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QMU is committed to promoting an inclusive environment, to widening participation, to enhancing students’ ability to successfully complete their studies and to achieve their career and personal development goals. This finds particular expression through QMU’s stated ‘Purpose’ and ‘Values’, and is embedded in a number of strategies and policies, including the University’s Student Experience Strategy; its Learning, Teaching and Assessment Strategy [LTA], due to be published in 2025, and its Widening Participation Strategy. 

The diversity of the QMU student population has developed over the past 10 years in particular, as the University has worked increasingly in partnership with schools, colleges, voluntary and community agencies to bring into higher education groups of students who had not traditionally viewed higher education as relevant to their individual circumstances.  Some of these partnerships have been actively supported by funding from the University’s share of the SFC Widening Access and Retention Funding (WARF), while others have been developed through longstanding working relationships between staff of QMU and partner agencies.  

The University’s developing Learning, Teaching and Assessment Strategy (being launched in 2025) aligns with the QMU values of intellectual curiosity, social justice,  ambition, valuing the individual and encouraging collective support.  The Ambition Statements contained within that strategy articulate ambitions for all QMU students.

The LTA strategy will further enable and enhance the underlying principles of our Student Experience Strategy, namely that: 

•    All QMU students experience a transformative journey through outstanding learning and teaching and co- and extra-curricular opportunities that enable them to achieve their individual goals and enhance their well-being.
•    We share individual and collective responsibility for enhancing and placing the student experience at the heart of our thinking and practice.
•    We establish, maintain and contribute to communities and a learning environment that supports our students to flourish and succeed and actively influences wider society.

These strategies incorporate a view of learning as a lifelong process that engages learners at all stages of their adult life, whether they are learners entering higher education from a disadvantaged background, school-leavers following a conventional pattern of higher education, professionals seeking to further develop their knowledge and expertise, people who wish to prepare themselves for an active role as a member of their community, or staff of the University.  

The University’s Widening Participation strategy focuses in particular on:

•    Increasing student numbers from non-traditional groups
•    Extending collaborative working relationships
•    Promoting staff understanding of diverse student groups
•    Creating an appropriately supportive infrastructure

The University’s approach emphasises the importance of programmes that incorporate curricula and learning strategies that support diversity in the student body and which provide a variety of learning experiences.  This includes flexibility and innovation in the design and delivery of programmes that allow learners to step-on and step-off programmes, to study in hybrid forms, and with pro-active articulation links with external organisations to ensure the smooth transition of students into and through their University programme.    

This Student Retention Strategy builds upon and develops further the University’s existing retention initiatives, and draws on the particular lessons learned from such initiatives. 

We have a number of elements in place to enhance student engagement, persistence and retention. Transition, programme bridging, peer mentoring, the promotion of good scholarship, and the provision of academic skills support, within a framework of curriculum development and assessment review, are key aspects of the University’s student retention approach.

Our approach offers support to students at all levels throughout their student journey and beyond, recognising that promoting retention and success to all, benefits all. Initiatives are evaluated through various mechanisms, including student feedback. Evidence of outputs and impact are also detailed in end-of-year project reports. We also have a number of staff-facing initiatives to support optimisation of learning, teaching and assessment and the overall student experience.

We recognise that a range of factors contribute to student persistence, including good mental health and wellbeing, engagement in academic study and participation in social groups. Student resilience and persistence is promoted also by access to dedicated support for additional learning needs, through peer mentoring, by providing access to financial advice and financial support eg through scholarships and bursaries, and through targeted interventions at key transition points, from pre-entry through to post-graduation.

In particular, the dedicated financial support provided to QMU through the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) Widening Access and Retention Fund (WARF) has provided for the mainstreaming of activities designed to support identified groups of students ‘at risk’ in terms of progression and achievement.  These groups have included direct entrants from Further Education, those entering from identified Access routes, students from disadvantaged backgrounds identified through the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD), and more generally, mature entrants. The WARF continues to fund a number of core roles within the University, provides the means to fund longstanding programmes eg QMAdvance and PALS programmes, and provides important ‘pump-priming’ funding for emerging areas of activity. 

This Student Retention strategy builds upon and expands on these initiatives.  Notably, however, a key part of the action plan is to improve the evidence base on which such initiatives are developed. The outcome of that work may result in a shift in focus and approach over the planning period.

The external policy and funding framework continues to emphasise the importance of widening participation, social inclusion and the provision of appropriate student support systems that address and support diversity of needs. As noted above, specific funding is provided to the sector in the form of the Widening Access and Retention Fund, and the Disability Premium, both of which fund the development of appropriate student support mechanisms to enhance student progression and retention.  

Queen Margaret University recognises, and accepts, that not all of its students complete their course of study.  The loss of such students prior to award completion is recognised as a potential waste of talent that impacts both institutionally and nationally.   However, we recognise too that QMU’s modular programme structure promotes a degree of flexibility in the accumulation of SCQF credits that provides its students with the option of exiting with an award before their stated qualification aim. For many students, exiting Queen Margaret University with qualifications at SCQF levels 7 and 8 is a significant achievement, rather than the ‘failure’ implied in statistical terms. An ‘unpacking’ of this is an important part of the ‘evidence’ base which will direct the focus of the University’s initiatives.

