Evaluation of a Cognitive Behavioural Intervention (ThinkSmart) Aimed at Encouraging Young People to Engage in Higher Education

Abstract

he persistent patterns of under-representation of certain social groups at higher
 
 education (HE) identified that the current strategies used as part of the widening participation 
 agenda required revising. Outreach activities are the main strategy used by the widening 
 participation agenda to address the under-representation of certain groups of young people such 
 asthose from disadvantaged backgrounds at HE. owever, a shortage of robust evidence made it 
 difficult to determine the actual mpact and effectiveness of these outreach activities. This thesis 
 addressed this gap n knowledge by establishing robust approaches to designing and 
 evaluating outreach activities. To achieve this, a different perspective was taken; this 
 hesisdemonstrated howpsychology can improve the design and evaluation of outreach 
 activities.The use of psychological theories such as cognitive behavioural herapy and 
 attribution theory were demonstrated indevising the outreach ntervention ThinkSmart as 
 being valuable for outreach activities. The evaluationof ThinkSmart showed a short-term practical 
 significance, thus the intervention did have an impact on the recipients, this however, was not 
 sustained. To support the evaluation of ThinkSmart a measure of intention to engage with HE was 
 devised and validated, 'Students Intentions Towards University' (SITU) due to one not currently 
 existing in the literature, despite progression to HE being a key outcome for outreach activities. 
 To understand the effectiveness of ThinkSmart, unique to the thesis a process evaluation was 
 undertaken to explore the implementation process. The approach showed that the components 
 required for behavioural change were ignificantly under implemented, which impacted on 
 the overall success of ThinkSmart explaining to some degree the small short-term gains of 
 recipients. inally to support the development of well-designed interventions to impact on the 
 evident disparities in the patterns of participation in HE, as well as providing a ramework for 
 further research in this area, an ecological model of educational progression was devised. 
 The model established the importance of the individual in understanding how best to address the 
 objective of the widening participation; as this an explain why despite their background young 
 people can achieve. Therefore in summary outreach activities need to consider the individual but in light of the contextual factors presented in the model. This thesis hasdemonstrated that it is important to evaluate outreach activities robustly and to do so principles ofpsychology should be incorporated to improve the design and evaluation of outreach activities, to positively impact on the likelihood of non-traditional students, i.e. those from disadvantaged backgrounds engaging with HE, addressing the widening participation agenda objectives.