Student retention – Teaching & Learning Research Initiative

Addressing obstacles to success: Improving student completion, retention, and achievement in science modules in applied health programmes

1. The project and its context Addressing Obstacles to Success[1] was a two-year project that sought to address science achievement rates in applied-health undergraduate degree programmes at Waikato Institute of Technology (Wintec), with particular attention to Māori. Throughout their teaching careers, staff members at Wintec have heard many anecdotal stories about science being a “problem” for midwifery and nursing students. Research to inform retention strategies for Māori students studying midwifery at Wintec indicated that science was a potential barrier to their overall success (Gibson-van Marrewijk, 2005). Notwithstanding this anecdotal concern, the nature and extent of science as a “problem” for any student had not been systematically researched up to that point.

Improving tertiary student outcomes in the first year of study

1. Introduction Background Retention, persistence and completion in post-school education have been the focus of much attention in recent years – particularly in the USA, UK, Australia, and now in New Zealand. Governments throughout the Western world increasingly expect improved learner outcomes for money spent on post-school education. Data on early student departure highlight their concerns. For example, in the UK, Yorke (1999) estimated that such departure cost 100 million a year. In New Zealand, a Ministry of Education report (2005, cited in Gerritsen, 2005) showed that, from 1998 to 2003, 33 percent of the equivalent full-time student (EFTS) allocation was taken up by students who dropped out in their first