Entry Courses

Main idea

Outline

Goals

• Students can refresh their prior knowledge from secondary school to facilitate their transition to higher education.
• Entry Courses introduce new material to the prospective students in case the profile of the students who enrolled doesn’t exactly match the study programme (e.g., students who want to teach hairstyling in the future but who have never learned to do this themselves). This facilitates their transition to higher education.
• Students can already discover their future campus and meet lecturers and students from their study programme.

Students involvement

Students are involved in the delivery of some of the Entry Courses (e.g., as trainers).

Inspiration and evidence

There has been a study by the Office for Trajectory Coaching at AUAS which has shown the importance of social integration and students’ affinity with their study programme. The Entry Courses have been adjusted based on this study.

Success criteria

• Students can discover their campus and meet others in their study programme through the Entry Course.
• Participating in an Entry Course is voluntary.
• Due to the link to study departments, study programme specific material can be used as an example during the courses. This way the courses are more in line with the students’ interests.

Points of attention

• It would be nice to offer some more Entry Courses as online tools for students to use at their own pace (e.g., from the moment they receive their login code).
• Sometimes the courses overlap with what students learn in the induction week, this should be avoided.
• The study departments decide on the fees for the courses, so these prices vary greatly depending on which course at which department. Ideally, the Entry Courses would be free of charge.
• It would be beneficial to track the effectiveness of the courses.
• The courses take place on campus and most of AUAS’ campuses are accessible for people with a physical disability, but it might be helpful to evaluate the other ways in which the Entry Courses are or aren’t accessible to other students.

Effectiveness

The students are asked if they feel more motivated or confident because of the Entry Course.

Do you feel you can effectively provide the support that students require?

Would you recommend this to other institutions?

strongly agree

Evaluation

The Entry Courses are evaluated biyearly with the participating students. This is done with an online survey which contains questions about:

• students’ satisfaction (e.g., their opinion about the lecturer and the material),
• the background of these students (e.g., for which study programme they enrolled),
• how they found out about the course,
• if they noticed an increase in motivation and confidence,
• …

Evaluation results

In general, the courses are evaluated positively. Some of the things the students mentioned are that:

• the Entry Courses often overlap with what students learn in the induction week,
• they were happy because they already met someone in their study programme through the Entry Course.

What has been adapted?

The decision to link the courses to a specific study department was partially made based on the results of previous evaluations.

Communication

The Entry Courses are mentioned on the AUAS website and on the ‘welcome’ page for new students on AUAS’ online platform. Prospective students can also receive a flyer on info days. Students can be referred to an Entry Course by their parents, lecturers, diversity coaches, study coaches, etc. as well.

The communication about these courses is targeted towards all (prospective) first-year students.

Timing

The Entry Courses take place in the week before classes start. Although this timing is ideal because the classes haven’t started yet, some students can’t come to the courses because they’re still on vacation

Resources

There’s a lot of time and staff needed to organise these courses.

Extra information

• Entry Courses at AUAS

Transferability

We think it is quite easily transferable to other contexts or groups.

In theory this initiative is quite easily transferable, but in practice it takes a lot of time and staff to set up. There’s a lot of practical issues one must consider if they want to organise these types of courses.

Universal design

The design of this initiative was not based on the principles of universal design. The courses take place on campus and al of AUAS’ campuses are accessible for people with a physical disability, but it might be helpful to evaluate the other ways in which the courses are or aren’t accessible to other students.