Anthony Cook, University of Ulster
Bill Norton, Liverpool Hope University College

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SUMMARY

Family members, particularly parents, help prospective students make choices both of institution and their subject of study. This case study outlines the actions taken by two institutions to ensure that family members are as well informed as possible about the events that both they and the prospective student will experience during their University years. The organisation of different events for family members and the students has resulted in both groups being freer to ask the questions that they want answered.

Keywords: student retention, student attrition, student support, parents, prospectus.

INTRODUCTION

IIn a pre entry survey of students coming to the University of Ulster the responses of about 2,500 students showed the following ranking of the people who had influenced their choices.

1. Careers teachers
2. Parents
3. Friends
4. University staff
5. University of Ulster graduates
6. Friends already at university
7. Other relatives

Clearly many students value the advice given them both by their careers teachers and their parents. At the University of Manchester about half of the students attending on visit days are accompanied by family members.

Other surveys have shown that one of the major causes of students leaving early can be interpreted as a mismatch between the institution’s provision and the student’s expectation (Yorke 1999). While most students can overcome minor disappointments, some do not and they leave. This is a problem which can potentially be solved prior to a student coming to University and, perhaps, better coping mechanisms can be developed once at the Institution with the support of family members.

RELEVANCE TO THE STAR GUIDELINES

At its outset the STAR project researched, produced and published a set of guidelines based on the causes of student attrition and which pointed the way towards possible good practice. The STAR guideline relevant to this case study is 1.2

1.2 Teachers, careers advisors, family members and other educational institutions are important clients of the institution and should receive up-to-date, accurate and relevant information. Two-way communication should be promoted.

Cook, et al 2005

Family members are recognised both as being of support for their student when at University but also as an influence on their choice of Institution and course.

THE PRACTICE

Both Manchester and Liverpool Hope University College noted that prospective students were attending subject visit days accompanied by their parents or other relatives. This pattern of attendance had two consequences. First more space had to be allocated to activities than would be predicted by a consideration of the number of applicants attending. Second, applicants were much less ready to discuss their futures with or ask questions of academic staff when accompanied by family members. Both institutions therefore, took an early decision to separate applicants from their parents and have developed distinct programmes for the two groups (see appendix 1 for exemplar programme).

"The practice of having parent sessions at both interview days and open days was started several years ago in response to an observation that parents are increasingly attending subject visits. This presented its own problems in terms of space during the visits and the observation that quite often parents seem to intimidate their children so that they didn’t ask questions and they didn’t respond to conversations with staff. When fees were introduced it was decided to separate the two and start a separate program for parents."

Liverpool Hope

The introduction of fees appears to have resulted in parents wanting to ask a different sort of question about the future than would be asked by the applicant. At Manchester, students and family members can select from a list of topics and a record has been kept of the selections made by both groups. This list is given below.

Topics Offered During the Introductory Talk

At Liverpool Hope, parents were curious about finance and accommodation, whereas the applicants themselves seldom sought this information. Thus the purpose of mounting separate programmes for parents and applicants was to address the different needs of each group in the context of a single visit.

EFFECTIVENESS

To what extent have the differing needs been met? Early, but anecdotal, evidence from Liverpool Hope gave confidence that parents welcomed the special attention and the scheme expanded.

This practice has allowed staff to concentrate on a single audience. Thus when talking to applicants it is now possible to meet their concerns rather than to compromise by introducing materials of interest mainly to parents.

"You don’t want parents coming along to subject specific sessions and asking things about fees or something wider than the subject because if we can specialise it then the right people can ask the right questions and the right information is given over then. The staff will feel more at ease because they are dealing with their own area."

Liverpool Hope

BENEFITS TO THE APPLICANTS

There is a feeling that separating the parents from the applicants allows the applicants to gather the information that they need without being inhibited by the presence of their parents.

"I think subject staff would say that removing parents from the subject induction sessions or the subject open day sessions actually frees up the students to be less inhibited and to talk with them freely about the course and what higher education is like."

BENEFITS TO THE PARENTS

The perceived benefits to the parents are that they get the questions that they want answered addressed directly. Further, there is value in making the family members themselves feel part of the process of application and acceptance, particularly since the Higher Education of their students may well represent a substantial financial burden on families.

