Reports

Our reports offer ideas, analysis, research and policy recommendations with the aim to provide evidence on what works to reduce equality gaps in higher education

Reports

View the insights and evaluation library

Report

Report | Making it everyone’s business: Developing theories of change for whole-provider approaches in higher education

15 October 2025

Success in higher education
Report

Report | Pathways into and through higher education for young people with experience of children’s social care

5 March 2025

Access to higher educationAttainment raisingCare-experienced studentsLow-income backgrounds
Report

Report | Student mental health in 2024: How the situation is changing for LGBTQ+ students

20 February 2025

Mental health and wellbeing
Report

Report | Understanding online mentoring delivered as part of multi-intervention outreach (MIOM) programmes

10 October 2024

Mentoring, counselling, coaching
Report

Report | Supporting disabled students: Mapping reasonable adjustments and transition support

10 October 2024

Disabled students
Report

Report | Student mental health in 2023: Who is struggling and how the situation is changing

10 October 2024

Mental health and wellbeing
Report

Report | Learning about evaluation with small cohorts

10 October 2024

Small cohorts
Report

Report | The current landscape of the delivery and evaluation of student mental health interventions

10 October 2024

Mental health and wellbeing
Report

Report | Addressing gaps in the participation of sandwich courses

8 October 2024

Additional study
Report

Report | Facilitating analysis of institutional data: practical steps for providers

24 September 2024

Institutional data
Report

Report | Education pathways: Equality gaps in earnings and employment

16 July 2024

Employment and employability
Report

Report | From vision to action: harnessing Theory of Change to tackle ethnicity degree awarding gaps

13 March 2024

Race and ethnicity
Report

Report | Using learning analytics to prompt student support interventions

21 February 2024

Learning analytics
Report

Report | School’s in for the summer: interim findings on the impact of summer schools

28 November 2023

Additional studySummer schools
Report

Report | Piloting methods to develop better evidence on student support

9 November 2023

Disabled students
Report

Report | Evaluating complex interventions using randomised controlled trials

13 September 2023
Report

Report | Student wellbeing over time: analysing Student Academic Experience Survey data for undergraduates and taught postgraduates

13 July 2023

Mental health and wellbeing
Report

Report | Approaches to addressing the ethnicity degree awarding gap

9 June 2023

Race and ethnicity
Report

Report | Evaluating multi-intervention outreach and mentoring (MIOM) programmes

17 May 2023

Mentoring, counselling, coaching
Report

Report | The value of higher education

3 May 2023

Employment and employability
Report

Report | The relationship between teaching and assessment methods and student outcomes during COVID-19

22 March 2023
Report

Report | Online teaching and learning in the time of COVID-19

22 March 2023

Online learning
Report

Report | What works to reduce equality gaps for disabled students

16 February 2023

Disabled students
Report

Report | The impact of curriculum reform on the ethnicity degree awarding gap

23 November 2022

Race and ethnicity
Report

Report | Rapid Evidence Review: Intermediate outcomes for higher education access and success

2 November 2022

Access to higher educationSuccess in higher education
Report

Report | Summer schools in the time of COVID-19

27 July 2022

Summer schoolsAdditional study
Report

Report | What works to reduce equality gaps in employment and employability?

4 July 2022

Employment and employability
Report

Report | The Wellbeing of LGBTQ+ Students

29 June 2022

Mental health and wellbeing
Report

Report | Impact evaluation with small cohorts: Methodology guidance

17 June 2022

Small cohorts
Report

Report | Typology of attainment-raising activities conducted by HEPs: Rapid Evidence Review

17 June 2022

Attainment raising
Report

Report | What works to tackle mental health inequalities in higher education?

17 May 2022

Mental health and wellbeing
Report

Report | Supporting access and student success for mature learners

21 April 2021

Access to higher educationSuccess in higher education
Report

Report | An investigation into the relationship between outreach participation and KS4 attainment / HE progression

31 March 2021

Attainment raising
Report

Report | Supporting access and student success for learners with experience of children’s social care

27 January 2021

Access to higher educationSuccess in higher education
Report

Report | Understanding the impact of interventions to address inequality in the student experience

19 November 2020

Employment and employabilityMental health and wellbeingAttainment raising
Report

Report | The impact of interventions for widening access to higher education

23 January 2020

Access to higher education

TASO reports

View the insights and evaluation library

Report

Report | Making it everyone’s business: Developing theories of change for whole-provider approaches in higher education

15 October 2025

This report examines how higher education providers can embed inclusion and reduce equality gaps through whole-provider approaches – institution-wide strategies that align policies, practices, and people around shared goals.

