Report
Widening Regional and Remote Participation: Interrogating the impact of outreach programs across Queensland
National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education
2018
Appears in NTRO Research Collection
Abstract
Report prepared for the Australian Government Department of Education and Training.
Research Background
Participation in higher education is unequal, with students from regional and remote areas less likely to go to university. This project interrogated the impact of widening participation (WP) activities focused on students in urban and regional schools and explored the factors that affect school-leaver interest in pursuing tertiary study. The problem under investigation is the relative lack of change in the regional and remote low socio-economic status (LSES) cohort in Queensland in terms of their level of application for university study, compared to their urban low SES counterparts. This divergent pattern has been observed despite a coordinated effort by all public universities in Queensland to deliver similar WP activities in LSES schools across the state, including in regional and remote locations. The research question was: Why are school leavers from regional and remote LSES cohorts less likely to apply for university study than their urban LSES counterparts?
Research Contribution
This project enabled an evaluation of the landmark Queensland Widening Tertiary Participation Consortium initiative, launched in 2009 by the eight Queensland public universities. The key high-level finding from this research is that the approach taken by Queensland universities has proved effective where the WP program has been fully implemented and sustained at the school level. The project produced two tools—The Virtuous Cycle for Sustained Widening Participation Activity in Highly Engaged Schools and the comprehensive Analysis Framework for Differential Factors in Urban and Regional Locations.
Research Significance
The two-year project was funded by a grant from the Australian Government Department of Education and Training ($320, Cat 1) under the Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program National Priorities Pool competitive scheme. Recommendations for national policy and practice were made.
Details
- Title
- Widening Regional and Remote Participation: Interrogating the impact of outreach programs across Queensland
- Authors
- Nadine Zacharias (Author) - NCSEHEGeoffrey Mitchell (Author) - Queensland Department of EducationMaria Raciti (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast - Faculty of Arts, Business and LawPaul Koshy (Author) - NCSEHEIan Li (Author) - University of Western AustraliaDiane Costello (Author) - NCSEHESue Trinidad (Author) - NCSEHE
- Publication details
- 101 pages
- Publisher
- National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education
- Date published
- 2018
- Copyright note
- Copyright © 2018. Except where otherwise indicated, and save for any material protected by a trade mark, the Department of Education and Training, acting on behalf of the Commonwealth, has applied the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence.
- Organisation Unit
- School of Business and Creative Industries; Indigenous and Transcultural Research Centre; USC Business School - Legacy; Sustainability Research Cluster
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 99451375202621
- Output Type
- Report
- NTRO Classification
- NT2
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