Position Paper: Foster Academic Integration for Improved Pass Rates in

First-Year Units

Charanya Ramakrishnan

School of Computing, Macquarie University, Australia

Keywords:

Retention, Attrition, Higher Education, Academic Integration.

Abstract:

High attrition rates in higher education are a signiﬁcant concern for universities. To address this issue, univer-

sities implement retention programs that promote social and academic integration to mitigate dropout rates,

primarily focusing on ﬁrst-year students. This position paper advocates for a unit-level approach to enhance

the effectiveness of academic integration and foster positive student experiences. The proposed retention

plan outlines key initiatives such as assessment restructuring, improving student-staff relations, introducing

a “HELP” lifeline, supporting at-risk students, and offering consultation hours for repeating students. These

strategies are a work in progress intended for a trial in a ﬁrst-year programming unit, considering potential

counter-arguments and their impact on students’ academic journeys. The purpose of this study is to analyse the

effectiveness of the proposed retention plan on pass rates and academic integration. The expected outcomes

of this study are to improve pass rates and to measure the degree of academic integration through student

feedback surveys.

1 INTRODUCTION

Transitioning to higher education poses an array of

challenges for many students. Shifting from a struc-

tured high school environment to a self-managed one

can be overwhelming. Navigating university pro-

cesses and systems, integrating into social circles, and

forming connections presents an immense undertak-

ing. Understanding multiple unit timetables, manag-

ing assessment deadlines, and comprehending course

content complicate an already demanding academic

journey. The Universities Australia report “Higher

Education Facts and Figures” shows that only about

seventy-ﬁve per cent of students who start their higher

education complete it (Universities Australia, 2022).

Retention initiatives are created with an aim to tackle

high dropout rates and are directed primarily towards

ﬁrst-year students who contribute to the highest at-

trition rates (Chrysikos et al., 2017; Williford and

Schaller, 2005). The initiatives focus on improving

social and academic integration, identiﬁed as the two

signiﬁcant factors contributing to students’ academic

performance (Liu and Liu, 2000; Tinto, 1975).

This position paper proposes a new retention plan

to improve academic integration for ﬁrst-year stu-

https://orcid.org/0009-0009-7704-5868

dents. The proposed retention plan will be tested in

a large programming unit offered by Our University’s

School of Computing to increase pass rates and evalu-

ate the level of academic integration. The trial will use

quantitative and qualitative methods to assess the ef-

fectiveness of the proposed retention plan. The study

aims to document the results and determine whether

the proposed retention plan effectively achieves its in-

tended outcomes.

The paper covers four main aspects: ﬁrstly, it ex-

amines the context of retention in higher education

and the literature emphasising the signiﬁcance of so-

cial and academic integration; secondly, it highlights

the challenges within the ﬁrst-year programming unit

and provides a comprehensive understanding of the

issues at hand; thirdly, it presents the proposed re-

tention plan; Lastly, the paper explores the counter-

arguments and limitations associated with the pro-

posed plan. The paper outlines a position on the reten-

tion plan and explains the rationale behind supporting

its implementation. Currently, the work is in the early

stages of trial and development. It is important to note

that the scope of this paper is limited to students who

learn in a face-to-face environment.

Ramakrishnan, C.

Position Paper: Foster Academic Integration for Improved Pass Rates in First-Year Units.

DOI: 10.5220/0012688000003693

Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

In Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU 2024) - Volume 2, pages 565-572

ISBN: 978-989-758-697-2; ISSN: 2184-5026

565

2 RETENTION IN HIGHER

EDUCATION

The meaning of retention may vary depending on the

context in which it is used. Retaining students in a

particular School or Faculty is the primary focus of

retention in the context of a School or Faculty. For a

university, retention means keeping the students en-

rolled within the institution. For a government, it

means a student completing their education. For the

scope of this paper, retention refers to students contin-

uing their education every year until the completion

of their degree (Adusei-Asante and Doh, 2016). The

reason for emphasising graduation is because gradu-

ating with a degree directly correlates with being em-

ployable (Hershbein and Kearney, 2014). Despite re-

search and empirical data pointing to that, we have

students dropping out of universities. Universities

have a social responsibility to help students gradu-

ate and a ﬁnancial motive to address the attrition rates

(Lawrence, 2017).

