Student engagement and blended learning: Portraits of risk

The widening participation agenda was instigated by a government seeking to develop skilled workers in the global economy, yet it has consistently refused to fund the burgeoning student population adequately. Managers and academics within the HE sector have to reconcile requirements for the implementation of policies with an increasing ‘audit’ culture and a mass education system. For these stakeholders, perceptions of the benefits of moving aspects of learning online can be attractive. But does this help the widening participation student, struggling to adjust to University life, juggling working to minimise debt and family commitments?A model has been developed through cross case analysis of students’ learning experiences at a post-1992 University to illustrate how students are creating new and innovative ways to negotiate their engagement with Higher Education. The negotiation involves their individual expectations of:
• Their ability to control technology.
• Their forthcoming educational experience.
• Expectations of managing their ‘learning space.The model provides a way of mapping aspects of course design to different portraits of students, enabling students to be mapped as high, medium and low risk in terms of retention. The use of this model to design and analyse courses, in order to identify such risks for students, will then be demonstrated.