Not scraping the bottom of the barrel: Disadvantage,diversity and deficit as rich points

Abstract

First-year students’ literacy deficits are not the problem. They are emblematic of an overall skill set which can be scaffolded from the first year of university study. If we treat literacy deficits as contingent upon other items of motivation, and as an element of Academic Motivational Literacy, we can usually also see these deficits as ‘rich points’ (Agar (2000) Border lessons: linguistic “rich points” and evaluative understanding. New Directions for Evaluation 2000: 93–109.). That is, in many cases, students have a desire to succeed, and we can typically build from one or more literacies to greater motivation and success in other areas. Or, to put it another way, a deficit might be a problem, but it is also an opportunity. This concept, of targeting weaknesses to build overall confidence, underpins the approach taken in a first-year subject for a cohort of students who are particularly disadvantaged, diverse and underconfident. This paper will present examples of programs undertaken in this course over the space of six years which addressed each need as an opportunity, and it will provide evidence to show that success, in student retention, in overall grade distributions, and in student satisfaction, was the result.

Keywords

First-year experience diversity academic literacy motivation curriculum

Introduction

The title of this paper is taken from a ‘throwaway’ comment heard regularly in the context of faculty meetings over several years. In an environment of federal government budgetary cutbacks and increased competition for students in the greater Sydney region, Western Sydney University (WSU)¹ has seen its share of the tertiary market decline over recent years. In addition, as the university has lowered formal entry requirements, in a bid to stem the student number decline, teaching staff have identified serious literacy deficits, and general under-preparation for the demands of tertiary study, among the first-year students who do enrol. A few staff have responded to the first-year students who present at university, and who do present with literacy deficits, by describing the university’s acceptance of these students as ‘scraping the bottom of the barrel’. The significance of this comment is clear: in the professional opinion of some teaching staff, many of these students should not be at university.

It is not the purpose of this paper to minimise the seriousness of this situation, which presents challenges for students and teaching staff alike. The reality is that there is a growing student cohort at WSU which can be described as in need of extra help in literacy, if they are to have any expectation of tertiary success. There are also students who enrol only to subsequently drop out, once they discover that university was not the right educational choice for them. The result is that WSU’s student cohort compares unfavourably with the national average for dropouts and fails. Nationally, the fail-dropout rate averages at less than 20% for first-year students (Gilmore, 2014; Moodie, 2013). At WSU, the dropout/fail rate, averaged across various courses, can be as high as 30–40% of all first-year students.

This paper argues, however, that the student cohort is not the problem, nor should students be seen as the problem. Rather, educators have an obligation to not problematise the students at the conceptual level. Indeed, the experience of the teaching staff in one first-year course is that whatever deficits students present with in first year are, in reality, opportunities. That is, identifying student deficits is, in reality, useful if they are investigated as the foundation for their own solutions, and this applies especially to a student cohort which is characterised by diversity, disadvantage and deficit.

The students of WSU

The city of Sydney, the largest city in Australia, with an overall population of over five million people, has been characterised as a city of two halves: east and west (Hale, 2016; Jones Diaz, 2004; NSW Trade & Investment, 2013). The eastern half of the city is typified by ethnic–cultural homogeneity and socio-economic advantage. Occupying around one-fourth of the city’s geographical spread, eastern Sydney is characterised by higher density (and more expensive) housing, higher educational qualifications and higher earnings per capita, less diversity for ethnicity, better infrastructure, including more public transport services and four large publicly funded, well-established universities (ABSa, 2013; ABSb, 2017; NSW Trade & Investment, 2013; Western Sydney Region of Councils [WSROC], 2013).

By contrast, the western half of Sydney, which is where the majority of WSU’s students are drawn from, is an area of diversity and disadvantage. This region occupies around 9000 km² or three-fourths of the entire Sydney metropolitan area, and it is a region characterised by extensive socio-economic disadvantage, poorer infrastructure and transport options, and high diversity in ethnic communities and languages. It is also an area serviced by only one, multi-campus university, i.e. WSU, which was established in 1989 (ABSa, 2013; ABSb, 2017; Cobb-Clark et al., 2017; NSW Trade & Investment, 2013; UWS Pocket Profile, 2009; WSROC, 2013; WSU Archives, 2014). Another distinctive feature of western Sydney is that it is the destination of first choice for up to 40% of all Australia’s immigrants, and around 80% of all of Australia’s refugee intake. Most of these newly arrived people are from non-English speaking backgrounds; therefore, it is not uncommon for entire western Sydney suburbs to be dominated by populations which are overseas-born and where English is not the language spoken at home (ABSa, 2013; ABSb, 2017; NSW Trade & Investment, 2013; UWS Pocket Profile, 2009; WSROC, 2013). An English-language capital deficit, combined with weaker employment rates and inter-generational welfare dependency, and the absence of a strong familial–cultural educational tradition in many migrant communities, is linked to chronic, poor, educational outcomes in these types of communities (Bjorklund and Salvanes, 2011; Bjorklund et al., 2006; Cobb-Clark et al., 2017; Jones Diaz, 2004).

