The statistical analysis of the SAUQ provided the statistically significant result that students who attended the OOP were better adjusted to university compared to a similar control group. This result provides a credible finding but it does not tell us why or how this has occurred. The SAUQ provides scores on four key areas of adaptation to university. They are personal - emotional, social, academic and institutional attachment. In each of these four areas the students who attended the OOP scored significantly higher than the control.
The role of uncovering and discovering why this has occurred was attempted in the combined qualitative analysis. The personal accounts of individual students are given to illuminate the experience of being a first year student making the transition to university. It is attempted through the qualitative analysis process to demonstrate not only why it has occurred but also to provide a theoretical explanation for what has occurred.
The four figures above (6.3, 6.4, 6.5 & 6.6) provide a visual representation of the qualitative analysis process undertaken by the researcher. They show the development of themes and sub themes from the initial coding stage. A number of key recurring themes emerged throughout the student and staff interviews and the student focus group. The key areas of adaptation to university the questionnaire measures are addressed within the thematic areas presented in the analysis.
The theme ‘pre university thoughts and feelings’ provides the emotional back drop of what the students are experiencing in terms of the transition to university, the huge changes in this transitional period are expressed as fear, apprehension and excitement. The feelings found within this theme were generally in line with the literature reviewed in the student experience perspective section. This theme provided a number of challenges that the incoming students were experiencing. One of the key messages from the students was that they were excited to meet new people but they were more worried about making friends and social issues than academic issues.
The theme ‘personal development, building more than a raft’ highlights in vivid detail how the OOP process has aided personal growth through overcoming challenges such as making friends and the physical challenges of OOP highlighted in the previous theme. The first year students developed in terms of self-worth and self-efficacy through overcoming challenges in two different ways. Firstly some of the challenges especially social were overcome through shared experience of both being a new first year student and making this transition. Secondly was overcoming personal challenge, surprising themselves and achieving. Much of this was supported in the literature and illuminated through a phenomenological lens. This theme clearly illustrates the ways in which students personal
growth can be accelerated and achieved through OOP and could therefore indicate possible reasons why these students scored higher on the personal – emotional scale of the SAUQ in comparison to their peers at university on a similar course experiencing the same transition process.
‘Social development’ placed a focus on a previously under researched phenomena facilitated through OOP, this was ‘accelerated friendships’. The analysis provided a number of possible reasons why this happens and provided examples of this at work such as shared living space and the development of trust through the activities. The OOP environment was constructed to best facilitate and provide a platform to allow these social interactions to flourish into meaningful social support networks. The comments and quotes made by students has possibly made this theme the most important or powerful to students during the transition process. This was through having more known course mates for group work at university, more friends for sports and leisure activities and a wider social support network.
This was most evident in the student conclusions and the account of Emma who spoke of how the support network she developed through OOP are one of the key reasons for her still being at university. The student conclusions speak of feeling more comfortable with course mates and in one account becoming such good friends that they are planning on living together in their second year. The quotes provided within this theme clearly show for many students their social support network was increased or improved through OOP, this could explain why the students who attended the OOP scored higher on social adjustment in the SAUQ than the comparison group of similar students. ‘Logistics, activities and staff’ provided a simple explanation of the issues raised by students and how to address them, the theme and sub themes and explanations were again heavily supported by the OOP literature. The general feeling from a student perspective was positive. The location, hostel, food, activities and free time were all well received. Getting the logistic right is key in being able to offer the best possible platform for personal growth and social support network formation.
Within this theme there was also the acknowledgment by students that the trip was free and that they were happy that the university had put on such an event. There was also the idea that students got to meet university staff in a more informal setting. These two things combined could explain the students scoring higher on institutional attachment than the comparison group of students on the SACQ. There were some logistical issues highlighted within the student and staff interviews and the focus groups, the changes made through this action research process for the 2016 OOP are listed at the end of this chapter.
A combination of having a wider social support network including their course mates and knowing university staff on a more personal basis may explain why students scored higher on the academic adjustment in the SAUQ. This could be due to having more student and staff contacts to speak about assignments and what is required of them academically.
The framing and explanation of the research findings through theory is also one of the aims of the action research process. This has been approached in a bottom up inductive approach which is data led. This was chosen to aid in the trustworthiness of the analysis process by reducing the risk of trying to fit parts of the analysis to a particular theory or psychological mechanism.
