Study and soft skills support (pre-entry)

What is it? Attainment-raising activities are interventions carried out by higher education providers (HEPs) to raise attainment of school-age pupils. Some of these activities aim to improve attainment through the development of study skills, by way of practical activities designed to enhance attitudes and techniques to improve learning.

Evidence?  The evidence on attainment-raising through development of study and soft skills is emerging. The outcomes that these interventions aim to improve are varied and their impact on attainment has not been systematically evaluated. Interventions are often delivered in combination, so isolating the causal impact of a particular activity on certain student outcomes is difficult.

Should HEPs adopt it? Interventions that support the development of study or soft skills are commonly cited by HEPs as approaches used to improve attainment. However, the literature shows little evidence of these interventions being evaluated. Therefore, this will be an important area to conduct more robust evaluation as HEPs expand their activities.

What is this intervention?

Study/soft skills interventions aim to help pupils to develop the skills needed to succeed in education through practical activities or support, often delivered in a group format.

Such activities focus on improving study skills – such as reading, critical thinking, essay writing, metacognitive strategies – or attitudes to learning. They are designed to help pupils improve how they approach and/or think about learning, equipping and/or motivating them to get better grades.

What is the target group?

The advice on this page draws on evidence from studies that investigate the effect of activities on outcomes for school-aged pupils, both primary and secondary.

How effective is it?

There is evidence that metacognitive learning strategies (which aim to improve the way pupils approach and think about studying) and more general study skills interventions can contribute significantly to attainment. For example, Mannion and Mercer (2016) conducted a quasi-experimental study to evaluate a whole-school intervention in the UK focused on metacognition. They found that the intervention led to a significant closing in the attainment gap between Year 9 Pupil Premium pupils and their peers. Similarly, a study in the US found that university students participating in an intervention aimed at increasing strategic learning (a component of metacognition centred around learning strategies) had higher Grade Point Average (GPA) scores than their peers (Weinstein et al., 2000).

Research has also found positive relationships between attainment and other soft skills, such as academic self-efficacy (Schneider and Preckel, 2017) and having a ‘growth mindset’ (Gutman and Schoon, 2013; Good et al., 2003).

There is also some evidence suggesting that a pupils’ sense of identity can influence their motivation. The identity-based motivation theory proposes that people interpret situations in different ways depending on which facets of their identity are most relevant at a given time, and that they prefer to act in ways that are consistent with these identities. Oyserman et al. (2007) tested an intervention that helped pupils see the connection between school and their future success. The intervention encouraged pupils to value obstacles and develop strategies to overcome them. The research found that the intervention increased the identity-based motivation among participants.

What features seem to be important?

We do not have a strong enough evidence base to make claims about which features of interventions aiming to improve study/soft skills are most important for raising attainment.

What don’t we know?

The impact of interventions carried out by UK HEPs to develop study/soft skills has not been systematically evaluated. Interventions in this category focus on the development of a range of different skills, which make comparison difficult. Furthermore, although ‘study skills’ were referenced by almost half of non-specialist HEPs in their access agreements (Anthony, 2019), they are often combined with other interventions which makes it difficult to isolate the causal impact of a particular activity on the student outcomes.

While there is evidence supporting the benefits of interventions that focus on ‘attitudes to learning’, these are not widely conducted by HEPs despite being promoted as high impact and low cost by the EEF (2018). There may be scope for HEPs to expand their activities in this area, while also isolating these interventions from others for more comprehensive evaluation.

Where does the evidence come from?

Eight relevant pieces of research were found, including three studies with a causal design.

Key references

Causal studies

Anthony, Anna (2019) ‘What works’ and ‘what makes sense’ in Widening Participation: an investigation into the potential of university-led outreach to raise attainment. (Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) thesis, University of Kent). Linked here.

Good, C., Aronson, J. and Inzlicht, M., (2003). Improving adolescents’ standardised test performance: An intervention to reduce the effects of stereotype threat. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 24(6), pp.645-662. Linked here.

Mannion, J. and Mercer, N. (2016). Learning to learn: improving attainment, closing the gap at Key Stage 3, The Curriculum Journal, 27(2), pp. 246-271. Linked here.

Other studies

Gutman, L.M. and Schoon, I., (2013). The impact of non-cognitive skills on outcomes for young people. A literature review. Linked here.

Oyserman, D., Fryberg, S. A., & Yoder, N. (2007). Identity-based motivation and health. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93, 1011-1027. Linked here.

Oyserman, D., Lewis Jr, N. A., Yan, V. X., Fisher, O., O’Donnell, S. C., & Horowitz, E. (2017). An identity-based motivation framework for self-regulation. Psychological Inquiry, 28(2-3), 139-147. Linked here.

Schneider, M. and Preckel, F., (2017). Variables associated with achievement in higher education: A systematic review of meta-analyses. Psychological bulletin, 143(6), p.565. Linked here.

Weinstein, C. E., Husman, J., & Dierking, D. R. (2000). Self-regulation interventions with a focus on learning strategies. In the Handbook of self-regulation (pp. 727-747). Academic Press. Linked here.