Contextualising degree-level achievement: an exploration of interactions between gender, ethnicity, socio-economic status and school type at one large UK university

The use of access thresholds to widen participation at Scottish universities

“…Superior degree performances have also been observed for students whose own secondary educational achievements are higher than the average for their school (HEFCE 2014; Crawford 2014a). In contrast, studies employing individual-level indicators of contextual disadvantage such as free school meal status, or area-level indicators such as local deprivation level, have found that contextually disadvantaged students perform no better than or worse than more advantaged students with the same levels of prior attainment (Crawford, 204b;Croxford et al, 2014;HEFCE, 2014;Boliver, Gorard and Siddiqui 2017;Jones et al 2017). The findings of this second set of studies casts doubt on what could easily be an unexamined assumption of an 'access threshold' approach: that the as-yet-not-fully-realised potential of contextually disadvantaged university applicants will be readily unleashed once these applicants enter university.…”

Identifying merit and potential beyond grades: opportunities and challenges in using contextual data in undergraduate admissions at nine highly selective English universities

“…While there is some evidence that students from disadvantaged backgrounds attain good degree results with lower school grades than their more affluent peers (Sutton Trust, 2017;HEFCE, 2005HEFCE, , 2014Crawford, 2014;Ogg et al, 2009;Hoare & Johnson, 2011;Taylor et al, 2013;Jones et al, 2017), respondents noted that the evidence base on what constitutes potential in HE is still relatively weak, and at risk due to changes in young people's qualifications. However, interviewees with the largest admissions gaps to close had a sense of needing to lower their offers, and were consequently researching whether students succeed with such lower offers.…”

“…There is now a body of evidence for the practice of making contextual or lower offers; this comes from multi-institutional studies (Sutton Trust, 2017), national-level analyses (HEFCE, 2005(HEFCE, , 2014Crawford, 2014), and research from the Universities of Cardiff, Bristol, and Oxford. This has shown that those admitted with lower grades in school (A-levels for most studies; GCSEs for the Oxford research) and identified as disadvantaged achieved as well as, and better than, their more privileged peers (Ogg, Zimdars & Heath, 2009;Hoare & Johnson, 2011;Taylor, Rees, Sloan, & Davies, 2013;Jones, Pampaka, Swain, & Skyrme, 2017). However, overall, the evidence on what constitutes raw potential in HE is still relatively weak, and requires re-evaluation in the light of continuous changes in young people's qualifications.…”

An innovative framework for higher education to evaluate learning gain: a case study based upon the discipline of marketing

“…Student learning performance at university can be linked to many factors including motivation (Liu, Bridgeman and Adler 2012), previous qualifications, gender and ethnicity and socio-economic background (Jones et al 2017). These behavioural, sociocultural, psychological and holistic perspectives (Maskell and Collins 2017;Neves and Stoakes 2018;Parker 2018;Standford et al 2017;) map directly on to Kahu's framework of student engagement (2013).…”