About the Model

From Applicant, to Student, to Graduate

Transition into Higher Education and its effect on student retention is a known issue for the sector. Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) faces an additional challenge in that its applied learning ethos, as part of our Highly Skilled Employability commitment, is often unfamiliar to incoming learners.

While large amounts of information are provided to students to support them in their physical transition to SHU, their academic transition has been less well supported – often addressed solely through general academic skills training.

Although, we recognise these types of support as essential for our new arrivals, we identified that there was no discipline-specific focus on teaching and learning. Moreover, there was no explicit link at this initial stage between academic content and expert performance (Herrington et al, 2006). Furthermore, the aim of this work was to recognise the different backgrounds of our learners and recognise the valuable insight this can bring.