Providing effective interventions to ensure that students from all backgrounds can access and participate in higher education is becoming increasingly important, against a backdrop of structural barriers, the cost of living crisis, and rising levels of mental ill health in students.

But what is an ‘effective intervention’, and how do we demonstrate it? The TASO Annual Conference, ‘How to Evaluate’ (Nottingham, 7–8 May) will give you the tools and knowledge you need to evaluate your interventions and show their effectiveness.

As the Office for Students is also placing a greater focus on the importance of evaluation in access and participation, this is a timely event, packed with talks, tools and tips about robust evaluation that meets the required evidence standards.

Demonstrating cause

Robust evaluation demonstrates what works and what is effective. When evaluating an intervention, the evidence may demonstrate that interventions are associated with positive results. Or the evidence may demonstrate that interventions cause those positive results. At TASO, our role is to help you produce more of the causal evidence that tells us which activities and approaches are most effective.

For those of you working in roles that focus on access and participation or student success, it is now more important than ever to effectively evaluate your interventions to find out what works.

Evidence types

Type 1 – Narrative: there is a clear narrative for why we might expect an activity to be effective. This narrative is normally based on the findings of other research or evaluation.
Type 2 – Empirical Enquiry: there is data which suggests that an activity is associated with better outcomes for students.
Type 3 – Causality: a method is used which demonstrates that an activity has a ‘causal impact’ on outcomes for students.

Type 3 evaluations give more confidence than Type 2 because they use more robust methodologies including experimental or quasi-experimental design.

At TASO, our role is to help you produce more of the Type 3/causal evidence that tells us which activities and approaches are most effective.

A packed agenda across two days

For this year’s conference, we have developed a programme to help you develop the skills and knowledge to create robust evaluation plans that lead to evidence about what works.

We’re delighted to welcome John Blake, Director for Fair Access and Participation, Office for Students (OfS) as our keynote speaker on the first day. John oversees the OfS’s activity on equality of opportunity in higher education, with a focus on regulation of access and participation. He helps ensure that universities and colleges are supporting learners from all backgrounds to access and succeed in higher education.

You’ll also hear from sector leaders on holistic approaches to closing equality gaps and be part of expert discussions on reducing equality gaps in graduate outcomes.

There will be seminars on topic-specific evaluations, including developing evaluation plans for attainment-raising and ethnicity degree-awarding gaps initiatives.

‘How to Evaluate’ also includes practical sessions on quasi-experimental designs, tailored seminars on key impact evaluation methods and interactive sessions on measuring intermediate outcomes.

Networking and not-working

‘How to Evaluate’ also provides an opportunity for you to network with colleagues and peers, forging connections, hearing from experts, and sharing experiences with those in similar roles from across the UK.

Use your ‘not-working’ time effectively, and make best use of time out of the office to develop a thorough understanding of the evaluation process, learn about causal evidence and Office for Students’ requirements, and discover how to use evidence from evaluations to make effective decisions.

Join us at the East Midlands Conference Centre in Nottingham on 7-8 May to improve your evaluation skills, learn from experts and connect with peers.