Invitation to tender: Evaluations of interventions designed to support student success (TASO/38)

What do you mean by interventions that support student success?

These are interventions that have an impact on positive student outcomes such as attainment, continuation and progression.

What are the eligibility criteria for higher education providers to bid on these projects?

The lead applicant must be a registered English higher education provider in the approved (fee cap) category.

Can a single institution submit more than one application?

Yes, and the applications will be considered independently of each other.

Would a proportion of institutional overheads (for example, estates and indirect costs) be expected within the budget?

A maximum overhead rate of 25% on staff costs will be considered for higher education providers. Please note that value for money forms part of the assessment criteria for applications.

What costs are eligible to be claimed within the budget?

To buy out staff time or recruit a research assistant, travel costs for attending workshops (if applicable), compensation for staff/students who participate in focus groups/interviews that relate to the project.

Will TASO broker the relationship between providers and the evaluator and commit to publishing the results? Thinking specifically of situations where null or negative results might be found.

Yes, TASO will be the contract managers and will ensure that providers and evaluators are appropriately introduced from the start, with inception meetings and workshops as necessary, in addition to holding regular meetings throughout the project timeline. TASO is committed to publishing results from all of our evaluations, regardless of the results, and has done so with all of our commissioned projects in the past. 

Are you interested in collaborative projects? I.e. two or more institutions working on the same research project together? 

Yes, absolutely. Please submit a single application in this case. It is likely the maximum funding for such a project would still be £35k+VAT (see call) and shared across the institutions.

Would you consider applications from providers where matched funding is provided by an external company (for example, the developer of a student success intervention) who are interested in robust evaluation of the intervention?

TASO’s position is that we would not accept proposals that include matched funding from a commercial company, because of concerns around transparency and independence. 

That said, we will consider proposals from providers that are collaborating with an external company or a commercial entity – for example, to evaluate a student success intervention that may be delivered via an app that a company provides, or to evaluate interventions by using data that is collected via a commercial analytics system – as long as the intervention is being delivered within a provider.

What level of support would be provided by the independent evaluator for the impact evaluation?

The independent evaluator will help refine your intervention’s theory of change, lead and design the trial protocol, provide advice and guidance on optimising your intervention or its rollout. The independent evaluator will report on the impact analysis.

Even if you have the skills and resources to carry out your own impact evaluation we will still expect the independent evaluator to carry out the analysis and impact reporting. This will not prevent you from carrying out your own though.

What level of support would be provided by the independent evaluator for the implementation and process evaluation (IPE)?

Regardless of whether or not you are conducting the IPE the independent evaluator will co-design the IPE with you. If you are conducting the IPE the evaluator will be expected to provide advice during its implementation. 

The evaluator will incorporate findings from the IPE into the final report.

What is the minimum sample size?

The minimum sample size is dependent on a number of factors related to the intensity of the intervention (and hence the effect on expected outcomes). For RCTs the size is also dependent on whether or not you can randomly allocate individual students to take part (individual randomisation) or you have to randomly allocate students from different courses to the intervention (cluster randomisation). For individual randomisation we would be looking at at least 100-150 individuals per group (treatment and control). For cluster randomisation you would need many tens of clusters.

Quasi-experimental designs tend to require even larger samples.

What do I do if there is pushback from ethics board and data governance leads who don’t want to implement whole-provider approaches where ‘some students’ don’t receive something that may benefit them. I was wondering what the views of the panels were in ways to address this?

If there is no evidence either way as to the effectiveness of the intervention (the principle of equipoise, see our ethics guidance – opens in new tab) then it is possible there may be backfire effects, that is, the intervention may do more harm than good. Here it is important to understand whether the intervention works and one of the most robust ways to do this is through a well-designed RCT or QED with an associated implementation and process evaluation.

When introducing a new intervention with the ultimate intention of delivering it to the whole student body we would recommend piloting on a small (but sufficiently large) sample through an RCT with an associated implementation and process evaluation.

Other options that can satisfy ethics boards:

• Temporarily withholding the intervention from half of the sample. For example, in our learning analytics project non-engaging students could receive either a support email or a phone-call. In the email-only group, students who were flagged as non-engaging a second-time received the phone-call intervention.
• Giving students in one group the option to receive the intervention. For example, in our learning analytics project non-engaging students could receive either a support email or a phone-call. In the email-only group, students were given the option to book a support phone call.

Are you expecting to evaluate new or established interventions, as interventions such as modules/curriculum changes take time to implement and be approved?

Interventions can be well-established or yet to be delivered, as long as they will be delivered during the project timeline (delivered across the Autumn 2025 academic term). For instance, a provider may want to propose an intervention that they have been delivering for a number of years but they have not evaluated yet. Equally, providers can propose a new intervention that has been designed and will be rolled out for the first time next academic year. Either way, providers need to provide sufficient detail on the intervention, as per the application form, to include information on the activities, target sample and the data to be (or which has been) collected. It is acceptable for these interventions to be part of an institution’s access and participation plan.

My main outcome data will not be available in March 2026, what do we do?

For example end of year marks or graduate outcome data will not be available until the summer or even later. In these cases we would look to use end-of-first-semester marks, or, perhaps your own graduate survey. Other suitable intermediate measures might include student engagement (such as attendance) or on-time assignment submission.