Peer-mentoring of students in rural and low ses schools

Figures

1

Executive summary

The Bradley review of higher education in Australia (Bradley et al. 2008) indicated that rural and low socioeconomic status (SES) high school graduates did not pursue university education at the same rates as their metropolitan counterparts. In its response to the Bradley review, the Australian Government (Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations 2009) announced several changes in funding arrangements designed to address this limited access to higher education. Universities now receive additional funding (4% of total teaching and learning funding in 2012) for the enrolment of students from low-SES backgrounds. It is expected that universities will use this additional funding to provide support to students whose families might not have the social and cultural capital resources of high-SES families. The government also announced changes to student financial support. The ‘age of independence’ has been progressively lowered to 22 years, enabling more students who need to leave home to study to access financial assistance. The income threshold for students has been increased to $400 per fortnight (in 2012) before government financial support is affected.

Here we report on two related investigations. In the first, we use data from the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) to analyse data on students’ intentions for and their subsequent enrolment in tertiary education. We are particularly interested in the influence of students’ socioeconomic status and location (metropolitan or rural) on their tertiary study intentions and participation.

In the second investigation, we examine the influence of a mentoring program on students’ intentions to pursue tertiary education undertaken in one rural and one low-SES secondary school.

2Intentions, achievement and attainment of metropolitan and rural students

Although there is a marked difference in the participation rates of metropolitan and rural students in higher education (44.0% and 34.2% respectively), we find that this difference is explained largely by the lower socioeconomic status of rural compared with metropolitan students, their lower aspirations for post-school study and some related demographic characteristics, especially being of Australian rather than immigrant backgrounds. That is, location alone does not explain the lower rates of participation of rural youth in degree-level studies.

Lower aspirations for post-school study and for professional careers also characterise students from low-SES backgrounds.

3The mentoring program

The finding that low aspirations are a barrier to participation led us to consider the use of a mentoring program. Prior research (see, for example, Houston 1999 cited in DuBois et al. 2011) has shown that peer-mentoring is an effective method for raising the aspirations for post-school study among disadvantaged students.

Students in two schools (one rural and one low socioeconomic status) were involved in the peer-mentoring program. Across seven school terms, beginning in the students’ Year 9 classes, university mentors visited the school on average once a week during regular school hours. Each term lasted approximately 11 school weeks, with mentoring sessions ranging from an hour to a half a day. Mentors had discretion vis-a-vis the most effective use of their time, but in general they formed friendships with students, answered questions about university, helped students with applicable areas of work and, where appropriate, mentored students on career possibilities.

We collected data from students at six-monthly intervals and investigated the differences in higher education intentions at four points in time. Forty-six students participated in all four rounds of data collection. Students who had consistently received little or no mentoring reported lower estimated chances of attending a university following graduation from secondary school (M = 49%, SD = 28%), than those who consistently received moderate to high levels of mentoring (M = 65%, SD = 28.44%¹), regardless of which school they were from. Analysis of individual time points (which contained a larger number of participants, due to many students being involved in only one or two points of data collection) showed that, while intentions were slightly elevated for students who were mentored for a short time only, these were small non-significant gains (p > .05). This may indicate that, for these students, short-term mentoring is unlikely to have sustained effects on intentions to attend university and a belief that attending university is possible. Intentions to attend a TAFE (technical and further education) institute remained stable, regardless of mentoring. These results are promising for university—TAFE partnerships, as they indicate that university and TAFE aspirations may develop independently.

Introduction

The Bradley review of higher education in Australia (Bradley et al. 2008) recommended that the percentage of 25 to 34-year-old Australians who held a first degree from a university be raised to 40% nationwide to ensure that Australia continued to be a competitive country, relative to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) standards. The Australian Government subsequently proposed that this target should be met by the year 2025. The commitment from the government to increase the proportion of Australians with a first degree has important implications for university, TAFE (technical and further education) and private tertiary education providers. Further, the proposal raises an important question about the most effective method for achieving this target, while not restricting the number of skilled workers needed in the workforce who are trained through vocational education.

Two groups in which post-school university enrolment is low are rural students and those from low socioeconomic status (SES) areas (Bradley et al. 2008). While the Bradley review indicates that many moderate to high SES urban high schools have university transition rates of greater than 90%, the university transition rates of low-SES and rural groups were low and had declined between 2002 and 2007, which therefore makes these categories an obvious area of interest. The present report focuses on an analysis of extant data to identify the factors associated with the low school completion and post-school transition of rural and low-SES youth and reports on the use of one method for attempting to increase university participation: the use of mentoring programs to raise aspirations for university education.

Many factors may contribute to the difference in tertiary education participation between metropolitan and rural young people. Alloway et al. (2004) found that youth in rural areas were strongly interested in pursuing higher education following completion of a high school certificate. They attribute the perceived barriers to pursuing higher education (for example, distance, leaving one’s family) as reasons for rural students remaining in their community rather than pursuing higher education. Their view is not universally held, with James and colleagues attributing the low participation of rural students in higher education to low aspiration and low achievement (James, 2002; James et al. 2004; James, Anderson et al. 2008). In related research, Kilpatrick and Abbott-Chapman (2002) suggest that low family and community social capital contributes to rural students’ low participation rate.

Bornholt, Gientzotis and Cooney (2004) and Rothman et al. (2009) show that many rural students who are accepted into urban universities choose to defer their studies (or let their offers lapse). Many of these students report distance being a reason for deferral or letting their offers lapse. The Rural Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee (2009) argued that ‘rural and remote students face extreme financial and emotional hardships in their endeavour to access and complete tertiary education’ (p.75). Perhaps for these reasons there is strong support for higher education provision in rural areas (Drummond, Halsey & van Breda 2012), which would be consistent with the view that equal access to higher education should be seen as a fundamental human right (Godden 2007; United Nations 1948). However, the exercising of this right by students in rural and low-SES areas is unlikely to be straightforward, given the possible influences on their post-school intentions arising from community and family sources.

Khoo and Ainley (2005) found a strong connection between high school students’ intentions pre-completion and their actual educational pathways after completing school. This suggests that relevant topics for investigation are the relationships between these intentions and students’ location and socioeconomic status, and whether intentions to attend university can be modified through interventions. The first of these questions is the subject of the first investigation reported here.

With respect to the second investigation, Gale et al. (2010) identified numerous university outreach programs operating in Australia in an attempt to redress the low participation of rural and low-SES students in higher education. However, despite finding 59 individually identified projects in Australia operated by 26 individual university units, Gale and colleagues claim that many of these programs were aimed at Year 10 students and that many were one-off events. In light of this, the second investigation seeks to evaluate the effectiveness of a long-term intervention beginning in Year 9 — peer-mentoring. It is currently unknown if student intentions can be modified through programs such as these, and if so, how.