Success in higher education
Report

Report | Pathways into and through higher education for young people with experience of children’s social care

5 March 2025

This report examines how those with experience of children’s social care access and progress within higher education.

Access to higher educationAttainment raisingCare-experienced studentsLow-income backgrounds
Report

Report | Student mental health in 2024: How the situation is changing for LGBTQ+ students

20 February 2025

This report examines student mental health in the UK in 2024, with a particular focus on LGBTQ+ students, using survey data collected from thousands of undergraduates.

Mental health and wellbeing
Report

Report | Understanding online mentoring delivered as part of multi-intervention outreach (MIOM) programmes

10 October 2024

Mentoring is often delivered as part of multi-intervention outreach programmes, but it can be difficult to evaluate. This report outlines analysis conducted on two online mentoring programmes.

Mentoring, counselling, coaching
Report

Report | Supporting disabled students: Mapping reasonable adjustments and transition support

10 October 2024

Exploring the implementation of transition support and reasonable adjustments for disabled students, this report examines the experiences of disabled students and higher education provider staff.

Disabled students
Report

Report | Student mental health in 2023: Who is struggling and how the situation is changing

10 October 2024

Around one in six undergraduates now report experiencing mental health challenges, according to this analysis by The Policy Institute at King’s College London and TASO.

Mental health and wellbeing
Report

Report | Learning about evaluation with small cohorts

10 October 2024

To help higher education providers learn about how to evaluate interventions with small sample sizes, this project involved testing evaluation approaches that are suitable for small cohorts.

Small cohorts
Report

Report | The current landscape of the delivery and evaluation of student mental health interventions

10 October 2024

With an increasing need for more support for student mental health, this report provides insights from those involved in the delivery and evaluation of current student mental health interventions.

Mental health and wellbeing
Report

Report | Addressing gaps in the participation of sandwich courses

8 October 2024

Sandwich courses can help reduce equality gaps, but disadvantaged students are less likely to enrol in them – this research maps out barriers and solutions for students participating in sandwich courses.

Additional study
Report

Report | Facilitating analysis of institutional data: practical steps for providers

24 September 2024

This report sets out recommendations and two new resources which will help higher education providers develop and use their institutional data more effectively when evaluating student success.

Institutional data
Report

Report | Education pathways: Equality gaps in earnings and employment

16 July 2024

Through analysis of the earnings and employment status of over a million people by education pathway, this report looks at the size of the equality gaps in labour market outcomes.

Employment and employability
Report

Report | From vision to action: harnessing Theory of Change to tackle ethnicity degree awarding gaps

13 March 2024

The report provides key recommendations and insights to support the sector in developing theories of change for interventions that aim to address the ethnicity degree awarding gap.

Race and ethnicity
Report

Report | Using learning analytics to prompt student support interventions

21 February 2024

Learning analytics can identify students at risk of withdrawing from their studies and prompt support interventions. This report details two randomised controlled trials of these types of interventions.

Learning analytics
Report

Report | School’s in for the summer: interim findings on the impact of summer schools

28 November 2023

This report sets out interim findings of a randomised controlled trial on the impact of summer schools in getting students from disadvantaged and under-represented groups to participate in higher education.

Additional studySummer schools
Report

Report | Piloting methods to develop better evidence on student support

9 November 2023

To explore the effectiveness of using less commonly used evaluation methods to generate evidence, this report sets out the results of evaluations undertaken by four higher education providers.

Disabled students
Report

Report | Evaluating complex interventions using randomised controlled trials

13 September 2023

This report describes the different types of complex intervention and provides guidance on how to evaluate them using randomised controlled trials.
Report

Report | Student wellbeing over time: analysing Student Academic Experience Survey data for undergraduates and taught postgraduates

13 July 2023

This report analyses data to examine how the wellbeing of undergraduate and taught postgraduate students has changed over time, and how it varies according to demographic characteristics and circumstances.

Mental health and wellbeing
Report

Report | Approaches to addressing the ethnicity degree awarding gap

9 June 2023

The higher education sector has committed to tackling the ethnicity degree awarding gap; this report sets out findings from research on the different approaches being undertaken to reduce the gap.

