Situating the evidence for impact of outreach strategies: A systematic review for improving access to higher education

Abstract

Efforts to widen participation into higher education (HE) are having an impact with increasing numbers of diverse students accessing HE. Outreach is a key strategy within widening participation (WP), yet there has been little peer reviewed, published evidence regarding how outreach is identified, situated and understood. This paper addresses this gap, presenting a systematic review of published research examining how the impact of WP outreach is identified and understood in UK research. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) checklist was used to frame the review and empirical studies focusing upon outreach (2005 – 15) were included. Papers excluded were focused on international, part-time students or those not focused upon WP outreach. Twenty-six papers were identified for inclusion and these were analysed thematically. The analysis identified themes of person-centred impact, raising aspirations, and social capital, addressing 'how and why' questions rather than the 'what works' question judged by the impact of outreach on student numbers. Doing so can enable improvements in the design of outreach activities addressing individual experiences alongside structural barriers. Ultimately, this analysis suggests there is insufficient systematic evidence regarding the impact of outreach on the underlying structural factors shaping access to higher education.

Assessing the impact of regional transformative outreach activities aimed at widening university access, and participation among under-represented groups in schools

“…This regional evaluation of the UC programme shows that Specifically, it addresses the lack of evidence on impact from programmes delivered in the UK (Younger et al, 2019 andHeaslip et al, 2020). It also highlights the importance of robust evaluation and the usefulness of applying the NERUPI framework in this context, in assessing the impact of transformative outreach activities on intended outcomes.…”

“…In their systematic review of evidence on the effectiveness of interventions and strategies for widening participation in HE, Younger et al (2019) found just 16 studies, out of some 3,500, were relevant to the UK context and of high enough quality to be included in the final review. Likewise, Heaslip et al's (2020) recent systematic review of studies established that just 26 out of 847 were UK-focused. The review aimed to explore how current research identifies and understands impact in outreach activities over the ten-year period 2005 to 2015.…”