These distinctive demographics suggest that WSU students, as representative of their region, would be severely underprepared for the demands of tertiary study. In reality, there are other factors at work which tend to weaken WSU’s potential student cohort even further. The four richer, older universities in the eastern half of Sydney actively market themselves as prestige institutions, offering scholarships and other incentives to the brightest school-leavers across the entire Sydney region (Morphet, 2017). Many very capable western Sydney students who might otherwise enrol at WSU are therefore ‘poached’ by the eastern suburbs institutions. This effectively means that WSU is considered to be the last choice for many potential students, or more euphemistically, it is regarded as a ‘university of opportunity’, where criteria for entrance are necessarily lower than at other institutions in the city. Thus, as part of its strategic positioning in the tertiary ‘market’, WSU defines itself as ‘A University of the People’ (Hutchinson, 2013).

As one marker of WSU students’ under-preparation for university, ‘almost 60% of … students present at [WSU] without having completed high school’ (Hale, 2015: 27). In addition, more than half of all students at WSU will be the first-in-family to have even attempted university (UWS Pocket Profile, 2009; WSU News Centre, 2012), so the familial–cultural support mechanisms for a student attempting tertiary study are usually non-existent for many WSU students. This exacerbates the normal adjustment process for WSU first-year students since students who ‘are neither native speakers nor expert users of the English language are most likely to enrol at [WSU]’ (Hale, 2016: 24). Thus, it is possible to see why some teaching staff refer to their first-year students as being ‘scraped from the bottom of the barrel’. And yet, to not interrogate what this label means is to contribute to the problem. And that, as teaching professionals, is unacceptable and unethical.

Literacy, labels and deficits: AML

We can begin by looking at the nature of literacy deficit, since that provides a context for the central issue of labelling. Literacy deficit has been a contested area in the literature. There is consensus that, in general, first-year students experience difficulty in transitioning to the generic demands of tertiary study (Dobozy and Gross, 2010; Goldingay et al., 2014; Hockings et al., 2007; Horstmanshof and Brownie, 2013). One particularly acute impediment for WSU students is in adjusting, not just to the demands of English, but to the requirements of Academic English, one of the most challenging registers and ‘a constrained form’ of the language (Hale and Basides, 2013: 88). The register of Academic English also constitutes its own normative learning environment contextualised within the overall, unfamiliar ‘norms and characteristics of the university environment’ (Hockings et al., 2007: 722). So, not only do students have to apprehend the general demands of a university environment, they must negotiate this environment with, and through the filter of, a new form of language, with all of its demands and expectations. WSU students are particularly sensitive to the fact that they have arrived ‘at university with tangible gaps in knowledge particularly in relation to institutional and academic expectations’ (O’Shea, 2015: 500), and for many of them, this entails gaps in knowledge which are part of their second, third or other language.

By not being participants in the mainstream of university ‘knowledge’ before they encounter university, WSU students typically find that they must also grapple, unassisted, in taking on ‘alternative and additional ways of being in the world’ (Cope, 2000: 177). This tertiary literacy with its unfamiliar ‘cultural and contextual component[s]’ (Lea and Street, 1998: 158) can also be regarded as a type of capital (following the definition provided by Bourdieu, 1994), and so we can meaningfully discuss the serious capital deficit experienced by WSU students in first year at university.

Seen this way, as a type of capital deficit, it can become more a matter of equity, and thus an opportunity, to discuss what WSU students need most. Part of this opportunity is to reject the ‘bottom of the barrel’ label as being counterproductive in engaging with student literacy–capital deficit. It is a derogatory label which implies that many WSU students have no ‘right’ to be at university in the first place, and it works to actively resist engaging with the reality of these students as individuals with specific abilities and needs. It is an example of the functionality of labels which are ‘affective and effective for social stasis…deictic and [possessing] high impact for in/out-group solidarity. More importantly, they reinforce and compound attitudinal-cultural deficits’ (Hale, 2015: 28).

Without ignoring the precarious situation of many first-year WSU students, the productive solution is to identify features of student capital–literacy deficit as items of need which can be addressed. Indeed, if we look at the moments when it is clear that there are ‘surprising occurrences…problems in understanding,’ we can also view these as ‘rich points’ (following Agar, 2000: 94). That is, they are opportunities to investigate and resolve any issue which students present with. We need not focus on the student, but rather the deficit which a student has, and we need to see it as an opportunity to act, to do our job as educators.

The logical outcome of this perspective is that we can address through consultation and assessments, what students actually need – whether, for instance, it is how to find a book in the Library, or how to use a computer, or how to improve grammar in their writing. Rather than applying generic (theoretical, or default) ideas of what constitutes literacy deficit, it is possible to see specific deficits that can be worked on in partnership with students. This rethinking of what constitutes literacy–capital deficit is helpful, given that the generic idea of literacy (and deficits) has been subject to ‘the ideology of those who sanction it and are invested in its outcomes’ (Graff, 2011: 6). Indeed, the notion of partnership entails a communication between students and academics – especially when the students offer hints into what they need. This line of communication requires the academic to listen, without ‘taking it personally’ or seeing it as a meaningless criticism. Thus, the ideal source of information for what students lack is communication from the students themselves. Or, in other words, when students underperform or offer negative feedback on student survey forms, they are actually communicating information on what they need.