Race and ethnicity
Report

Report | Evaluating multi-intervention outreach and mentoring (MIOM) programmes

17 May 2023

Partnering with three higher education providers, this report explores the impact of multi-intervention outreach and mentoring programmes, and the different ways these programmes can be evaluated.

Mentoring, counselling, coaching
Report

Report | The value of higher education

3 May 2023

This report explores the evidence on the value of higher education, and specifically the individual and societal impacts of disadvantaged young people graduating from higher education courses.

Employment and employability
Report

Report | The relationship between teaching and assessment methods and student outcomes during COVID-19

22 March 2023

This report sets out the results of a data analysis project to investigate the effect of teaching and learning changes during the COVID-19 pandemic on outcomes for disadvantaged students.
Report

Report | Online teaching and learning in the time of COVID-19

22 March 2023

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the adoption of online teaching and learning in higher education. This research explored the impact of this on student outcomes, focusing on disadvantaged students.

Online learning
Report

Report | What works to reduce equality gaps for disabled students

16 February 2023

A summary of an evidence review by the University of Lincoln, this report outlines the evidence on the effectiveness of interventions to address inequalities in higher education among disabled students.

Disabled students
Report

Report | The impact of curriculum reform on the ethnicity degree awarding gap

23 November 2022

A report summarising the evaluation of two curriculum reform interventions that aimed to narrow the degree awarding gap between Black, Asian and minority ethnic students and their white peers.

Race and ethnicity
Report

Report | Rapid Evidence Review: Intermediate outcomes for higher education access and success

2 November 2022

This rapid evidence review summarises 15 psychosocial intermediate outcomes, how they are measured, and the extent to which they are associated with higher education access and success outcomes.

Access to higher educationSuccess in higher education
Report

Report | Summer schools in the time of COVID-19

27 July 2022

This report shares interim findings of TASO’s evaluation of online summer schools taking place between June and August 2021 – the first of two randomised controlled trials of higher education summer schools.

Summer schoolsAdditional study
Report

Report | What works to reduce equality gaps in employment and employability?

4 July 2022

This report explores the existing evidence of what works to reduce employment and employability inequalities, and where gaps lie in existing research.

Employment and employability
Report

Report | The Wellbeing of LGBTQ+ Students

29 June 2022

This report explores the subjective wellbeing of LGBTQ+ students based on the analysis of data from the Student Academic Experiences Survey.

Mental health and wellbeing
Report

Report | Impact evaluation with small cohorts: Methodology guidance

17 June 2022

It can be challenging to generate effective evidence for widening participation interventions in higher education. This guidance looks at impact evaluation strategies which can be used with small cohorts.

Small cohorts
Report

Report | Typology of attainment-raising activities conducted by HEPs: Rapid Evidence Review

17 June 2022

This report is a review of the evidence on interventions and activities carried out by higher education providers to raise the attainment of school-age students.

Attainment raising
Report

Report | What works to tackle mental health inequalities in higher education?

17 May 2022

This report explores the factors affecting student mental health in higher education and provides an analysis of the interventions used to support them.

Mental health and wellbeing
Report

Report | Supporting access and student success for mature learners

21 April 2021

A report of a review undertaken to understand evidence around supporting higher education access and student success for mature learners, and a survey experiment on which institutional features are attractive to mature learners.

Access to higher educationSuccess in higher education
Report

Report | An investigation into the relationship between outreach participation and KS4 attainment / HE progression

31 March 2021

An analysis of the Higher Education Access Tracking (HEAT) Service’s dataset on the relationship between Key Stage 4 attainment and higher education progression.

Attainment raising
Report

Report | Supporting access and student success for learners with experience of children’s social care

27 January 2021

A report summarising the findings from research assessing the evidence base on activities designed to support access and success in post-secondary education for learners with experience of children’s social care.

Access to higher educationSuccess in higher education
Report

Report | Understanding the impact of interventions to address inequality in the student experience

19 November 2020

A review of the evidence for interventions that higher education providers might use to reduce inequality gaps in the student experience.

Employment and employabilityMental health and wellbeingAttainment raising
Report

Report | The impact of interventions for widening access to higher education

23 January 2020

A report on research undertaken by the Education Policy Institute on interventions aimed at widening access to higher education for the most disadvantaged students.

Access to higher education

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