The Influence of Support and Development Programs and Services on the Success of University Students from Low Socioeconomic Status Backgrounds
This project engaged a mixed methods approach to explore how the success of students from low socioeconomic status (low SES) backgrounds was impacted by their interaction with support and development initiatives offered by the division of Student Life and Learning at UNSW Australia. A quantitative database study was used to determine the impact of intervention on several academic success indicators, and multilevel modelling was applied to identify significant results. Student interviews provided experiential accounts of support initiative interaction, which were drawn on to qualify the link between interaction and success. The initiatives examined were academic writing, disabilities, counselling, educational and careers support services, and co curricular development programs. Findings show that low SES students accessed Student Life and Learning support initiatives at similar or (in the case of some initiatives) higher rates than their peers and that these interactions contributed in multiple and diverse ways to student success. The benefits provided by interactions were not limited to low SES students, although there is some evidence to suggest that academic improvements may be more pronounced for this cohort.