Assessing the impact of an intrusive academic support initiative

Universities are accepting larger cohorts of students into undergraduate programs than ever before. These students come from diverse academic backgrounds and may be underprepared for independent learning as expected in higher education. An academic support initiative has been trialled in two second year Commerce subjects that have large cohorts of commencing students with many receiving exemptions for pre requisite units. Academically engaged students who did poorly on early tests were classified as ‘middle band’ and targeted for the intrusive intervention initiative. Such interventions are costly in terms of the university resources that are involved, including both professional and academic staff. The paper discusses how the real impact of such an academic support intervention might be considered and measured beyond the standard measures of GPA, student retention and progress for the targeted cohort, and financial cost/return to the university.