about college of at risk college students participating in the Preparation and Adjustment for College Entrance (PACE) six-week summer program. The study involved the pre and post surveying of students who participated in the program during the summers of 2004 and 2005. A total of 378 surveys were collected and analyzed.

Social class is a major determining factor of people’s life chances. Much sociologically based research shows that socio-economic position is still one of the best predictors of who will achieve success, prosperity, and social status, and in particular who will enjoy the highest levels of educational outcomes. Survey data and qualitative studies alike also confirm that many people continue to see class as a feature of everyday life, in ways that are also connected with their understanding of learning and its possibilities. Yet, despite its continued significance in people’s lives, class has virtually disappeared from modern adult learning research. The paper concludes that in an era when governments across Europe are setting about the dismantling of social support and collective protection produced by social democracy and trade unionism, class analysis presents an important means of understanding change and changing understanding.

First-Generation College Students: Fostering Academic Success Through Counseling Services and Resources Presenters:
Andrea Bueno, April Martin Chartrand, and Virginia Rosales

A FGCS is typically defined as a student with neither parent or legal guardian who has attended a four-year college.
In the  Fall of 2015 the SFSU entering freshman class was comprised of 37% FGCS.

This report focuses on two aspects of risk, administrative risk groups based on demographic, course, admission and prior education information and early academic risk. This is whether a student had failed (and how badly) their commencing semester. The outcomes reported in this study include completion and attrition rates, and broad outcomes, that is, whether a student had completed or was still in study at the end of the time frame of interest. This study compares them for the undergraduate cohorts commencing in summer/semester one of 2008, 2009 and 2010, and includes three year outcomes for the 2008 and 2009 cohorts. In addition, the cohorts are compared to see whether the risk group composition of cohorts and early failure are consistent. The study also examines the major outcomes of the individual risk groups across the three cohorts.  These results show that risk is a relatively stable phenomenon, both in terms of the composition of cohorts and in the outcomes of students. The certainty of risk and the relative stability of outcomes have implications for strategies to improve retention and completion rates.

First year students face a daunting range of challenges as they make the transition to university life. Their experiences in the first months of university have a defining influence on their success or otherwise in their studies. The purpose of this paper is to report on the results of a case study that tests the efficacy of a student engagement and retention strategy aimed at first year students. The strategy encourages self-reflection and goal-setting by encouraging them to think constructively about their ideal future career. Once created, this idea is reinforced to become a firm goal. The student’s perception of university study is thus reframed from being an end in itself to being a means to an end. Instead of perceiving the future as endless assignments and exams, they see themselves moving purposefully towards their ideal career.

Student engagement at university is significantly influenced by sense of belonging. In 2013, our university developed a novel extra-curricular program designed to foster a sense of belonging in students who commute to university-the Monash Non-Residential Colleges (NRC) program. This study examines whether participation in the Monash NRC program changed students' perceptions about their university experience and their sense of belonging to the university community. We show that our NRC program appears to be effective in fostering a more positive university experience for students when compared with non-NRC students. Additionally, we demonstrate that our NRC program influenced students' sense of belonging through increased interaction with peers and staff as well as greater reported attendance on campus.

A mobile learning app that uses game elements such as leaderboards and digital badges may have positive effects on student academic performance, engagement, and retention, according to a study published in the open access International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education. Researchers at Swinburne University of Technology, Australia developed a fully customizable app that allowed lecturers to push quizzes based on course content directly to their students' devices in order to motivate them, increase their competitiveness, and keep them engaged with the course.

Higher education participation has become an important focus for policy debate as well as for scholarly research. Partly this results from ongoing attempts to expand the higher education system in line with wider policies promoting a ‘knowledge economy’; and partly it results from widespread policy concerns for equity and inclusion. In both cases, researchers and policymakers alike have tended to focus on access and entry to the system, with much less attention being paid to the distribution of outcomes from the system. This paper reports on a multi-country study that was aimed at critically understanding the experiences of non-traditional students in higher education, and in particular on the factors that helped promote retention. In doing so, the study straddles the sociology of social reproduction and the psychosociology of learner transformations.

Higher education scholarship has established that enhanced student engagement leads to greater academic success, which then leads to an enriched student experience and higher student retention. These issues are arguably at the core of enabling education which prepares students to transition into degree programs. This paper outlines a teaching philosophy developed in a linguistics course in an enabling program at a regional Australian university in 2013. The philosophy, called The Cupcake Philosophy, is grounded in the theories of transformative learning and social constructivism. It makes complex linguistic theory and academic practices accessible for enabling students. It involves not only an overall style of teaching, but also a creative use of the metaphor of cupcakes, along with peer-learning activities, which scaffold students’ disciplinary knowledge and academic literacies. This, in turn, helps students improve their self-efficacy in the tertiary environment, enabling them to ...

This study evaluates hidden crisis of attrition prevalent amongst students and programs with descriptive interpretation for solving social isolation. A Descriptive research design was adopted for this study with a variable values covering three (3) undergraduate degree programs. A Simple Percentage Method, chi-square tests, Tables and weighted average were used to get clear picture of analysis, of the academic and social characteristics of newly admitted undergraduate degree seeking students (N = 45) in the College of Business and Technology at Parker University, Dallas, Texas, United States from Fall 2013 to Fall 2014. A binary logistic regression analysis is proposed and performed to predict the probability of a student dropping out. A principal component factor analysis with descriptive analysis was performed on the twelve (12) questionnaire items used for data analysis. Student outcome (persistence or dropout) was the criterion variable. Analysis was not conducted to raise the assumptions of (adequacy of sample size, presence of outliers, factorability, linearity, and multi collinearity) because of the low number sample size (N=45). However, the general structure matrix pattern was examined for item loadings of three (3) programs in the undergraduate degree plan, in order to determine the number of factors to retain for convergent validity. Methods include Eigen functions, eigen values greater than one rule, scree test and total variance utilized to interpret factor structure coherent to the variable values. Mitigating factor analysis includes pertinence of program delivery mode, course design, enrollment number, number of students attending at end of the first year, undergraduate grade point average at time of dropout or completion, admission requirement criteria if any/test scores and number of sections to degree completion or number of courses completed at time of dropout.

