Closing the Awarding Gap: Universities Delivering on the 5 Steps to Success
In the recent years, the ‘awarding gap’ (sometimes referred to as the ‘attainment gap’) has become an important topic of discussion across the Widening Participation agenda.
The awarding gap is the difference between the number of first class and 2:1 degrees awarded according to student group. The largest gap is found between students from minority ethnic backgrounds.
This raises an important question for the sector: while universities are accepting more applicants from underrepresented backgrounds than ever, what happens on the student journey to stop these students from achieving the same as their peers?
In a 2022 report entitled ‘BAME Student Attainment at UK Universities: #ClosingTheGap’, Universities UK (UUK) and the National Student Survey (NSS) identified the five most significant steps universities need to take in order to tackle the awarding gap. These are:
Providing strong leadership
Having conversations on race and changing culture
Developing racially diverse and inclusive environments
Getting evidence and analysing data
Understanding what works
In this article, we bring together examples of institutions across the sector who are already delivering initiatives that respond to these recommendations. These case studies strive to provide food for thought for practitioners seeking to deliver on promises to closing the awarding gap, true to HE Professional’s commitment to act as a platform for sharing best practice across the sector.
Providing Strong Leadership
In order to effectively tackle the awarding gap, leaders in UK universities need to take action. By providing strong leadership, these professionals can establish a clear institutional commitment to closing the awarding gap, empower stakeholders and help to deliver accountability and transparency in the process.
In the report, UUK and NSS highlight a number of universities who are already delivering on this step. This includes:
KCL’s formal development programme for senior leaders and decision-makers
The University of East Anglia’s Court of Governors’ target to eliminate attainment differentials through a series of targeted interventions
The University of Exeter’s establishment of the Provost Commission
LSE’s use of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) as a guiding principle for their 2030 strategy
There are plenty of other examples from across the sector. For instance, London Metropolitan University have developed an institutional KPI on closing the awarding gap in the Vice-Chancellor’s corporate plan for 2020/21 – 2024/25.
Meanwhile, Swansea University has developed a unique mentoring programme that brings together students and senior leaders from across the institution.
These instances of strong leadership are important steps to starting a conversation about the degree awarding gap and establishing its eradication as an institutional priority. Swansea’s approach also further offers the opportunity for students to indicate their experience to senior leaders and create better understanding – and, importantly, build trust – between the university and its students.
Having Conversations on Race and Changing Culture
A key step in tackling the awarding degree is increasing awareness among students and staff and encouraging a culture of honesty, where individuals feel they can share their experience. This must be followed by meaningful action that amends existing barriers for students affected by the awarding gap.
KCL’s Conversation about Race (CAR) project is a fantastic example of how to engage stakeholders across the university in conversations about race that result in positive transformation.
The project saw the Student Outcomes team come together with Citizens UK and the students’ union (SU) to facilitate institution-wide conversations on race. The organisers delivered faculty-specific sessions to increase awareness of student experience that would influence faculty planning and strategy on closing the awarding gap.
In addition to increasing the visibility and priority of race, racism and anti-racism on the institutional agenda, the sessions facilitated action on decreasing the awarding gap by enabling decision-makers to better understand the experiences of racialised students to inform planning for an inclusive learning environment; supporting staff and students to reflect and deliver change; and providing insights that can be included in strategic planning.
Since its initial delivery, the project has continued at KCL, with sessions taking place on a termly basis.
For a more in-depth outline of this initiative and its results, see the Office for Students’ (OfS) report on KCL’s CAR project.
Developing Racially Diverse and Inclusive Environments
Research from across the UK higher education sector has frequently found a lack of role models and inclusive curricula to be a barrier to success for students from minority ethnic backgrounds. As such, a key priority for universities in addressing the awarding gap should be to find ways to provide meaningful representation for these student groups and adapt teaching and learning models to fit diverse needs, experiences and backgrounds.
Fortunately, there are plenty of institutions sharing insights from their efforts to deliver inclusive, decolonised curricula across a range of subject areas. We recommend UCL’s resource hub, which brings together important research, toolkits and a series of case studies, not just from UCL but from across the sector.
