Hi Tracey

 

For my project ‘Telling tales of higher education: a narrative enquiry into first year student experience’, I attracted students on arrival by attending their very large induction lectures (in academic Schools), where I explained the nature of the research. At the same time they received, in the lecture, a single page questionnaire briefly summarising the project and asking a few questions about themselves. (I needed a sense of their educational background, age, gender, disability etc., to cover a range of backgrounds.)

 

They were then asked to fill in their name and contact details on the sheet only if they were interested in participating in the project, and handed the sheets in at the end of the lecture. I had a high positive response rate – they were also offered a very modest £5 book token as a ‘thank you’ for participating - and was able to select from volunteers to give me a good range of respondents. This was a project using students’ personal stories: they talked freely about their experiences to me (digitally recorded) at the beginning, middle and end of their first year, and I analysed the texts comparatively. If you’d like to know more about it, you can read about it in a BERA paper at:

http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/171698.doc

 

All the best

Dilly

 

Dr Dilly Fung FHEA

Education Adviser

Education Enhancement

( 01392 264505 (or ext 4505)

[log in to unmask]

 

University of Exeter

Times Higher University of the Year 2007-08

 

 

 

 

Dear Colleagues,

I am the Project Officer on a 12 month project being run out of SPLASH (which is the academic skills centre at the University of Surrey) entitled 'Enhancing and Supporting the First Year Student Experience at the University of Surrey'. This project will produce recommendations for the services we are able to provide to first year students in SPLASH 09/10.

I am hoping to establish contact with as many first year students as possible, and as soon as possible, at the beginning of the Autumn semester. Can anyone give me advise on how best to 'encourage'  the first year students to take part in research (which in this case will focus on first year student expectations and experiences)? Has anybody had experience of  trying to engage students in taking part in research so early after arriving at university? At the moment my ideas include offering a cash prize in a draw in return for contact details, an advert in the student newspaper and possibly putting something on Face book.

I would be really grateful for input from anyone who has been in a similar situation and has found something that works well.

Tracey

Mrs T Armstrong
Project Officer
Supporting and Enhancing the First Year Experience at the University of Surrey
Student Personal Learning And Study Hub (SPLASH)
George Edwards Building
University of Surrey
Guildford
Surrey
Tel: 01483 683370