Context

The University of Bath is committed to broadening access to higher education and ensuring that students from diverse backgrounds can benefit from its academic programmes. To achieve this, the University has developed a range of outreach programmes designed to engage with prospective students at various stages of their educational journey. Evidence shows that these initiatives can “enable poor and minority students to add to their personal, social and cultural capital, and to cease the replication of social reproduction” (Loza, 2003, p.47).

Some post-16 programmes that Bath deliver are singular interventions, some are residential programmes and some are defined as “black box” interventions, whereby a multi-faceted approach is taken to provide students with support via multiple methods and within a broader timespan. Currently this includes programmes like campus visits, school talks, Discover Bath, Target Bath and Pathway to Bath.

Evaluation Questions

• What are the effects on students’ metacognition, self-efficacy and university expectations and knowledge if they complete a University of Bath outreach programme?
• Is there correlation between the number of intervention elements a student completes on an outreach programme and their rates of applying to the University of Bath?
• Are students who complete a University of Bath Outreach programme more likely to apply to the University of Bath than those who do not?
• Does attending a University of Bath residential summer school programme impact a student’s likelihood to apply to Higher Education, high-tariff university and/or University of Bath?
• Are different student groups who attend a University of Bath residential summer school programme more or less likely to go into Higher Education?

Methodology

This will be a two-stage research project. By 30th September 2025:

• Pre- and post-survey analysis of students who attended 2024 Pathway to Bath and 2024 Discover Bath, reviewing validated TASO Access and Success Questionnaire scales (https://taso.org.uk/libraryitem/access-and-success-questionnaire-asq/)
• Dosage analysis for 2024 Pathway to Bath

By 28th February 2026:

• Analysis of all summer school residential information from Higher Education Access Tracker (HEAT), conducting a non-random comparison group with matching to determine likelihood of attending a residential and applying to Higher Education, a high-tariff university and/or University of Bath. Likelihood of using regression models to assess the likelihood of university attendance among residential attendees compared to non-attendees.

Type of evaluation evidence

Using the OfS standards of evidence this project will produce Type 2 (empirical evidence)

Published report

At the end of the project timeline, a report will be published on this webpage.