How to Encourage Student Engagement in Access and Participation Planning

An illustration of a group of people working as a team to suggest student participation in access planning.

In order to meet the requirements of the higher education regulator in England, all providers are required to submit an Access and Participation Plan (APP) that outlines how they will work to improve equality of opportunity for underrepresented groups. This is no small feat as each institution is required to outline how its activities contribute to a strategic, university-wide push to widen access (WA) and participation (WP).

As the Office for Studens (OfS) stipulates, each provider is required to detail how they have consulted students in the planning, implementation and review of their APP and related activities. This means providers have to demonstrate how they have engaged in meaningful consultation with students, which has led to effective delivery and enhancement of their WP activities.

For consultation to be meaningful, it has to go beyond engaging elected representatives, such as the Student Union (SU). Similarly, preparing your APP can be an extremely bureaucratic process, so engaging the wider student base doesn’t come naturally and can present some challenges. In this article, we outline 4 essential steps higher education institutions must take to ensure that student voice from all corners of the university is adequately represented in the planning stages of the APP.

1. Create a student advisory group

Advisory groups can be a great way to soundboard and gather ideas for university projects, and to ensure that students’ views are properly represented in institutional decision-making. These groups provide input and feedback to the university, acting as a formal channel for student voice to be heard on various issues.

For access and participation planning and based on the OfS’ understanding of what groups face gaps in equality of opportunity in higher education, students who identify with one or more of the following characteristics should be represented on an advisory group:

Students from low socioeconomic background or low participation neighbourhoods
Care experienced or estranged students
Students with disabilities
Some students from black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds

Many providers are already using this approach; for example, the University of Chester have an Access and Participation Focus Group.

However, it’s worth noting that the first hurdle is getting students to engage in the first place – especially since you will want to solicit the views of all students, not just those who are actively involved in the wider university. Some ideas for encouraging student engagement in advisory groups include:

Targeted recruitment – use data on student characteristics to approach students and ask them directly if they would like to be involved.
Faculty and staff nominations – encourage members of staff, academic and professional, who work closely with underrepresented students to nominate panellists.
Be upfront about the expected time commitment for panel members. Consider offering flexible scheduling options for meetings or asynchronous participation methods.
Provide training and support on the panel’s purpose. This can empower students who may not feel confident initially.
Make the application process accessible. This could include offering multiple ways to apply, such as online/paper forms or staff nominations, and ensuring materials are accessible to students with disabilities and available in multiple languages.
Promote the benefits of engaging in these groups; for example, as a CV-building activity or one that bolsters transferrable skills such as communication, critical thinking and leadership skills.

Members of the group should be representative of students from all stages in the student lifecycle. You might also wish to extend the reach of the group beyond current students and include recent graduates who can give holistic feedback on their experience.

Work with your SU to spread the word about opportunities to get involved in the group.

2. Go beyond formalised methods

While formal methods of gathering student opinion, such as focus groups and surveys, are tried and tested, they are not always successful. It can be challenging to get students to engage in the first place and many are facing ‘survey fatigue’ within higher education.

Choose wisely when to send out invitations for feedback wisely. Try to avoid inviting students during busy times of the academic year and keep surveys brief. However, be sure to include further information about how students can get involved in access and participation planning in a more formal way.

Consider offering the opportunity for students to submit feedback anonymously. You might also offer an incentive, such as the chance to win vouchers or a prize, to encourage students to engage.

However, it’s worth thinking about more creative ways of gathering student perspectives beyond surveys or forms of ‘micro-engagement’ that can help you to hear student voice on access and participation planning. This could include student feedback forums, feedback exhibitions and on campus voting polls. To find out more about these innovative methods, take a look at Tom Lowe’s HE Professional article on effective alternatives to surveys for non-student facing teams.

Listening events – hosted in student-led spaces and easily accessible and signposted to students – can also be extremely beneficial. For an example of how a provider has put this in motion, see the University of Surrey’s Student Voice Forum.

You can also consult the University of Sheffield’s helpful guidance on when and how to ask students for feedback via a survey.

3. Embed student participation into existing outreach activities

While setting up new initiatives to get students engaged in access and participation planning is a great avenue for incorporating student voice into the process, don’t forget about the existing projects you have. Looking at how you’re already encouraging student participation in access and outreach activities can help you to understand their views, enhance planning and grow that engagement even further.

For all activities you are running with student participation, ensure there are valuable mechanisms for participant feedback in place (and this can also be stipulated in your APP). Post-event or -activity surveys are crucial, with processes in place to ensure that these are fed back into the access planning. When feedback is implemented or changes are made based on recommendations, ensure that students are informed about this, so they can understand how their contribution is really making an impact.

Initiatives such as mentorship programmes can be particularly effective in this regard and could even be pushed further to directly impact access planning. For example, could enhance an existing programme to pair key stakeholders in the planning process with students from underrepresented backgrounds? This could give them the chance to better understand the lived experience of these students, and simultaneously help those students to feel heard.

4. Use student leaders

Finally, while you want to seek opinions and perspectives from students across the university no matter their level of engagement, vocal students or student leaders can be instrumental in providing access to the wider community. Leveraging their platforms and connections can be a valuable resource for widening participation practitioners seeking to grow student engagement with access and participation planning.

This could be done in a number of ways. For example, student leaders and students’ unions could be tasked with activities such as:

Gathering feedback through formal mechanisms like surveys and focus groups.
Disseminating information about and advocating for your APP. Training students to do so and providing them with communication materials is crucial to ensure your message is delivered and received.
Promote the APP – and opportunities to share views – through student media channels. This could include union publications, radio stations and social media platforms, and content could come in the form of articles authored by student leaders or discussions hosted by the union.

It’s important to bear in mind that student leaders tend to be more engaged than the average student. So, instead of using them as your only source of feedback or perspective, collaborate with them to engage a wider pool of students across the university.

APPs for Students, By Students

While designing and delivering an APP is largely the task of university staff, incorporating student voices and perspectives is crucial to ensuring its long-term health. After all, the purpose of the plan is to support students from underrepresented backgrounds to access, participate and progress through higher education, so the experiences of those who the plan affects will be most relevant to its development.

By following the tips in this article, you can start engaging students across the lifecycle in your widening participation agenda and use their insights to inform your access planning.

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