There is, after all, nothing really new in this notion – it is simply a rearticulation of what we already know. We already know that there needs to be a displacement of the personal by academics in the process of education in the interests of listening to students. Or, again, students’ interests must come first. We already know the content of our disciplines, and we know what students need to learn, in order to apprehend the knowledge and skills necessary to succeed in their chosen careers. What we don’t already know is what the students already know (or do not know). Nor do we know what particular methods of learning can be adapted to bridge student knowledge gaps. Therefore, perhaps the key to discerning what students are communicating (even, or perhaps especially, when they complain!) is to see it as an opportunity to adapt our teaching to what students need, once we identify what they do, and don’t, know already (Ausubel, 1968; Gagné, 1965; White, 1972). This is consistent with foundational ideas of pedagogy, where educators must respond to the gaps in knowledge as students experience them, or ‘problems they are facing day by day’ (West and Fensham, 1974: 63). By identifying these gaps, or problems, educators can address the two, interconnected, components of knowledge: ‘what the learner already knows (his (sic) prior knowledge) [and] (b) his (sic) interest in learning (motivation)’ (West and Fensham, 1974: 62).

This approach also addresses the long-recognised issue of educators having to grapple with the unknown – the diversity of preparation and knowledge capital that students bring into the educational setting with them: ‘Pedagogical content knowledge also includes an understanding of what makes the learning of specific topics easy or difficult: the conceptions and preconceptions that students of different ages and backgrounds bring with them’ (Shulman, 1986: 9). Nevertheless, there are many dangers in ascertaining what the deficits are, when engaging with students’ levels of preparation and with their conceptions or preconceptions of what tertiary study requires. We certainly do not need to tell students about the challenges that students face. This is particularly true for WSU students who do not have to be told that they are facing severe challenges; they are usually well aware of the gap in their competence across ‘social practices in the form of objects or technologies’ (Brandt and Clinton, 2002: 338) which the university is expecting from them.

What is more productive is in acting on what we already know and being ready to respond to what students tell us. For one thing, we do not need to talk to students about their ‘deficits’, given that the term ‘deficit’ carries with it its own ‘baggage’ or negative emotional–social connotation. Indeed, some critics have reasoned that the label itself can cause a problem (Bamber and Tett, 2001; Billingham, 2009; Devlin, 2011; Devlin and McKay, 2014), proposing instead, the term ‘socio-cultural incongruity’ (Devlin and McKay, 2014: 104). Others have described deficit as ‘the disjunct between the respective cultural capitals of the student and institution’ (Hale and Reading, 2016: 3). While we can acknowledge that the term capital–literacy deficit is performative of negative connotation, tapping into social norms ‘mediated or constructed through writing practices’ (Lea and Street, 1998: 170), it is also possible to see the label as the starting point for ‘urgent, redressive action’ (Hale and Reading, 2016: 3).

Indeed, the fact that students seek out WSU as an institution of opportunity indicates that they are already very much aware of their literacy–capital deficit. What they do not need is a ‘camouflaged’ term such as ‘socio-cultural incongruity’ (Devlin and McKay, 2014: 104). Nor do they respond to being labelled as ‘students with a deficit’. These students already know that the literacy demands of university ‘weigh unequally on students from different social backgrounds [and] tend to mask underlying cultural obstacles’ (Bourdieu, 1994: 124). They know it because they experience it daily, and they have made the, often very courageous, decision, to seek out an education at WSU, to redress this deficit and to, hopefully, overcome it in order to create a meaningful social position for themselves.

Therefore, what is needed, is a clear acknowledgment from the institution that it has the onus of responsibility towards students and that the deficit is the problem – not the students. What is also needed is a clearer understanding of just how debilitating it can be for a student in first year, when that student has not only a literacy–capital deficit, but has no intrinsic resourcefulness in dealing with the demands of home life (plus whatever trauma may have preceded, or followed, enrolment) in addition to the demands of an unfamiliar university environment. This is a motivational deficit contingent upon a pre-existing literacy–capital deficit. We can refer to this set of motivation and literacy–capital deficits as being inter-dependent, and combine then under the heading of a deficit of Academic Motivational Literacy (or AML), where AML is defined as ‘a student’s ability to self-motivate for, and to sustain, effective and independent study patterns’ (Hale and Reading, 2016: 4). It is also a feeling of control over circumstances, autonomy or ‘self-efficacy’ (Soederberg Miller, 2010: 190). A first-year unit of study must, then, help students move from a ‘non-aspirational culture’ (McNaught and Benson, 2015: 74) to being autonomous learners possessing AML. It must also happen, or at least start, within the first few weeks, given that ‘achieving AML is scholarly behaviour typically beyond a student who is disadvantaged by having no model of academic success at the personal, familial or social level’ (Hale and Reading, 2016: 4).

While daunting, when faced with this responsibility for a cohort of up to 2300 students, the solutions really came from engaging with the students, and it has met with some demonstrable successes.

The design (and re-design) of a first-year course

Internal research in the School of Humanities and Communication Arts at WSU in 2009 found that students were severely under-prepared for their first-year subjects of study, and so the need for a literacy-bridging subject was identified. A subject, Analytical Reading and Writing (or ARW), was introduced in 2010, designed to address various forms of literacy deficit, including ‘grammatical (or functional) literacy, intra-language literacy (or reflexive language usage) and critical literacy’ (Mowbray, 2013: 5; Hale and Reading, 2016: 5). Its first implementation met with limited success partly because it was not offered to a ‘custodian’ or a specific staff member with interest or qualifications in the unit’s design and also because it was designed with a Philosophy frame. Student feedback was generally negative, and some intervention was needed.

