News8 January 2025
Note: This article was updated on 27 January 2025 to reflect new dates for the application process.
While great strides have been made in narrowing equality gaps in access to higher education, more needs to be done to ensure that these students succeed, once they are in higher education.
Currently, there are gaps in continuation and completion rates and attainment related to socio-economic disadvantage, ethnicity, disability and age. Higher education providers offer a range of interventions to address these issues and as a sector, we need to identify which interventions are most effective.
At TASO, as we continue to support the sector to conduct robust evaluation, we are launching a new project to evaluate student success programmes and inviting higher education providers to collaborate with us.
Evaluation is critical to understanding if and how our interventions are having the desired impact. We want higher education providers to continue with strategies that work to support student success – and identify those that don’t work – so that, as a sector, we can focus resources and funds effectively. We also want to gather evidence that will help us understand what makes certain interventions effective, and how they are implemented, so other providers can learn from these findings.
Types of evaluation
TASO will appoint providers to work with an independent evaluator to test the impact of their student success activities. We will use methods that can establish a causal relationship between an intervention and outcomes using either randomised controlled trials (RCTs) or quasi-experimental designs (QEDs). QEDs rely on naturally occurring or constructed treatment and comparator groups rather than by random assignment.
Each impact evaluation will be accompanied by an implementation and process evaluation which will use quantitative and qualitative data to determine who the intervention works for, in what situations it works and why it works (or doesn’t).
Types of intervention
The exact interventions to be evaluated and the appropriate evaluation methodology will be decided via an open commissioning process. TASO will select partner providers based on factors including feasibility of the intervention for testing, how widespread/scalable the approach is, and the availability of data for evaluation.
Suitable interventions include but are not limited to:
- Curriculum-based interventions such as changes to teaching, assessment or content.
- Support for students’ transition into higher education and between stages within higher education.
- Interventions prompted by learning analytics systems.
- Financial support such as income-contingent bursaries.
- Mentoring/coaching.
- Work experience or placements.
Possible outcome data could include attainment, continuation, progression, engagement, academic self-efficacy, or belonging.
Application process
The invitation to tender will open in February 2025 and follow a two-stage process.
Stage one: 3 February–7 March 2025
This is a light touch application form where we will gather sufficient details about your student success programme to determine the feasibility of evaluating the intervention using causal quantitative methods
Stage two: 17 March–6 May 2025
Based on the data gathered from the first stage we will invite a more detailed application from those providers who have put forward interventions we deem most suitable for evaluation with RCTs or QEDs.
Who should apply?
- TASO is seeking to select, and work with providers (or groups of providers) who are interested in evaluating their student success activities.
- The lead applicant must be a registered English higher education provider in the approved (fee cap) category.
- Applications involving programmes or interventions that are delivered collaboratively across multiple higher education providers, or with other organisations, are welcome.
- An independent evaluator for the project will be commissioned to support the participating providers.
When will the project take place?
- We expect to launch invitations to tender week commencing 3 February 2025.
- We plan to hold a webinar week commencing 10 February 2025 to provide more information for potential applicants.
- The deadline for the first stage of proposals is 7 March 2025.
- Providers deemed to have interventions that are suitable for evaluation will be contacted week commencing 17 March 2025 and asked to submit more detailed information by 6 May 2025.
- The final decision will be made in May 2025.
- The project is likely to start with a scoping phase in June to September 2025, before moving on to data collection in the autumn.
- The length of the project will depend on the interventions being evaluated but could run for one academic year with interim reporting in March 2026 and final reporting in early 2027.
Information session
Join us on 11 February (11:00–12:00) for a webinar providing guidance and insights for our latest ITT, focused on evaluating interventions designed to support student success.