Report
2 November 2022
Summary
Equality gaps in higher education are complex and persistent. The sector faces ongoing challenges in understanding whether efforts to close these gaps are working. One such challenge is developing robust ways to assess progress towards longer-term goals for widening participation and student success.
TASO commissioned The Brilliant Club and researchers from the University of Cambridge to identify psychosocial outcomes along the path to eliminating equality gaps and develop robust scales to evaluate them.
Intermediate outcomes are those that occur following a targeted intervention or activity, and may include changes in behaviour, attitude, knowledge or skill. From the research literature, we know that several key intermediate outcomes are associated with both progression to, and success at, higher education.
Although pre-existing scales could be used to measure and evaluate higher education access activity, many are not fit for their intended purpose. This rapid review provides an overview of the intermediate outcomes that are most important for access to and success in higher education, and outlines how these outcomes can be measured using existing scales from the research literature. It is a comprehensive review, with 15 psychosocial intermediate outcomes reviewed, including critical thinking, academic engagement, motivation and sense of belonging.