After its first (unsuccessful) offering in first semester 2010, ARW was offered to a staff member with expertise in the areas of Linguistics and literacy. The subject was subsequently re-framed with a Linguistics base: it was felt that students would respond better to a subject designed to teach them language skills, if it was framed with a cohesive Linguistics base but also a minimum of metalanguage-theory. Another, inadvertent, result of offering the subject to this staff member was that, because this individual was a native of Western Sydney, the focus of the subject shifted to the nature of the English language itself, as seen through the lens of migrants, refugees and other, generally marginalised, residents of the region. The staff member elected to ensure that lecture content, texts and assessment topics were focused on the realities that many students were already familiar with: linguicism, accent discrimination, English as a Global Language, Standard and non-Standard English varieties, including grammatical variations and Australian Aboriginal English (AAE).

This last decision, to include a focus on AAE, was based on the fact that the largest Australian Aboriginal community is to be found in the western suburbs of Sydney (ABSc, 2017; Behrendt et al., 2012). It was also singled out as a focus of study because AAE is a non-Standard English spoken by a community which suffers marginalisation economically, linguistically, educationally and socially (Eades, 2013; Krieg, 2006). It was felt that many students could identify with the experience of Indigenous Australians for linguistic and social prejudice from the wider community since they also typically used various forms of non-Standard English. The benefit of this topic, along with other framing and topical shifts, was that students were learning about the social realities of language usage as they accrued literacy in Academic English in order to express their ideas.

The assessment structure was also overhauled, and content and skills areas realigned to better suit the role of the subject as a ‘service unit’ for the entire BA. One significant change was to evenly spread assessment tasks (of between 5 and 10% of overall grade) every week, or second week, throughout semester, to scaffold, to offer more feedback on marked work and to allow students to reflect on their progress. As one example of an assessment task, the first writing task (300 words), performed in class in week 2 of semester, asked students to respond, in the first person if they wanted to do so, on their personal experience of, and attitudes towards, the power and effects of English as a Global Language. The overt objective of this assessment task was to build student confidence by allowing them to respond in the first person. Students were also taught how to reflect on their own responses as they prepared for the task, with the use of evidence and logic. An incidental benefit of this task, apart from itsscaffolding students from the subjective voice into the third person (from writing task #1 to writing task #2), was that the writing task #1 functioned as an informal diagnostic tool. Tutors were thus able to offer extensive feedback on the first task in time for the next writing task (2–3 weeks later) and were also able to tailor classes in accordance with specific literacy needs of their students.

Consultation with teaching staff across the BA also occurred from ARW’s second offering in 2010, and it was decided that the main areas of focus should be in teaching competence in referencing, formal grammar, reading and analysing academic literature, and the performance of essay writing. These aims were consistent with the deficits highlighted from the design of the subject, but were more specifically articulated and formalised into threshold requirements; meaning that students could not pass the subject unless they managed a pass in these areas of literacy. These were codified into two main threshold areas, as below:

Referencing, divided into four separate assessment tasks (quizzes and formal in-text and reference list tasks), worth up to 20% of grade.

Literacy, forming a criterion of all writing tasks, and present in the marking rubric for up to 60% of grade.

In order to maximise the potential for students, these two threshold areas (delivered via formal lecture and tutorial instruction and supported by online resources) were introduced from week 2 of semester and referencing was completed (as a type of module) by week 7. This was to build early skills in support of student learning across other first-year subjects. Both literacy and referencing were then assessed in the final essay, which formed the ‘capstone’ assessment task for the unit, where students were expected to demonstrate a practical application of these literacies. The essay was thus installed as a threshold assessment task, which means that even if students passed the subject overall (i.e. accruing 50% of grade or more), a fail in the final essay meant a fail for the whole subject and the student was required to repeat the subject.

Many other initiatives were undertaken in the various iterations of this subject, and it is not desirable to mention all of them. Some detail has been provided already, but a more descriptive overview will now be presented in order to offer a summary of how major areas were redesigned in response to ‘rich points’.

Rich points: Conceptual problems and solutions: Framing and delivery, adaptive strategies: The students suggest solutions

The concept of a rich point, or a moment where a problem is identified, is salient in the processing of responses. If care is taken to garner student feedback for any particular deficit, the solution often suggests itself; meaning, that students can express under-confidence, or even complain, about aspects of the subject, and these are valuable moments when the solution can be found in the way the complaint (or vulnerability) is expressed.

So, for instance, if students complain that they are being asked to perform assessment tasks which are too challenging, we can view this as an expression of poor preparation and/or low motivation. This provides us with an excellent opportunity to revise the weighting of those assessment tasks, or the delivery of the content, or the placement (chronological or physical) of the assessment tasks within the semester. Below is a summary of student needs, translated into rich points, and with addressive action taken (see Table 1).

Table 1.

Summary of student deficit, rich points and addressive action.

