Researching widening participation in Engineering: Enrolment, Progression, Attainment and Support Strategy

Researching widening participation in Engineering: Enrolment, Progression, Attainment and Support Strategy

School: Engineering

Team Members: Wasiu Popoola, Dave Laurenson, Hannah Chalmers

Abstract

The overarching goal in this work is to co-develop a coherent workable support strategy for widening participation (WP) students in Engineering. To achieve this, we will be working with current WP students in the School of Engineering to understand their experience of transitioning into Edinburgh, our learning and teaching provisions and current support available to them. We will analyse historic and current data to understand Engineering WP students’ retention rate, progression, attainment and degree classifications. We will also review best practice in the literature and other Schools in the University and consider how that can be adapted and successfully introduced in our large, diverse School.

This project will make recommendations to the School Learning and Teaching Committee and ultimately the School Management Committee that will lead to an enhanced WP support strategy for the School. We will also share relevant emerging findings with the School Curriculum Renewal Working Group to ensure that our ongoing curriculum renewal embeds best practice approaches that will benefit both WP students and also the wider student body. Additionally, we will share our findings broadly to ensure that the tailored approaches that we introduce can contribute to developing practice to support WP students within and beyond the University.

Final report

Download the final project report (PDF)

Other Project Outcomes

Popoola W and  Frantzana, A  (2022)   Researching Widening Participation in Engineering  Short Talk Presentation at University of Edinburgh Learning and Teaching Conference  (from 14th minute)