Building a sense of community in a core 2nd level Physics module (S217) and investigating qualitatively its effect on retention

Project leader(s): Anne-Katrin Klehe
Theme: Supporting students
Faculty: STEM
Status: Archived
Dates: November 2022 to August 2024

The OU has a broad intake of students from a very wide breadth of educational backgrounds. Most students study part time, mostly up to 60 credits per year while at the same time working full time, looking after a family and/or caring for someone. At level 2, most students will have completed 120 credit hours of OU studies at level 1, which are aimed to have prepared them academically for studies at level 2. On average, students will have invested financially and emotionally in two years part-time study by the time they enter level 2 studies. A survey of science students in September 2022 before they start their level 2 studies indicated overwhelming excitement of learning something new. (Ready for level 2 studies, 21. Sept ‘22).

The excitement for learning and the prior student-investment have to be contrasted with the low retention rates seen in level 2 science modules: the retention rate as measured as the percentage of students still registered at the end of the module in the 60-credit science module at level2 is generally less than 78%*. Students that actively withdraw from a module are financially expensive for the OU and the consistency of a low retention can also cause reputational damage to the university. Equally important is the loss in confidence to the individual student who did not achieve their educational goal.

This investigation is concentrating on a core level 2 physics module (S217, Physics: from classical to quantum). S217 is a 60-point level 2 module, that is very fast paced and compact, where students are expected to continuously apply the mathematical knowledge from previous modules to concepts that might be new to them. Students have access to online module materials, printed books, videos, a large selection of live and recorded online tutorials as well as question banks. In addition, students all have their own personal tutor whom they can contact if they have questions as well as tutor-monitored online discussion forums. Students are in general complementary about the quality of the teaching material.

Despite of all these teaching tools, the National Student Survey 2022 (NSS 2022) indicates that only (47±10)% Physics students at the OU consider themselves to be “part of a community of staff and students”. At the same time, we know that a sense of belonging is known to be one of the most significant factors in student success and retention (Kuh et al 2010). The remote nature of the teaching at the OU does not naturally aid the formation of a community of learners among our students: students rarely know which other students are in their tutor group and there are no scheduled face-to-face events where they meet each other or their tutor in person. A successful intervention would support and guide the formation of a group of learners and would foster a sense of belonging among the students.

My aim for this eSTEeM project was to:

foster a sense of belonging among my students (60 students were registered in my tutor groups in October’22).
aid the students in “finding their feet running” on the module by offering extra, weekly meetings to ease the potential discomfort about the module (planned until Christmas’22).
remind students of the joy of the subject.

For these purposes I offered my students weekly, non-recorded, online meetings. I investigated whether such extra offers would increase a sense of belonging and whether such an intervention would aid retention on the module.