Student deficit	Rich point	Action taken
Weak general literacy	Student feedback indicated disappointment with their results and a complaint that the subject was too difficult.	Tutorials expanded to two hours.
		Two hours of tutor marking assigned for each student.
		Online marking of assessments provides for more detailed feedback and faster turnaround between assessment tasks.
	This was interpreted to mean that students would be receptive to more feedback and assistance.	Students are also offered more instruction on what feedback means (scaffolding for grammar and structure).
		‘Literacy Advisors’ (qualified tutors) provided for in a funded project, provide online, in-class and on-campus consultation with students.
		Online grammar and essay-writing resources are generated (customised, ‘in-house’) and made available for free to all enrolled students.
Poor referencing and research skills.	Student feedback indicates that they are not motivated to access Library resources and that they find these literacies ‘boring’.	Referencing and research assessment tasks are performed during tutorial time, with tutor on hand to assist students in the performance of the tasks.
Poor referencing and research skills.	It is decided that students will respond to research and referencing work if it is tied to an assessment task (extrinsic reward).	Library staff attend each tutorial to assist students in the performance of research which is tied to an assessment task.
Challenging content in subject and high cost of academic texts.	Initially high number of fails and dropouts.	Online resources are produced and offered for free to students.
	Students either do not buy texts or have difficulty understanding them.	A custom textbook is written by teaching staff and produced at a third of the cost; covering all essentials of the subject.
	It is assumed that students will respond to texts if they are simplified and adapted, and that they will read/access the resources if made available in this way.	Eventually, the university offers this textbook as a digital text, free of charge for all students.
Students are hampered by challenging backgrounds and weak support networks.	Students mention in formal consultation that they are having difficulty affording university and that they have many external responsibilities and that they feel isolated in their studies.	A subject-dedicated Facebook page is set up, maintained by teaching staff, and linked to the official university-based subject site: it is also linked to regular emailed announcements and FAQs.
	This suggests a lack of support networks and that students are likely to respond to existing university support – if they know about it.	Former students and their posts are encouraged to continue as part of the new ‘culture’ of the subject.
	It also suggests that students might respond to a type of community or subject culture, if it can be developed.	Student support services’ representatives attend live lectures and promote services. Some of these are past students from ARW in previous years: the ‘personal touch’ is more likely to motivate students to access these services.
		The ARW coordinator meets with staff from university Counselling Services, Disability Services, Financial Support, and other student-based networks and promotes these services online, in lectures and in consultation with students; referring students and setting up appointments as needed.
		Greater usage of integration plans and special consideration (including extensions on assessments) is offered to students, in consultation with official support services.
Students suffer from weak motivation and are easily discouraged by poor results.	Student feedback mentions large-scale assessments as being confronting and that they are unsure if they are capable of performing at the required levels.	A set of coordination meetings is held with the teaching staff across first-year subjects in the BA and ‘assessment mapping’ is performed to ensure that students do not have multiple assessments all due in critical periods of semester.
	Students also mention that they are ‘constricted’ and lose motivation when confronted by multiple assessments coinciding across first-year subjects, especially in the final weeks.	Another outcome from this set of coordination meetings is that other first-year subjects reduce the requirements of their assessments, and delay some of them, so that skills in ARW (across referencing and essay writing and grammar) are taught before they are expected to be performed in other subjects.
		An overhaul of ARW is performed and assessments are broken up into smaller tasks, spread evenly across semester. One major example of this, is that the final essay was brought forward in semester so that students are able to complete this (and the subject itself, if they work hard) several weeks before the end of semester. This allows them to focus on other subjects, as needed.
		A ‘check your own progress’ schedule is promoted regularly during semester, teaching students how to monitor their own progress by looking at their weighted grade, and reminding them by email of what assessments are due each week. Students are also able to discuss their results with the subject coordinator to make sure that they know how they doing.
		Resubmission of some tasks is permitted: this is advertised to all students, and offered to students who have failed any specific task. The rationale is that students, by resubmitting work, can learn from feedback and become more independent learners -with each success they learn to be persistent and motivated by success.

Measures of success: Seven years of data, grade distribution and retention

This paper does not claim that any particular initiative was solely responsible for success in retaining students in ARW. Rather, it asserts that together (collectively and cumulatively), the initiatives met with overall success. One reason for this claim is that the initiatives were implemented in a largely organic fashion: as trends in student feedback became noticeable, or as external forces affecting student enrolments were identified, measures were taken. Most of these initiatives were introduced in rapid succession, and in many cases, they overlapped, so it is not feasible to identify any particular ‘spike’ in results deriving from specific programs. In some cases, student surveys were generated to gauge reaction to individual initiatives (as a means of reporting to funding sources), and these recorded high rates of student satisfaction. However, these are really only a means for recording student affect or attitudinal measurement. They do not causatively or automatically produce a link to higher grades (at least not as far as we could gauge). Still, we can claim that positive affect constitutes a measure of student satisfaction, and student satisfaction is productive of AML. Indeed, it has been claimed that affect is a crucial component of student success, since students who ‘feel more confident about [one] area of autonomy and self-efficacy [will have an] increased ability and personal affect–confidence [and this] assists them to feel as though they merit membership of the knowledge community’ (Hale and Reading, 2016: 13).

That is why the following data is presented in one table. It brings together data relating to student retention, student satisfaction for subject and student grade distributions over a total of seven years or 14 consecutive semesters in the subject ARW (see Table 2).

Table 2.

Enrolments at the start and end of semester, including drop-out rates, student satisfaction for subject, and grade distributions for students in the subject ARW from first semester 2011 to second semester 2017.