When designing new models of teaching delivery, including the students affected by the awarding gap is, of course, fundamental. UCL’s resource hub includes a case study of an initiative that saw minority ethnic students co-design an inclusive reading list on a Politics programme.
And, as closing the awarding gap closely concerns grades, it’s crucial to review assessment practices. Manchester Metropolitan University have established this as an important tenet of their work to reduce differentials in attainment. Their approach includes:
Clear communication of instructions, provided in multiple formats and on multiple occasions
Providing flexibility on submission by allowing students to submit work in formats other than written, such as audio and visual or group projects
Ensuring assistive technologies, such as TextHELP, are provided where necessary
The development of the UTA Assessment Design Toolkit, informed by the drive to close the awarding gap, which can be used across the university
In addition to teaching delivery, institutions are also working on delivering interventions across student services that seek to establish an inclusive environment that supports a racially diverse student body to be successful. Some great examples include Nottingham Trent University’s (NTU) Black Leadership Programme and London South Bank University’s (LSBU) Black Students Mental Health Project.
Crucially, all of these initiatives seek to create environments in which racialised students feel their experiences are accounted for and are supported to achieve success.
Getting Evidence and Analysing Data
While gathering qualitative evidence to support initiatives that address the awarding gap is important, data can also be a useful tool for understanding the scope of the gap and developing methods to tackle it.
However, knowing where to start can be a challenge. So, what are universities already doing?
MMU have developed an Awarding Gap dashboard using Microsoft Power BI. This resource allows the university to organise data according to different characteristics and, as a result, identify student groups that need more support.
Similarly, the University of Cambridge ran a series of Mind the Gap workshops. This provided staff across academic departments and professional services with guidance on how to access and interpret relevant institutional data, develop strategies to engage students to gather further data and share best practice across the university.
Finally, several universities, such as London Met, have introduced Value-Added score (VA) to measure differential attainment, engage academic and professional teams, and identify factors that may exacerbate the awarding gap.
In order for this data to be useful, it must be accessible. The University of East Anglia (UEA) has published a transparency return on its widening participation data concerning the awarding gap, which is open access and available to download.
Understanding What Works
Finally, to truly deliver on the awarding gap, universities must identify what works – and what doesn’t – to facilitate meaningful change.
‘Closing the feedback loop’ will be key to this. Student consultation shouldn’t just happen at the ideas stage; you should also seek the views of opinions of your students once initiatives have been rolled out, so that they can review its effectiveness.
Edge Hill’s establishment of a series of Student Advisory Panels is a great example of how universities can harness student voice and feedback in a cyclical, effective and impactful manner. For an in-depth exploration of this project and its outcomes, see Abi Cattlin’s case study on HE Professional.
It will also be important to monitor updates that follow TASO’s recent report, ‘Approaches to addressing the ethnicity degree awarding gap’. In the coming months, the organisation will be working with 6 providers on delivering an evaluation plan for interventions.
For further guidance on ‘what works’ when it comes to tackling the awarding gap, see Advance HE’s guidance, produced in collaboration with Kingston University, the University of Hertfordshire and the University of Wolverhampton.
Overarching themes providers may also want to consider to determine what works to close the awarding gap include:
Collecting and analysing data, such as attainment rates, degree classifications, and student engagement metrics
Tracking progress an identifying trends, which can then be used to inform decision making
Conducting mixed methods research that gathers both quantitative and qualitative data, e.g., through surveys and focus groups
Evaluating specific interventions by comparing outcomes for students in key groups
Collaborating with experts, such as equity research and evaluation
Benchmarking against other providers to gain insights to different approaches and identify areas for improvement
Collecting feedback from stakeholders such as students, staff and alumni
Disseminating findings and sharing best practice to advance sector-wide efforts to close the gap
Towards Equality of Access and Success
Tackling the awarding gap should be a central concern of the UK’s HE widening participation agenda. While increasing access for underrepresented students is crucial, ensuring those students have a fair and positive experience is an equally important part of the process.
This article has highlighted a range of examples from across the sector of institutions already delivering meaningful change in line with the steps laid out by UUK and the NSS.