A number of possible theories were indicated in the literature review as having potential to explain the research findings in this area. The one which was thought to have the most potential was SCT (Bandura, 1980) yet the idea of students modelling behaviour never really emerged from the data, this is one of the key underpinning concepts of the theory.
The theory which provided the best explanation of the analysed data was resilience theory. Figure 6.7 provides a visual representation of the process of resilience at work during the OOP experience. The climbing wall represents the challenges facing first year students, some of these were highlighted in the pre university thoughts, feelings, hopes and fears theme such as social group development. Other
Challenge -This could be personal, mental, physical or social
By overcoming the challenge we build self-efficacy and self-worth
The ropes represent the help and support the students were given in completing the tasks
challenges of the OOP experiences were personal physical challenges. The individuals had different natural levels of resilience with some needing more support to overcome the various challenges. This support represented by the ropes was provided within the OOP experience, for example the activities were set up in such a way to require team building, trust and communication with others.
Such an environment and activities aid social group development, these relationships were solidified through other activities, sharing living space and free time periods. The environment the students have been placed it almost ‘forces’ certain behaviours based on the shared goals and common interests therefore completing common challenges in a physical sense facilitates interactions, as does the common goal of making friends.
Peer support, support from activity staff and university staff helped in both social and personal terms. Personal growth was achieved through the platform provided by the OOP to challenge themselves and succeed. By overcoming the challenges in this case represented by the wall the achievement can provide development of self-efficacy and self-worth. This section particularly aligns with resilience theory as an explanation of how OOP can help first year students in their personal development. This process was ongoing throughout.
In conclusion the OOP stage 1 has had a positive effect on first year student’s adaptation to university. This was achieved through providing a platform which encourages personal growth and social support network formation. The SAUQ provided statistical evidence of the adaptation. The processes of which have been illustrated through illuminative quotes and researcher analysis and explained through resilience theory. The process is not perfect, a number of issues have been highlighted that can be changed to further improve the student experience of OOP. These changes can serve to further improve the influence of OOP on first year student’s adaptation to university. These changes are listed below.
List of changes made to the OPP through the action research process
1. Arrival issues – Liaised with activity organising company and YHA to ensure that check in can occur on arrival of students leading to a smoother process of students settling into the OOP experience
2. Food - Token system discussed to ensure each food sitting is served at the allotted time to avoid excess queueing and allow smooth service process.
3. Activity change – the team building activity has been changed to a team scavenger hunt in the local town, this was done to address the poor reaction to the team building activity and to allow the students the opportunity to explore the picturesque surroundings in a safe and controlled manner.
4. University staff interaction - staff allocated to individual groups will increase this student – staff interaction. Staff will also be given a clear mandate to actively interact with students and engage in conversation.
5. Free time activity - implement an evening campfire activity that is not task orientated geared towards social interaction to further encourage bonding.
6. Academic session – One of the most significant changes has been made surrounding the academic session. The students normally study a module in semester 2 that includes OAA. This has now been moved to semester 1 to link up and coincide with the OOP. The
academic session will now be used set up a group presentation project based on OOP experiences to be delivered on return to university. This has been done to create real relevance between the session and what the students are experiencing for themselves. It also provides more group work while on the OOP which will continue into the first
semester module. One issue with OOP 2015 was that a number of students did not attend despite it being compulsory. The inclusion of an assessed academic project that requires attendance of the OOP will be made explicitly clear to students prior to the trip. This will provide added incentive to students to attend.
‘Top up’ activity day analysis
The ‘top up activity’ day was a one day trip. The trip consisted of a short journey to an outdoor activity centre. Throughout the day students took part in around eight activities ranging from team building puzzle games to archery and high rope climbing challenges. The students were split into groups of between eight and ten. The groups were assigned a group leader in the form of an activity coach from the outdoor activity centre, they then proceeded to move around the different activities for the rest of the day (around 6 hours) with just a break for lunch in between.
The day was implemented into the first year student schedule at the beginning of semester 2 in January. The thought process of the organiser was to include the ‘top up’ activity day to reinforce the positives experienced in the OOP, as a continuation of their personal growth and social group formation.