EER KEQs: How the Learner Outreach programme responded to KEQ #1

Demonstrating how we have responded to meet the needs of our students and stakeholders

In this first post we’ll look at the sources of data we can provide to demonstrate how we are meeting KEQ #1 (refer below), use a case study, the Learner Outreach Programme, and further examples, to demonstrate how we have responded to meet the needs of our students and stakeholders.

KEQ 1: How well do students achieve?

We will use data from these sources to respond to KEQ #1:

• Student achievement (Student Performance dashboard, course and qualification completions, student retention etc)
• Graduate Destinations
• Feedback from students, staff and other interested communities (Student Course Surveys and Student NPS dashboards, Staff Pulse Surveys, Industry Stakeholder feedback)
• Heads of School Evaluative Commentaries
• Students who don’t complete their qualification (Non-completion dashboard)

Case study: The Learner Outreach Project

The Learner Outreach Project got underway in late 2019 as part of our drive to improve student success. Since the project launch the resources allocated to this project include a trained Learner Outreach Advisor for each of our Schools. The LOP advisor is embedded in the School and works alongside teachers in outreach and pastoral support for all learners.

Its introduction was timely and during the COVID-19 lockdown the Learner Outreach Project proved an outstanding success, maintaining critical connections with all our learners. This is evidenced in the Student NPS rating of +19 despite COVID-19 lockdown, and in the high number of positive comments from students relating to support during lockdown.

Dedicated Learner Outreach Advisors work from a strengths-based kaupapa to provide a centrally-managed, distributed service that is coordinated with Schools’ teaching teams. Advisors maintain a database that brings together SEAtS attendance data, enrolment and grades information, School-specific data, and Advisors’ outreach data. The database is also used by School staff to help make timely interventions for at-risk learners.

During COVID-19 lockdown in Semester 1, the Outreach team was expanded to allow outreach to all learners. Over 5,000 outbound calls were made, reaching 87% of learners and identifying 1,307 who were at ‘high-risk’ and in need of support such as pastoral care, issues with online learning and access to digital devices.

A snapshot of further examples of student achievement evidence:

• Course completion – In 2019 our overall course completion rate was 82.9% – Refer to our Case Study: The Learner Outreach Project. Unitec has consistently performed 2% above the ITP sector benchmark from 2015-2019
• Cohort-based qualification completion – Our latest figures indicate that this rate is 58.2% for the 2020 reporting year. This is likely to rise further by the end of 2020. It is above the 2020 target of 56% and is a very encouraging result that indicates initiatives like ‘I See Me’ are leading to better outcomes for learners
• Retention and student satisfaction – First year retention in 2019 was 70.8%, just below our target of 72%, but above the ITP average benchmark. Our Student Net Promoter Score has steadily risen from -2 in 2017 to +19 in Semester 1 2020, and student course survey results for Semester 1 2020, an average of 8.1/10, are higher than in 2018 and 2019. We are working to improve retention through initiatives like the use of early low stakes assessment, the ‘I See Me’ initiatives and Hāpai `Ō, targeting courses with poor performance for first year Māori and pacific learners.

More on the KEQs…

Next week our focus will be on KEQ #2 – What is the value of the outcomes for key stakeholders, learners?

What are ‘key evaluation questions’ – KEQs?

The KEQs – key evaluation questions – are the questions that the EER panel are particularly interested in when reviewing institutions and are what we use when evaluating our programmes.

There are six KEQs; two are outcome questions and four are process questions. They ask us to talk to student achievement, value of outcomes for students and stakeholders, programme effectiveness in design and delivery, student support and engagement, governance and management, and compliance.

It’s important that you are familiar with the KEQs which are not only essential for our EER in October but for the day-to-day analysis of what we do, to ensure our academic quality supports and drives student success.

Getting familar with the KEQs

To learn more about the NZQA KEQs we’ll post a new story each week that captures an example of the KEQs in action, as well as the data and dcouments we have to demostrate how we have responded.

Posts in this series:

KEQ #2: How UPC’s partnerships respond to KEQ #2 – 17 September 2020

KEQ #3: EER key evaluation questions: Demonstrating how our Āta Kōrero programme responds to KEQ #3 – 30 September 2020