Research on retention is a widely researched topic

in higher education (Tinto and Pusser, 2006). Stu-

dents face various challenges that include but are not

limited to social, emotional, economic, and health

(McInnis, 2001). Studies have shown that the primary

reason students drop out is a lack of sense of belong-

ing, and integration is the key to connecting students

(Bean and Eaton, 2001; Tight, 2020; Tinto, 1975;

Tinto, 2004). Research has identiﬁed two types of in-

tegration that help decrease university attrition rates:

social integration and academic integration(Braxton

et al., 2000; Liu and Liu, 2000; Tight, 2020; Wolf-

Wendel et al., 2009; Zepke and Leach, 2005). This

section provides insights into social and academic in-

tegration, including the factors that impact integra-

tion. It also discusses the proposed retention plan,

which aims to improve academic integration.

2.1 Social Integration

Social integration is the extent of how connected a

student feels to the university environment they are

in (Gail Thomas and Hanson, 2014; Leese, 2010).

If the students feel connected to their peers and the

academic community and empowered by their social

connections, they are more likely to persist and avoid

dropping out of their degree. On the other hand, if

students feel disconnected and isolated in their univer-

sity, it tends to increase the attrition rates (Bean and

Eaton, 2001; Pedler et al., 2022). Positive experiences

play a pivotal role in fostering student persistence,

while negative experiences often lead to students dis-

continuing their degree programs. Many universi-

ties adopt high-impact practices for student success,

such as orientation week seminars, student groups and

learning communities to foster robust social connec-

tions (Kuh et al., 2008; Scott et al., 2008).

2.2 Academic Integration

Academic integration is the extent of how empowered

a student feels in their academic journey. The fac-

tors affecting academic integration include students’

academic performances, growing conﬁdence in their

subject area, engagement with the units and the fac-

ulty, and an overall positive experience in their learn-

ing journey (Astin, 2014; Scott et al., 2008; Zepke

and Leach, 2010). Creating a positive academic en-

vironment conducive to student success relies signif-

icantly on the pivotal role played by academic staff,

and this involves their decisions in designing curricu-

lum and assessments, creating engaging, supportive

and inclusive learning spaces, and offering support

beyond the classroom (Chrysikos et al., 2017; Lakhal

et al., 2020). It is also worth noting that studies have

found that academic integration programs by them-

selves have been unsuccessful, and the initiatives or

programs that work must also collaborate with the so-

cial integration initiatives (Pan et al., 2008).

2.3 Factors that Impact Integration

There are a multitude of metrics that could impact

their degree of social and academic integration, such

as their socioeconomic status, age, ethnicity, and gen-

der (Samoila and Vrabie, 2023). Research also indi-

cates several decision-making factors contributing to

students’ decision to complete their degree. These in-

clude students’ background before entry into higher

education, their initial goals and career aspirations,

their experience with the university, integration into

the university community and the collective impact

on their altered objectives and career goals (Liu and

Liu, 2000).

2.4 Unit-Level Retention Plan

This paper proposes a new retention plan as an aca-

demic integration initiative at the unit level. Although

universities usually create and manage social and aca-

demic integration programs in partnership with facul-

ties and schools, no research currently exists on an

individual unit-level retention plan. Developing aca-

demic integration initiatives at the unit level can en-

hance students’ learning experience, foster a sense of

empowerment, and facilitate better integration with

peers. The creation of academic integration initiatives

CSEDU 2024 - 16th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

566

at the unit level enables us to address the issue of aca-

demic integration at its foundation by focusing on the

classroom environment where learning begins.

The proposed retention plan includes the fol-

lowing: redesigning the assessment structure, cre-

ating engaging and inclusive learning and consulta-

tion spaces, increasing the student-staff contact hours,

providing extra support for students repeating the

unit, and providing students with opportunities to

learn and attempt assessments with extended dead-

lines. This plan will complement the existing stu-

dent support systems of the university, such as the

PASS (Peer Assisted Study Sessions), which have

been shown to have a positive result in retention out-

comes (Dawson et al., 2014; Van der Meer et al.,

2017).