The latest statistics, drawn from the undergraduate 2023/24 Annual Monitoring Reports, indicate that Level 1 students are the most likely to withdraw. Approximately 75% choose to leave their programme voluntarily, while the remaining 25% are required to withdraw due to academic failure, often linked to non-submissions. In contrast, the overall undergraduate data showed that approximately 40% of students were required to withdraw, while 60% withdrew by choice. The overall undergraduate retention rate was 91%, consistent with the figures for 2022/23 (90%) and 2021/22 (91%). However, the retention rate for new undergraduate entrants improved by 5% in 2023/24, reaching 89%.
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The University’s annual monitoring process requires that programmes consider and evaluate trends in student achievement and retention rates. These statistics are produced on behalf of programmes by administrative staff. Institution-wide analysis of data by programme and by student category is produced centrally, but the visibility of this in terms of institutional reporting is an area identified for development in this Strategy.

Research has shown that non-completion is rarely determined by a single cause, more a combination of personal, institutional, social and external forces eg finance, location, social class, availability [or lack] of guidance, age, caring commitments, support systems and much more. 

 
5.1    Sector Evidence on ‘What Works’

Key research findings emphasise the importance of creating a supportive learning environment that fosters student engagement, belonging, and confidence. 

The Advance HE publication , focussed on the following in particular:

•    The use of learner analytics to identify/predict students at risk of withdrawal and as an important data source for evaluating impact. Providing interventions early in the student journey and recognising the importance of early markers of achievement (assessment engagement and credit completion) is influential.

•    Student interactions with academic staff, classroom and campus are associated with an intention to persist. Pedagogic strategies which enable interaction are seen to validate a sense of being known and valued (belonging).

•    The importance of learning communities, in various forms, with the impact of peer interactions (mentoring, coaching, collaborative learning) particularly noteworthy in association to retention measures.

•    Interventions which enhanced (or could enhance) a sense of belonging, validation (or ‘mattering’) and self-efficacy were likely to positively impact persistence and retention – ‘mattering’ includes the provision of non-academic personal support such as financial aid.

This strategy recognises that student retention requires a holistic approach to the delivery of the whole student experience from recruitment through to graduation. The strategy recognises too that the Student Retention Strategy will not succeed if it stands apart from other key institutional strategies and priorities.  A firm and coherent link with the University’s Student Experience Strategy, Learning, Teaching and Assessment Strategy, Widening Participation and Student Services Strategies is critical. 

5.2    Retention – the student life cycle

This Student Retention Strategy recognises that the student life cycle provides a number of key phases and areas for intervention as follows:

Pre-entry and Admission

•    raising aspirations but matching expectations;
•    clear and accessible information;
•    pre-entry and admissions guidance;
•    diagnostic assessment; 
•    careful match to programmes.

Entry

•    transition and induction;
•    student orientation and ‘belonging’;
•    student financial, wellbeing and welfare support;
•    bridging the culture and skills gap.

 
Academic

•    academic skills support;
•    academic partnerships (internal and external);
•    academic and support team collaboration;
•    adapting academic practices to reduce disadvantage;
•    staff awareness and development;
•    first year teaching: experienced staff.

Institutional

•    recognising strategic and policy conflicts;
•    provision of valid data and statistics, to include exit interviews on withdrawal;
•    annual review and evaluation.

We acknowledge that an effective Student Retention Strategy must involve consultation with internal and external stakeholders, be appropriately resourced and be reviewed and evaluated regularly.  

The provision of high-quality data is essential to internal research into the identification of at-risk categories at QMU and to monitoring its success in meeting retention challenges. The capabilities of the University’s Student Record system are under-utilised in terms of the identification and tracking of groups of students who may be considered at risk in student retention terms.  Annual cohort analysis of student achievement rates [SARs] and student progression do not provide information at a sufficiently micro-level that is meaningful in the context of this strategy. 

Capacity building in data analysis underpins this strategy. This includes the development of effective attendance reporting, management and reporting. 

Learner analytics that track early engagement in the student journey also provides valuable data to enhance retention. The Virtual Learning Environment, Canvas, offers the potential to collect relevant data, such as interaction frequency and participation with learning materials.

In order to achieve appropriate focus and targeting of effort in relation to student retention, and to encourage student persistence, ensure academic success and increase graduation rates, the University will therefore:

(a)      adopt an evidence-based approach, through the provision and analysis of information (quantitative data and qualitative feedback) relating to student withdrawal and failure;

(b)    support a range of retention initiatives through targeted funding, within an identified timescale;       
(c)    seek to achieve an improvement in retention over the period of the strategic plan, ensuring that QMU performs, as a minimum, to its benchmark, and seeking to outperform that benchmark in targeted areas;  

(d)    recognise the diversity of Schools and Divisions across the University and provide opportunities for the establishment of strategies and priorities which, while clearly located within an institutional framework, are relevant to individual disciplines of study/specialist expertise;

(e)    develop transparent and robust monitoring and evaluation of initiatives affording the opportunity to report upon and gauge the success (or otherwise) of strategies at an institutional and local level.