Year	2011	2011	2012	2012	2013	2013	2014	2014	2015	2015	2016	2016	2017	2017
Semester	First	Second	First	Second	First	Second	First	Second	First	Second	First	Second	First	Second
Initial enrolment	1006	1003	1893	362	1890	353	1606	384	1265	354	1160	282	940	329
Final enrolment	940	954	1782	329	1766	332	1494	349	1153	320	1100	266	887	262
Drop-out rate % (rounded)	6.5	5	6	9	6.5	6.5	7	9.5	9	9.5	5	6	5.5	20
Grade distribution % (rounded)
HD 85–100%	3	2	4	2	3	2	2	4	2	3	2	3	3	2
D 75–84%	9	7	9	10	8	15	8	12	16	15	16	18	15	12
C 65–74%	13	17	21	26	23	22	21	17	30	21	30	22	24	26
P 50–64%	42	43	39	37	37	35	38	34	32	34	28	26	32	29
F 0–49%	33	31	27	25	29	26	31	23	20	27	24	31	26	31
Student satisfaction	3.9	4.1	4.1	4.2	4.1	4.5	4.0	4.4	4.3	4.3	4.4	4.4	4.0	4.5
Student satisfaction average across university	3.9	4.0	4.0	4.1	4.1	4.1	4.1	4.0	4.0	4.0	4.1	4.0	3.9	4.0

Discussion of data

There are several important features of the data and certain trends which are suggestive of success.

High enrolments but a steady dropout rate:

The subject ARW experienced high enrolments between 2011 and 2014, of up to 2300 students annually, which gradually reduced to around half of this level by 2017. The dropout rate during this period has hovered between 5 and 9.5%. Compared to drop-out rates across WSU, which average at 20% or more, this is regarded as a positive marker of student retention. The higher figure tends to occur in second semester, a period which is typically a semester when the student cohort is weaker across all intakes.

The high drop-out rate of 20% in second semester 2017 is considered to be an aberration, caused by the subject’s offering as an online subject (in addition to the regular on-campus offering) for the first time in that year. While still favourably comparable with the university fail rate overall, this is a figure which necessitates closer scrutiny to see whether certain initiatives must be tailored to the online cohort – that is, we need to ascertain if the online cohort is distinctive for study needs, and if they would respond to different strategies. Best practice in this context requires an appeal to the relevant literature and tailored surveying of online students to see what they require to improve their online study experience. We will also review staffing for the online tutors to see if that was a factor.

2. A slight general downward trend in the overall Fail rate in cohort distributions, against a steady High Distinction rate, but with an overall upward trend in student grades away from the Pass level to a Credit–Distinction range.

This trend indicates that the proportion of high-achieving students is steady, as an indicator of cohort ability, while the slight, but general downward trend in Fails indicates that the integrity of the subject is maintained. That is, the literacy requirements of the subject have not changed over the period studied. However, the overall improvement into the C–D range of grades, at the expense of P grades, provides evidence that students are responding to the set of initiatives and that the students are reaching their potential on a more consistent basis. This success, qualified and supported by the steady parameters of F and HD grades, is advanced as one of the most important indicators of initiative effect-success.

3. The consistently high student satisfaction (survey) results, which indicate that the subject is performing better than the WSU average.

Given that students (mostly) do not have a choice to study this mandatory subject and that it teaches skills rather than content, this is considered to be a significant achievement. Survey comments from students confirm this, framing their enjoyment of the subject as a ‘surprise’, given that the subject was mandatory and concerned with literacy. In addition, the increasing number of students who select ARW as an ‘elective’, or optional subject, particularly from Science or Business degrees, indicates that a positive reputation attends to the subject ARW: this ‘word-of-mouth’ effect is calculated as producing around 200 extra enrolments per year.

Conclusion and implications for future research

This paper began with the premise that students’ deficits are not, in reality, the problem in negotiating issues to do with a disadvantaged cohort. While this might sound reductionist, it is consistent with much pedagogy theory that suggests that educators can assist students better, once they find out what the students already know or do not know (Ausubel, 1968; Gagné, 1965; Shulman, 1986; White, 1972). The onus is on educators, therefore, to ‘meet the students halfway’ and to tailor content and delivery to lift the students from whatever knowledge level they already have, to the tertiary level. A significant feature of this approach is the building of autonomy and motivation. Indeed, it is argued that by addressing students’ motivation levels, students respond by taking on and building AML themselves. That is, if we can adapt our teaching and assessments and content to what students self-identify as being a deficit, or obstacle, in their knowledge base and AML (Hale and Reading, 2016; West and Fensham, 1974), students typically feel empowered as being part of the process of learning.

This is especially true for the cohort involved in the subject ARW at WSU. This paper has argued that the set of initiatives undertaken in the subject ARW during the period 2011–2017 has been, collectively and cumulatively, contributory to student success as measured by cohort distributions, student retention rates and student satisfaction figures. This is especially significant, given the range of external factors and demographic features which apply to the ARW cohort. On the one hand, extensive diversity and disadvantage are already intrinsic features of the student cohort which enrols in the subject ARW. In addition to this, the competition for students in the Sydney region is especially intense, and this contributes to the further weakening of the ARW cohort for literacy capital. The net effect of these factors for ARW students has been referred to as a deficit in AML, which is defined as an inability to self-motivate for tertiary study, given the absence of Academic English language competence, the lack of cultural–familial educational tradition and a general lack of self-confidence in one’s ability to learn and to adapt to the demands of the unfamiliar university environment.

