Research &
Impact

The Ethnicity Awarding Gap in the West Midlands

In this project, Aimhigher West Midlands, together with Prof. Chris Millward, aim to understand the characteristics of the ethnicity awarding gap across the West Midlands region, what universities are doing to tackle it and what they have learned from this (i.e. what appears to work in which context).

The gap in the West Midlands region resembles the national gap, where White learners are more likely to be awarded a first or upper-second class degree than learners from other ethnic backgrounds. This gap is particularly pronounced between White and Black students.

The National Outreach Coverage Project

The National Outreach Coverage Project is a collaborative research project which examines the coverage of outreach delivery across England.

Downloads

The following resources provide the outputs from this project and can be downloaded using the links below:

National Outreach Coverage Dataset

Supporting Information

Maps Visualising the Dataset

The resources can be used to:

• Identify schools and colleges in England which have received relatively little outreach delivery over the last three academic years.
• Identify schools and colleges in England which have or have not received certain types of activities over the last three academic years.
• Identify schools and colleges in England which appear to have received disproportionately high volumes of outreach delivery over the last three academic years.
• Determine how many other providers are working in schools/colleges in your operational area.
• Facilitate collaboration between providers working in local areas.
• The dataset may also be of value in identifying ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ spots nationally, as well as the contribution of different types of provider to all outreach delivered nationally.

The project used data collected by three tracker services: Higher Education Access Tracker (HEAT), Aimhigher West Midlands and East Midlands Widening Participation Research and Evaluation Partnership (EMWPREP) and data from large third sector organisations not currently using a tracking service.

The Outreach Coverage Dataset provides details of outreach activities delivered per school or further education (FE) college in England between 2017/18 and 2019/20.

If you’d like to view the launch webinar for the project, you can do so here.

If you have any questions or feedback on the dataset, please email support@heat.ac.uk.

Aimhigher Phase 2 Evaluation Plan

The Aimhigher evaluation plan outlines the approach and outcomes that the partnership will employ to establish the impact of the Uni Connect programme including ‘what works’ and in what contexts. The plan was reviewed by the Office for Students and rated as excellent and as representing sector leading practice. The plan has been shared widely across the sector.

The plan outlines how the partnership is combining both quantitative and qualitative approaches. This includes employing a quasi-experiment approach to evaluate the impact of the scheme by comparing outcomes of learners that have (intervention group) and have not (comparison group) engaged. The methodology employs a matched group design and addresses many of the gaps in previous research, such as lack of comparison groups / controls and poor sampling methods.

HE Progression

The key strategic priority of the Aimhigher Plus Programme is to increase the higher education (HE) progression rates of target Aimhigher Plus students via engagement within a programme of interventions delivered by the partnership of universities and schools and colleges.

This report summarises findings from an initial descriptive analysis of the progression rates of two cohorts of Aimhigher learners and their HE progression rates (UCAS acceptance) in the 2018/19 and 2019/20 cycles. The evaluation employs a mixed methods approach to track the UCAS progression outcomes of a cohort over 1300 learners. A quasi-experimental design was employed where outcomes are compared between a treatment and non-treatment group of learners. This evidence is contextualised with a number of learner and school based case studies. The report summarises findings from phase 1 of the study and suggests that there is an association between levels of engagement and HE progression outcomes. Phase two of this study is currently in progress and includes more rigorous statistical testing of these results. Later phases of the study will involve bringing more controls into the analysis (e.g. prior attainment, demographic and socio-economic characteristics).

Raising Attainment

MyTutor is an important part of the Aimhigher Plus programme, as it provides academic enrichment to raise KS4 and KS5 students’ GCSE attainment. Tutors provide one-to-one subject-specific support, online over a number of weeks.

Findings from the 2018/19 academic year demonstrate that the programme had a significant impact on improving students’ attainment. The findings compare the attainment outcomes of an intervention group and comparison group who did not receive the online tutoring. The impact of the programme is growing, with a +0.6 grade increase in 2017/18 and a +1 grade increase in 2018/19.