Coordinación de Actividades Empresariales en Obras con Proyecto

Phase 1 was the starting phase of the investigation, in which I identified and selected the 40 students as research participants. As mentioned in the previous section, the aim was to use a group of students that would reflect the range of academic success that students at UWC normally achieve. In addition, I was hoping that the students, through their

Title: Factors impacting on first-year students' academic progress Main research question: Primary drivers of success Sub-questions: 1. Who is the UWC

student?

2. What are the challenges to learning? 3.How do these challenges influence student performance?

4. Why are some students successful and others not? Data collected: Biographical information: Data set 2 Data set 4: Research

questionnaire (questions 1-7)

Identification of challenges and reasons

for failure: Data set 1: Written

reflection 1 Data set 3: Written

reflection 2 Data set 4: Research

questionnaire (questions 8-12)

Identification of enabling factors: Data set 1: Written

reflection 1 Data set 3: Written

reflection 2 Data set 6: Answers to

interview questions

Triangulation

University's official database - corresponded with the answers provided

to the questions asked. Triangulated through the interpretations of the students' responses and explanations provided to the questions asked in

the data sets and data set 5 (the final

results) Triangulated through the interpretations of the students' responses and explanations provided to the questions asked in the data

85 responses and explanations, would provide ―rich, thick descriptions‖ of the issues/problems under investigation (Denscombe 1998; Patton 1990). I used one of my own ALC 131 lecture groups to identify and select the students. This was an advantage for me, since (most of) the students and I had been together from the Orientation Week before the commencement of Term 1. Staff members in ADD are involved in the planning and facilitating of the Orientation Programme in the Faculty every year. We work with the new first-year students in the programme for three days, and this is where staff and students get to know each other and then we take this process of getting to know each other forward into the lectures in the ALC 131 module that all first year students must registered for and pass. Therefore, it would be fair to say that we knew each other a little already, and I believe that they knew by then that I had their best interests at heart and that I cared about them, because I always try to create a safe and caring environment for all my students in the lectures. I announce on a regular basis that my door is open and that they can come and speak to me if they have problems, if they need assistance with something, or if they need to speak to someone, even if it is not an academic problem but a personal one.

Thus, in the first lecture (all the first-year modules have three lectures per week) during week two in Term 2, first semester 2009, I asked all the students who were present in that lecture (176 in total) to reflect on and write about their learning experiences in the first term at UWC (this is Written Reflection no. 1, Data set no. 1). The instruction was that they should reflect on and answer the follow five questions:

1. What were my expectations when I arrived at university? 2. How am I doing so far?

3. What was challenging?

4. What was good/positive so far?

5. Suggestions on what I can do to overcome my challenges, and what the University could do to assist me to overcome my challenges in the learning process.

The first question was asked to ease the students into the self-reflection process. The second question was asked because I wanted to gain some insight at this early stage into what they perceived their progress to be, and because I used their answers to this question to select them as main participants. Question three focused on what their learning challenges were at that stage. I asked this question because I wanted the students to identify their learning challenges as early as possible in order to know what they were and to ascertain what could be done to help the students to overcome the

86 challenges. Question four was asked because I wanted the students to realise that, despite the challenges, there would also be something good/positive for them in the learning process. I know from personal experience that when one experiences challenges, one tends to concentrate only on that and seldom consider the possibility that there might be something of value as well. Question five (the last question) was asked because I wanted the students to realise that it is possible to overcome learning challenges and to be successful in one‘s studies. I wanted them not to despair or give up hope.

I collected all their responses and focused only on the answers given to question two (the students had to indicate whether or not they were passing their coursework components) at that stage, since the aim was to purposively identify and select a successful and an unsuccessful (at that stage) group. I read through all the answers to this question and grouped the responses into five categories, namely students who indicated that they:

 Passed all their coursework components

 Passed three and failed one

 Passed two and failed two

 Passed one and failed three

 Failed all four modules‘ coursework components

Categorising the responses in this way revealed that only 24% of the students reported that they were passing all their coursework components, while the remaining 86% represented the other four categories. I then looked at the explanations provided (under the same question) for why they were passing or not passing all their coursework components. Not all the students explained why they were passing or not, and I selected only the students who did because it was important to select students who could explain their answers. Explaining their answers was an important criterion, because it would help in providing ―rich, thick descriptions‖ that could determine the degree to which context may influence their failure or success (Creswell 2007; Yin 2009). Using this criterion, I identified 30 students in category one (the students who passed all components) and 10 students each in the remaining four categories. I e-mailed these students and invited them to visit me at the office when they were free. As the students came to me, I selected them on a first-come, first-served basis. In the end, twenty-five of the first thirty students came to the office and twenty-seven of the group of forty. I informed the surplus students (five and seven) that I had wanted to ask them to participate in the study and thanked them for responding to my invitation, but that I had met my target.

87 To the forty students that came first, I showed the letter of approval for the research project and the consent form. I also explained their involvement in the process and the fact that they could withdraw at any stage. I listed the tasks that I would require of them in terms of the different data sets that I intended to collect. They all agreed to participate and signed the consent form in my office (a sample copy of the consent form is included at the end of the dissertation as Addendum 4). After this was done, I obtained their biographical and geographical information from the University‘s database (Data set 2), and kept this information in a locked cabinet in my office as promised. In order to protect the students‘ identities, I numbered their records numerically and applied this numerical method to all the data sets (see Tables 4.4 and 4.5 above as example). Doing it this way assisted me in keeping the data together and in discussing the data in Chapters 5 and 6. A sample copy of each of these data sets is included at the end of the dissertation as Addendum 5 (Written Reflection no. 1) and Addendum 6 (students‘ personal details from the University‘s official records).