This paper has argued that AML can be addressed by consulting, and partnering, with students. Indeed, some of the best opportunities to develop solutions come from student complaints and negative outcomes (poor grades or high drop-out figures). These opportunities are referred to as ‘rich points’, or moments when ‘something goes wrong’, following Agar (2000). By investigating where the moment occurred, and asking students what they need, in order to improve, solutions can be found.

Applying solutions to student-identified deficits, this paper argues, enables students to accumulate knowledge and skills in ways that they feel some ownership over. This contributes to a feeling of confidence (or positive affect) towards the subject’s content, assessments and overall experience, such that students actually believe that they belong at university. This, tied to successful results, empowers students into autonomous learning or AML. This outcome is supported by the data presented in this paper, which indicates that ARW has not only ‘held its ground’ in the face of adverse conditions, it has had made serious progress in empowering students into their student experience. The significance of this outcome is that students have successfully negotiated the deficits which would otherwise hold them back. In this success, it can be argued, the deficits have been depersonalised by both students and educators, as being not something attached to a student, but rather as simply an impediment to a student’s success. This, we have argued, is at the centre of empowering action – and it is asserted that if educators believe this to be true, they will treat students in appropriate ways, so that students will also believe it to be true.

That is why this paper has argued against the idea of labels, because labels (of deficits, or diversity or disadvantage) can fix a student into a pattern of behaviours and expected outcomes. This is consistent with other commentary which has sought to ‘rebadge’ and critique labels and deficits in various ways (Bamber and Tett, 2001; Billingham, 2009; Devlin, 2011; Devlin and McKay, 2014; Graff, 2011; Hale and Reading, 2016). There is merit in each of these approaches, but what we believe sets this paper apart is that it reports on a consolidated program of educator–student collaboration, which foregrounds student affect as a meaningful component of student success.

What this paper cannot argue, however, is exactly how each initiative worked. We can see overall results and we can argue that collectively and cumulatively, each strategy contributed to student cohort success. But it is not possible to identify, from the available data, how individuals were affected by the initiatives. That would require more intensive, longitudinal studies to gauge student progress as they experience each strategy and perhaps to track student progress not only through the subject (assessment by assessment) but also through subsequent subjects. At the moment, this type of research is beyond our resources, but it remains an option for future study.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Note

Author biography

Adrian Hale is a Senior Lecturer in Linguistics, Discourse Analysis, Humour Studies and Academic English at Western Sydney University, Australia. His research and teaching interests focus on power relations and the advancement of students across diverse backgrounds.

References

Agar

(2000) Border lessons: linguistic “rich points” and evaluative understanding. New Directions for Evaluation 2000; 93–109.

Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABSa) (28 March 2013) 2011 Census QuickStats: Greater Sydney. Available at: www.censusdata.abs.gov.au/census_services/getproduct/census/2011/quickstat/1GSYD (accessed 19 March 2015).

Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABSb) (28 July 2017) 3218.0 – Regional Population Growth, Australia, 2016. Available at: www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/mf/3218.0 (accessed 13 September 2017).

Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABSc) (2017) 2075.0 – census of population and housing – counts of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, 31 August. Available at: www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/2075.0Main%20Features52016 (accessed 13 September 2017).

Ausubel

(1968) Educational Psychology – A Cognitive View. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Bamber

Tett

(2001) Ensuring integrative learning experiences for non-traditional students in higher education. Widening Participation and Lifelong Learning 3: 8–16.

Behrendt

Larkin

Griew

, et al. (2012) Review of Higher Education Access and Outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People: Final Report. Canberra: Australian Government (DIISRTE).

Billingham

(2009) Diversity, inclusion, and the transforming student experience. In: 18th European access network annual international conference, 22–24 June, York.

Bjorklund

Lindahl

Plug

(2006) The origins of intergenerational associations: lessons from Swedish adoption data. Quarterly Journal of Economics 121(3): 999–1028.

10.

Bjorklund

Salvanes

(2011) Education and family background: mechanisms and policies. In: Hanushek

Machin

Woessmann

(eds) Handbook of the Economics of Education. vol.3. Amsterdam: Elsevier, pp.201–248.

11.

Bourdieu

Passeron

J-C

De Saint Martin

(eds) (1994) Academic Discourse: Linguistic Misunderstanding and Professorial Power (Teese R (trans)). Cambridge, England: Polity Press.

12.

Brandt

Clinton

(2002) Limits of the local: expanding perspectives on literacy as a social practice. Journal of Literacy Research 34: 337–356.

13.

Cobb-Clark

Dahmann

Salamanca

, et al. (2017) Intergenerational disadvantage: learning about equal opportunity from social assistance receipt (No. 2017-17). Australian Government/The University of Queensland: Australian Research Council, ARC Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course.

14.

Cope

(2000) Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures. London: Psychology Press.

15.

Devlin

(2011) Bridging socio-cultural incongruity: conceptualising the success of students from low socio-economic status backgrounds in Australian higher education. Studies in Higher Education 38(6): 939--949.

16.

Devlin

McKay

(2014) Reframing ‘the problem’: students from low socio-economic status backgrounds transitioning to university. In: Brook

Fergie

Maeorg

, et al. (eds) Universities in Transition: Foregrounding Social Contexts of Knowledge in the First Year Experience. Adelaide: University of Adelaide, pp.97–125.

17.