3 UNDERSTANDING THE

PROBLEM

The selected unit is an Introductory Programming unit

with nearly two thousand students yearly across two

semesters. Universally, the failure rate in an intro-

ductory programming unit is at 28% (Bennedsen and

Caspersen, 2019). Historically, this speciﬁc unit has

also experienced similar high fail rates and was iden-

tiﬁed for process improvement. Students who fail a

ﬁrst-year unit are at a higher risk of dropping out of

university, thus leading to a low retention rate (Aj-

jawi et al., 2020; Chrysikos et al., 2017). This makes

the selected unit a prime candidate for implementing

the proposed retention plan. It is also essential to

understand the challenges present within this unit to

understand the implementation of academic integra-

tion. This section outlines the unit’s challenges which

include assessment structure, low student-staff con-

tact hours, and low attendance in the SGTAs. SG-

TAs (Small Group Teaching Activities) are practical

lessons commonly known as tutorials or workshops

with less than ideally thirty students in a classroom in

this particular unit.

3.1 Structure of Assessments

The unit had one major programming assessment due

at the end of the semester, with a checkpoint as-

sessment at the halfway mark and fortnightly mod-

ule exams, each assessing students on a separate topic

area: the module exams served as hurdle assessments,

requiring students to pass them collectively to pass

the unit. The number of module exams could be

deemed overwhelming, and there existed a misalign-

ment in the difﬁculty levels between the checkpoint

assessment and the major work. Overall, the assess-

ment workload was identiﬁed as substantial for a ﬁrst-

year introductory unit. A heavy assessment workload

could overwhelm students and contribute to adverse

retention outcomes (Smith, 2019).

3.2 Student-Staff Contact Hours

The learning activities for this unit consisted of two

hours of lectures and two hours of SGTAs. Besides

the four contact hours with the staff, there were only

a few scheduled contact hours between students and

staff unless students initiated appointments to seek

clariﬁcation for their doubts. Increased contact hours

with staff help with academic integration (Scott et al.,

2008). Providing more staff contact hours with stu-

dents was identiﬁed as an area for improvement.

3.3 SGTA Format

During the SGTAs, students worked on a worksheet

with questions to work on at their own pace and clar-

ify any doubts with the teaching staff. Although a

structured approach was provided to students to ad-

dress the tasks, attendance rates were notably low

in the SGTAs. Research shows that student atten-

dance and participation in learning activities result in

better student performance (Cabo and Satyanarayana,

2018). Students exhibited a lack of self-motivation

to engage with the tasks, presenting challenges for

teaching staff to effectively interact with all the stu-

dents, given the individualised pace at which each stu-

dent worked. In the SGTAs designed for self-study

with a guide on the side, the teaching staff encoun-

tered difﬁculties in handling repetitive questions, al-

locating time efﬁciently, and instilling motivation for

successful task completion. Restructuring the format

of the SGTA was also identiﬁed as an area of improve-

ment.

4 THE RETENTION PLAN

Research indicates that academic failure in one or

more units increases the chance of dropping out of

the degree fourfold (Ajjawi et al., 2020). Implement-

ing a retention plan in every unit can facilitate bet-

ter academic integration. This plan involves applying

learning design principles, such as integration, bal-

ance, gradual, and engaging content, to promote stu-

dent retention (Weller et al., 2018). It also recognises

that creating supportive learning environments, ac-

tive learning spaces, and facilitating student-staff in-

teractions are essential to enhance student experience

Position Paper: Foster Academic Integration for Improved Pass Rates in First-Year Units

567

(Coates, 2006).

This section outlines ﬁve areas of student support

initiatives within the proposed retention plan, as illus-

trated in Figure 1.

Figure 1: The Proposed Retention Plan.

4.1 Restructuring Assessments

The major work assessment has been divided into two

programming assessments, encouraging students to

attempt an assessment earlier in the semester for early

feedback. It also aims to help students understand the

fundamental concepts to motivate early progress.