"Parents…. are actually incredibly important. If parents have bothered to come to a visit day it’s because they’re interested and have probably quite a big influence on that student’s choice. So laying on a day that was enjoyable for them I thought was particularly important…… In the first year we changed a few bits and pieces. We are getting feedback all the time and so we changed it this year to make the talk more interactive, …..because it was covering things that they didn’t want to hear about. "

Student Recruitment Manager, Manchester

PROPOSED FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS

Both these programmes have developed relatively recently and while minor modifications are made in response to staff and parent views no substantial changes are expected in the near future.

RESOURCE IMPLICATIONS

Treating parents and applicants separately obviously requires two independent programmes for the visit days- two sets of rooms, two sets of guides, two different talks, etc. The resource implications are hard to quantify since they vary with the size of the facility. It may be for instance that without splitting the visiting group there may have had to be more visit days.

CONCLUSION

CONTEXT

University of Manchester - The School of Biological Science has an intake of about 350 students into about 20 major degree programmes across the spectrum of the BioSciences. Many of these can be taken as sandwich courses or combined with a modern language resulting in a total of about 50 different programmes. The School gained a total of 24 in teaching quality assessment.

Liverpool Hope University - The Human and Biological Sciences pathway has an intake of about 45 students onto a combined honours degree programme. Most students are seeking Qualified Teacher Status. Organismal BioSciences gained 21 overall in a recent teaching quality assessment.

While the context of the two institutions featured in this case study will be of some interest it cannot indicate the context of the parents of their potential students.

REFERENCES

Cook, A., Rushton, B.S., McCormick, S. and Southall, D. (2005). Guidelines for the Management of Student Transition. University of Ulster, Coleraine. Also at
http://www.ulster.ac.uk/star/resources/star_guidelines.pdf accessed 28-08-05.

CORRESPONDENCE

Dr Anthony Cook, STAR Project, University of Ulster, Cromore Road, Coleraine, N. Ireland, BT52 1SA
email: a.cook@ulster.ac.uk

Bill Norton, Learning & Teaching, Liverpool Hope University, Hope Park, Liverpool L16 9JD
email: nortonb@hope.ac.uk

FURTHER INFORMATION

http://www.ucas.ac.uk/parents/index.html - Universities and Colleges Admissions Service, Parents Section

http://www.dfes.gov.uk/studentsupport/parents/index.shtml - Dept for Employment and Skills, Financial Advice for Parents

http://www.universityadvice.co.uk/ParentConcerns.aspx - University Advice, Parental Concerns

http://www.universityoptions.co.uk/parents/default.asp - Information on HE

http://www.aimhigher.ac.uk/ - Information on HE

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APPENDIX 1

Visit Day Schedule for Guests at the University of Manchester

APPENDIX 2

Only 12 parents completed this questionnaire. Quantitative data would, therefore, be misleading. Most parents agreed with the statements above except for the assistance the sessions provided for the completion of the UCAS form.

APPENDIX 3

Advice to Parents from an American University

This has been anglicised and re-oriented to features that may be commonly found on UK campuses. It is loosely based on advice given to parents by Syracuse University.

APPENDIX 4

Links to Examples of Web Based Information Directed Specifically at Families

Many Universities provide generic information for applicants both in their prospectus and on their websites. Much of this however appears to have been written with recruitment in mind rather than for the purposes of improving student decision-making. Only 18 of the 167 Higher Education Institutions provide easily located web-based information for family members. Below are listed a sample of the better websites which provide information specifically for families. They were selected because they were easily found either by a direct link indicating interest to parents or families or by entering “parent” or “family” into the site’s search engine and provide some generic advice rather than being devoted to recruitment.

Sheffield Hallam
http://www.shu.ac.uk/guides/parents/index.html
A site which provides information to families about a wide range of student issues.

De Montford University
http://www.dmu.ac.uk/study/families/index.jsp
Has a good site devoted to the needs of families and an excellent booklet. One of the few sites to provide advice to parents related to empty nest syndrome.

University of Reading
http://www.rdg.ac.uk/Student_Recruitment/parents.htm
A well constructed website which welcomes parents and outlines application and financial procedures. It describes aspects of student support services, careers etc.

University of Sussex
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/advice4parents
A reassuring site for parents which outlines university support in the context of the newly arrived student. The parent’s page give links to other generic information including the application timetable, finance, accommodation, student support etc.

University of Birmingham
http://www.parent.bham.ac.uk/
A dedicated website which contains much useful information. A good model.

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