Dobozy

Gross

(2010) Pushing library information to first-year students: an exploratory study of faculty/library collaboration. Australian Academic and Research Libraries 41(2): 90–99.

18.

Eades

(2013) Aboriginal English. Canberra (Australia): Aboriginal Studies Press.

19.

Gagné

(1965) The Conditions of Learning. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

20.

Gilmore

(2014) University census date arrives: one in five students quit by first year. The Sydney Morning Herald, March 30. Available at: www.smh.com.au/data-point/university-census-date-arrives-one-in-five-students-quit-by-first-year-20140329-35pv4.html#ixzz2zeRsnbcp (accessed 12 November 2017).

21.

Goldingay

Hitch

Ryan

, et al. (2014) The university didn’t actually tell us this is what you have to do: social inclusion through embedding of academic skills in first year professional courses. The International Journal of the First Year in Higher Education 5(1): 43–53.

22.

Graff

(2011) Literacy Myths, Legacies and Lessons: New Studies in Literacy. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.

23.

Hale

(2015) “Wogs, Westies and Writing in Western Sydney”: the reappropriating of labels and the teaching of Academic English. International Journal of Innovative Interdisciplinary Research 2(4): 22--37.

24.

Hale

(2016) The risks and rewards of teaching with humour in Western Sydney: adapting pedagogy to complex demographics. EuroAmerican Journal of Applied Linguistics and Languages 3(2): 22–41.

25.

Hale

Basides

(2013) The Keys to Academic English. Melbourne: Palgrave Macmillan.

26.

Hale

Reading

(2016) When the personal enables the independent: taking the library to the students. Australian Academic and Research Libraries 47(1): 3–17.

27.

Hockings

Cooke

Bowl

(2007) ‘Academic engagement’ within a widening participation context – a 3D analysis. Teaching in Higher Education 12(5–6): 721–733.

28.

Horstmanshof

Brownie

(2013) A scaffolded approach to Discussion Board use for formative assessment of academic writing skills. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education 38(1): 61–73.

29.

Hutchinson

(2013) A University of the People: A History of the University of Western Sydney to 2014. North Sydney, Australia: Allen & Unwin.

30.

Jones Diaz

(2004) Difference and diversity at the University of Western Sydney. Teaching Education 15(1): 97–101.

31.

Krieg

(2006) Aboriginal incarceration: health and social impacts. Medical Journal of Australia 184(10): 534–536.

32.

Lea

Street

(1998) Student writing in higher education: an academic literacies approach. Studies in Higher Education 23: 157–172.

33.

McNaught

Benson

(2015) Increasing student performance by changing the assessment practices within an academic writing unit in an Enabling Program. International Journal of the First Year in Higher Education 6(1): 73–87.

34.

Moodie

(2013) FactCheck: are university drop-out rates higher than ever? The Conversation, 1 August. Available at: http://theconversation.com/factcheck-are-university-drop-out-rates-higher-than-ever-16383 (accessed 13 November 2017).

35.

Morphet

(2017) Second campus to be built in Westmead as Western Sydney grows. The Sunday Telegraph, 5 November. Available at: www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/second-campus-to-be-built-in-westmead-as-western-sydney-grows/news-story/4569496113404efae0849074fa74e5d9?login=1 (accessed 5 November 2017).

36.

Mowbray

(2013) A Review of Current Literacy Skills Units at UWS. Penrith, Australia: University of Western Sydney.

37.

NSW Trade & Investment (2013) Western Sydney. Sydney: NSW Department of Trade, Investment, Regional Infrastructure & Services. Available at: www.business.nsw.gov.au/invest-in-nsw/regional-nsw/nsw-regions/western-sydney (accessed 19 February 2013).

38.

O’Shea

(2015) Arriving, surviving, and succeeding: first-in-family women and their experiences of transitioning into the first year of university. Journal of College Student Development 56(5): 499–517.

39.

Shulman

(1986) Those who understand: knowledge growth in teaching. Educational Researcher 15(2): 4–14.

40.

Soederberg Miller

(2010) Cognitive and motivational factors support health literacy and acquisition of new health information in later life. California Agriculture 64(4): 189–194.

41.

University of Western Sydney Pocket Profile (2009) University of Western Sydney Pocket Profile. Available at: http://careers.uws.edu.au/site/assets/media/Files/Pocket_Profile_2009_FINAL.pdf (accessed 4 October 2017).

42.

West

LHT

Fensham

(1974) Prior knowledge and the learning of science. Studies in Science Education 1(1): 61–81.

43.

Western Sydney Region of Councils (WSROC) (2013) WSROC region: economic profile. Available at: http://economy.id.com.au/wsroc (accessed 23 February 2017).

44.

Western Sydney University Archives (2014) University History. Available at: www.westernsydney.edu.au/rams/archives/uws_history (accessed 26 October 2017).

45.

Western Sydney University (WSU) News Centre (23 March 2012) University dream becomes reality at UWS for first in family students. (Press Release). Available at: www.westernsydney.edu.au/newscentre/news_centre/story_archive/2012/university_dream_becomes_reality_at_uws_for_first_in_family_students (accessed 11 October 2017).

46.

White

(1972) Outline of a learning hierarchy investigation research 1972. In: Tisher RP (ed) Proceedings of the third annual conference of the Australian Science Education Research Association, University of Queensland Printery, pp.97–99.