This paper examines the commonly used integration theory of student retention in higher education through the lens of an emerging theory of immigration used in the sociology of education. By discussing how segmented assimilation theory may apply to the study of college student persistence, this essay explores alternative ways of viewing student persistence that recognize the possibility of multiple pathways of college participation and of community membership. Accordingly, it suggests how integration theory can incorporate insights from more recent research on minority students' experiences and newer theoretical developments in the study of student development and persistence.

This report summarizes findings from three focus groups conducted by the Retention and Graduation Council in fall 2009 with second-, third-, and fourth-year students at Central Connecticut State University who had a high probability of graduating from the institution in six years or less. A total of sixteen students participated in this research project, and these “successful” students exhibited a number of common characteristics, including: motivation and self-confidence, connectedness, frustrations with curricular structures, frustration with university communication and processes, mixed perceptions of advising, and several year-specific issues. 

Only tentative conclusions should be drawn from qualitative research of this nature. Nevertheless, much of the material provided here re-emphasizes the importance of educational practices typically deemed to be highly effective, such as helping students form bonds with other students and university employees as well as experiential education activities that connect academic learning with application outside the classroom. Further, successful students making progress toward graduation appeared to be very motivated; they filled their time with academic work and co-curricular activities, expected to make progress, and appreciated recognition for their efforts. While campus services were perceived to be helpful in some areas, unfriendly personnel, inefficient communication, difficulty registering for classes, and uneven advising detracted from their educational experience.ns of advising, and several year-specific issues.

Since the 1990s, in Argentina there has been considerable concern over whether higher education institutions must undertake the responsibility of teaching academic skills to their student population or if both undergraduates and graduates ought to cope with the enculturation process without assistance. Although academics seem to have reached an agreement and have put forward a number of actions aimed at facilitating the access of university students into their target discourse communities, there is still heated debate about how the issue must be approached. In this article we describe the initiatives carried out at two engineering colleges: the Facultad de Ciencias de la Alimentación and the Facultad de Ingeniería belonging to the Universidad Nacional de Entre Ríos that have paved the way for the inclusion of academic literacy development in the curriculum.

The design of a suitable interconnection network for inter-processor communication is one of the key issues of the system performance. The reliability of these networks and their ability to continue operating despite failures are major concerns in determining the overall system performance. In this paper a new irregular network IABN (Irregular Augmented Baseline) has been proposed. IABN is designed by modifying existing ABN (Augmented Baseline) network. ABN is a regular multi-path network with limited fault tolerance. IABN provides three time more paths between any pair of source-destination in comparison to ABN. The reliabilities of the IABN and ABN multi-stage interconnection networks have been calculated and compared in terms of the Upper and Lower bounds of Mean time to failure (MTTF). The proposed network IABN provides much better faulttolerance and reliability at the expanse of little more cost than ABN.

Effects of Learning Communities on Community College Students’ Success: A Meta-Analysis by Keith Wurtz M.A., CSU, Fullerton, 1997 B.S., California Polytechnic University, Pomona, 1990 Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Open and distance learning (ODL) provides unique challenges for student retention and course completion. In an increasingly competitive educational environment, measures such as retention and completion form the basis for the evaluation of institutional and student performance. Information and Library Studies (ILS) faculty at the Open Polytechnic achieve and maintain consistently high retention and completion rates across their faculty-taught ODL courses. This research documents the development and application of strategies that contribute to these high success rates. Information and Library Studies faculty, through a framework of action research, undertook an analysis of implementation strategies designed to support student retention and completion. This framework provided a methodological foundation for focus-group discussion. The faculty evaluated and disseminated the strategies derived from these focusgroup discussions across other ILS courses in an iterative process of application and analysis. Strategies for retention and completion in this research are discussed in the context of course selection, orientation, layered support, communication between students and faculty, support between student and faculty, social interaction, and community building in an ODL environment.

Undergraduate student researchers assisted with the design, delivery, and analysis for a project investigating low attendance at timetabled teaching sessions. Data was gathered from 208 students representing all four faculties on three Anglia Ruskin University campuses (i.e. Cambridge, Chelmsford, and Guild House, Peterborough), and comparison data was gathered from University Centre Peterborough.

With divergent educational processes brought forth through the unforeseen circumstances such as a global pandemic, students have become obligated to pursue virtual means towards obtaining their
education. Therefore, this study seeks to review the different formats of virtual learning processes and methodologies that are currently made available to students based on student and user perception and
technology adoption efforts. Through comparative analysis efforts identifying synchronous, hybrid and asynchronous virtual educational standards across multiple publications and understanding technology
acceptance models (TAM) and theories such as perceived usefulness, it is understood that virtual learning efforts which pursue an asynchronous methodology are more comparable in contrast other formats

Policy on Widening Participation has historically focused upon addressing the proportional imbalance between different social groups in higher education participation and aims to ensure that all students who have the ability to benefit from a higher education are given the opportunity to do so. Despite an expansion of HE provision within the UK, the higher education opportunities available to students remain unequally distributed across the student population with students from lower socio-economic groups tending to study at less prestigious universities.