The module exams are restructured into three in-

stead of six, with the ﬁrst exam earlier in the semester,

which also serves as an early intervention assessment

and provides feedback before the census date, which

is a date that the students can drop out of a unit before

to avoid any academic penalties.

A weekly submission assessment has been intro-

duced to encourage students’ attendance in the SG-

TAs and active participation in the unit. Students

submit their responses to a worksheet during SGTAs

each week, each worth one per cent of the unit total.

The worksheet has approximately eight questions the

teaching staff would collaboratively explore with the

class, fostering an interactive and engaging learning

space. In the last 15 minutes of the SGTA, teaching

staff would randomly select two questions from the

worksheet for the assessment submission.

4.2 Improving Student-Staff Relations

Establishing positive student-staff relations is crucial

in ensuring a positive academic experience for the

student (Thomas, 2002; Weller et al., 2018). Reg-

ular announcements will be posted weekly to main-

tain student engagement with the unit. To further en-

hance student-staff interaction, ongoing consultation

hours will be allocated in the budget, providing stu-

dents with additional contact hours with the teaching

staff. Midway through the semester, catch-up sessions

will be offered to assist students in understanding any

missed or unclear unit content, all contributing to cul-

tivating positive student-staff relations.

A highly motivated teaching team has been cre-

ated, and the expectations have been clearly deﬁned.

Regular weekly review meetings are planned to set the

SGTA expectations for the teaching staff for the up-

coming week. They are also aimed at collecting feed-

back based on the previous week’s experiences and

addressing any challenges encountered by the staff,

thereby fostering a sense of community among the

team members. The weekly meetings can be very

insightful for the retention staff to obtain insights on

issues related to low attendance or engagement, stu-

dents’ expectations, and performance in the SGTAs

and the unit overall.

4.3 Introducing the HELP Lifeline

The HELP lifeline is a unique initiative that sets this

retention plan apart. Students experiencing anxiety

or feeling overwhelmed can use the “HELP” lifeline,

which is an acronym for “Helping Every Learner Per-

sist”. This lifeline allows them to defer the submis-

sion of assessments, including exams worth 10% or

more, to a later date. The unit convenor and the reten-

tion staff set the delayed deadlines at the beginning

of the semester so that students can plan their studies

accordingly. This ﬂexibility enables them to prepare

better, attempt assessments by the delayed deadlines,

and study the unit at a slower pace with low penal-

ties. However, choosing to use HELP lifeline for any

assessment imposes a maximum attainable score of

60% of the assessment score, and no extensions or

special considerations (requests to extend the dead-

line) apply to the delayed deadlines. For example,

if a student scores 15 out of 15 in an assessment by

choosing the HELP lifeline, the maximum score the

student can receive is 60% of 15, which is 9 out of

15. The university’s assessment policy allows a late

submission for up to 7 days and a 5% late submis-

sion penalty per day. The delayed deadline provides

the students the option to make a decent attempt at

the assessment with a maximum of 40% penalty. The

reasoning behind choosing the capped score of 60%

of the assessment score is to provide a consistently

high penalty if students score high while still giving

them a chance to pass the assessment if they scored

just 50% of the assessment mark.

CSEDU 2024 - 16th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

568

4.4 Supporting At-Risk Students

For the trial run of this retention plan, at-risk stu-

dents are identiﬁed as those who have missed an as-

sessment and have not applied for special considera-

tion within seven days of an assessment that is worth

10% or more by the due date. At the mid-semester

break, students who have failed one or more assess-

ments worth 10% or more will also be classiﬁed as

at-risk students. The retention staff will contact these

students and remind them about the HELP lifeline,

the mid-semester catch-up sessions, and the ongoing

consultation hours. The contact will be through text

messages and personalised emails instead of a group

email for a more personalised approach.

4.5 Offering REBOUND Consultation

Hours

When students repeat the unit a second time, the pass

rates are signiﬁcantly lower than those who take the

unit for the ﬁrst time. (Snead et al., 2022). The

proposed retention plan includes special consultation

hours known as “REBOUND” are exclusively for

students repeating the unit to help them understand

the course content better, have a more tailored ap-

proach to the group’s queries and guide them through

the practice questions for mastering the content.

