School’s in for the summer: interim findings on the impact of summer schools

Today, TASO published: ‘School’s in for the summer: interim findings on the impact of summer schools’ (PDF), a report examining the role of summer schools in encouraging disadvantaged and underrepresented students to participate in higher education.

The report outlines interim findings from a project designed to evaluate whether summer schools increase higher education participation rates among students from underrepresented and disadvantaged backgrounds.

‘School’s in for the summer’ presents interim findings from an evaluation of face-to-face summer schools that took place in summer 2022. The evaluation corroborates TASO’s previous finding that students who attend summer schools are very likely to be considering applying to university already. The evaluation also found that summer schools may have had a small positive impact on students’ perceptions of whether they will fit in at university.

Summer schools are a commonly-used method to increase participation rates but there is a lack of research about their causal impact. To generate causal evidence TASO conducted a randomised controlled trial of both pre- and post-16 summer schools implemented by five universities.

In July 2022, TASO published an evaluation of ‘online-only’ summer schools that were run in summer 2021 across eight universities. The interim findings can be found in our report: ‘Summer schools in the time of COVID-19’ (PDF).

In a follow-up survey administered in January 2023, the self-reported rate of application to higher education was very high – and similar – in both those who attended a summer school (91%) and those who did not (93%). However there was a low response rate to this survey (17%), and it is likely that those who self-selected to respond were already highly motivated.

The final report will be published in 2025 which will establish whether the summer schools achieve their primary outcome: increasing enrolment in higher education.

The interim findings are further outlined below:

• This report backs up previous findings that outreach activities do not always engage those students who may not be considering higher education as an option, not through lack of potential but lack of opportunity.
• A rethinking of recruitment strategies is vital if we are to identify those students who will benefit most from summer school support.
  
  Corroborating the findings from last year’s report, it is highly probable that those applying to a university summer school are already interested in attending higher education. Of those students responding to the pre-summer school survey, 95% reported being either ‘likely’ or ‘extremely likely’ to apply to higher education in the future.
• The survey findings indicate that the summer schools may have had a small positive impact on students’ perceptions of whether they will fit in at university. This is supported by the qualitative findings, with students expressing that their worries regarding socialising and meeting new people had been eased as a result of the summer school. On all other survey outcomes, the summer school appeared to have no effect, or a very minor positive or negative effect.
• The qualitative data also revealed the difficulty of providing an experience that is both representative of university life and, at the same time, age-appropriate.