5 COUNTERARGUMENTS

Research on student retention has been ongoing since

the late 1960s. However, given the dynamic nature

of the educational landscape, understanding retention

is a complex and relatively narrow construct, primar-

ily focused on the university context and less so on

broader perspectives such as the students’ lives be-

fore and after the degree (Tight, 2020). Numerous

factors inﬂuence students’ decisions to persist, many

of which are beyond the control of universities and

their retention programs (Sternberg, 2013). Having

a retention plan in place may entail signiﬁcant ad-

ministrative overheads. Furthermore, considerations

include the fairness of the capped assessment score

of 60%, students’ capacities to achieve learning out-

comes satisfactorily, the sustainability of these initia-

tives, and, crucially, whether students will cultivate a

sense of responsibility. This section outlines my ob-

servations, experiences, and doubts in implementing

retention initiatives in ﬁrst-year units.

5.1 Administrative Overheads

Developing effective retention initiatives is a time-

intensive process that involves several key stages.

Firstly, a substantial amount of time is required to es-

tablish a well-structured plan. After formulating this

plan, a signiﬁcant amount of time and effort is essen-

tial to the setup and management of two teams: the

teaching team, all dedicated to creating engaging and

welcoming learning spaces, and the retention team,

responsible for overseeing retention activities, includ-

ing the unit lecturer and staff involved in implement-

ing retention strategies. Secondly, the initiative de-

mands dedicated time for the identiﬁcation of at-risk

students and efforts to engage with them. Personalis-

ing the retention approach involves the additional ef-

fort of sending out emails and text messages. Finally,

towards the end of the semester, considerable time is

required to manage any extra or additional attempts

effectively, including grading the attempts and ﬁnal-

ising overall marks.

In ﬁrst-year units, the challenges amplify where

the units are large, and the logistical complexities

of organising the resources may be exerting. Given

changes in lecturers, management, and university

policies, sustaining this retention initiative will be

challenging. Mentoring new teaching and retention

teams every semester will impact how this process is

sustained.

5.2 Fairness

Utilising the HELP lifeline caps the assessment score

at 60% of the maximum attainable value. The goal

is to encourage students to meet the established dead-

lines and to discourage complacency with the reten-

tion process. However, if a student utilises the HELP

lifeline and achieves a perfect score of 100%, their

marks will be reduced to 60%. This capped score

raises questions about fairness between two students

who have both met the learning outcomes, but one

has chosen to study at a slower pace. While this pol-

icy may provide a chance for delayed assessments for

some students, it can also create a false expectation of

the same pattern throughout their degree. Not opting

to take the HELP lifeline in time might disadvantage

students. For instance, if a student submits their as-

sessment ﬁve days after the deadline and scores 12

out of 15, they will receive a penalty of 3.75 marks,

with a 5% penalty per day. This would result in a ﬁnal

score of 8.25. However, if the same student uses the

HELP lifeline, they will receive a score of 9 out of 12.

Making these options clear to the students is critical

for this proposed retention plan to work.

Position Paper: Foster Academic Integration for Improved Pass Rates in First-Year Units

569

5.3 Responsibility

While the university can provide pathways for social

and academic integration, students may become com-

placent about these processes. Post-pandemic, there

has been a 38% (Gao et al., 2023) increase in the num-

ber of special considerations, and the introduction of

extended deadlines may lead to a surge in special con-

siderations. However, it is not feasible to provide spe-

cial considerations for these extended deadlines due

to the complexity of the process, which may not be

fair to students who cannot meet the deadline due to

situations like last-minute illnesses. The university

serves as an environment where students transition

from high school to becoming workforce-ready. Es-

sential life skills such as time management, ﬁnancial

management, building social circles, and understand-

ing responsibilities through making mistakes, failing,

and learning from them are integral aspects of their

journey into adulthood during their years at univer-

sity. Introducing the HELP helpline raises questions

about whether we might be depriving students of the

valuable experience of failure and whether the focus

is shifting towards ensuring students pass units rather

than emphasising the learning journey.

6 POSITION STATEMENT

Upon reviewing the literature on retention, several

key insights have become evident. Student outcomes

are notably enhanced through social and academic

integration, creating an environment where students

feel at ease with the university’s procedures and the

academic setting. Student outcomes are also associ-

ated with receiving extra academic support, speciﬁ-

cally in the context of staff-student solid relations and

a deep commitment from staff towards improving stu-

dents’ academic outcomes (Zepke and Leach, 2005).

Prioritising student engagement, ensuring easy access

to staff, personalised consultations, and fostering aca-

demic integration are crucial elements to see tangible

improvements in student successes, ultimately con-

tributing to better retention rates (Maher and Macal-

lister, 2013). This section provides an overview of

the justiﬁcation for the retention plan and the future

direction of this research.

6.1 Justiﬁcation for the Retention Plan

The Australian government is currently exploring

ways to ensure that all its citizens can fully bene-

ﬁt from educational opportunities (Council, 2019).

In 2023, in Australia, among individuals aged 15-

74 years, only 32% had a bachelor’s qualiﬁcation

(Norton, 2023). Another report from the same year

showed that having a parent with a bachelor’s de-

gree or higher doubles a young person’s chances of

attaining a bachelor’s degree compared to those with

parents who have less than a high school education

(Coelli, 2023).

Students are more likely to persist when motivated

by self-efﬁcacy, a sense of belonging, and an engag-

ing curriculum, which universities and educators can

foster (Tinto, 2017). As a provider of education, uni-

versities have a moral obligation to create an environ-

ment that encourages student success, a societal obli-

gation to produce more graduates, and a ﬁnancial in-

centive to aid students in achieving their goals (Scott

et al., 2008). Studies indicate three primary moti-

vations for individuals who choose teaching as their

career: intrinsic motivation of personal satisfaction,

altruistic motivation to serve the community and the

country, and extrinsic motivation for fame and money

(Alexander et al., 2020). Implementing a retention

plan can increase altruistic motivation for educators

as it could create inter-generational beneﬁts, espe-

cially for ﬁrst-generation prospective graduates and

students from diverse equity backgrounds.

6.2 Implementation of the Retention

Plan

As mentioned earlier, a trial of this plan is planned

to be implemented in the upcoming semester for a

cohort of over 1200 ﬁrst-year students in the intro-

ductory programming unit. The trial will involve col-

lecting qualitative and quantitative data through stu-

dent surveys at the beginning and end of the semester

and student grade results for analysis. The main fo-

cus of the trial is to gain insight into the viewpoints of

students interested in utilizing the HELP Lifeline and

the REBOUND consultation hours. The data points

for analysis will include the type of study (domes-

tic/international), the week of enrolment, gender, the

attempt number (ﬁrst-timers/repeating), and whether

they are ﬁrst-generation students.

If this trial run proves successful, the plan may be

extended to other ﬁrst-year units next year. Currently,

the assessments for the programming unit have been

restructured, and a team has been created to focus on

building the retention plan. In future research, the aim

is also to investigate the progress of the students in

subsequent units to evaluate the efﬁcacy of this reten-

tion plan.

CSEDU 2024 - 16th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

570

7 CONCLUSION

Addressing high attrition rates in higher education is

crucial to ensuring that students receive the best pos-

sible education experience. By focusing on social and

academic integration efforts, universities can create a

more inclusive and supportive social and academic

community to better cater to the needs of different

students. The proposed unit-level retention plan that

concentrates solely on advancing academic integra-

tion efforts presents an excellent opportunity for stu-

dents to enhance student engagement, improve cur-

riculum design, and foster stronger student-staff rela-

tionships. With access to necessary support services

such as HELP Lifeline and REBOUND consultation

hours for repeating students, students can choose to

study at a slower pace. The plan has the potential

to mitigate dropout rates and improve retention rates

for universities, thereby contributing to the social re-

sponsibility of helping students graduate. Further re-

search to record the trial outcomes of implementing

this proposed plan is essential to obtain insights into

students’ expectations regarding academic integration

at the unit level. The research outcomes will help

adapt integration strategies to cater to present-day stu-

dents’ needs.

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