The role of bridging programmes in supporting student persistence and prevention of attrition: a UK case study

Social mobility, and in particular, intergenerational mobility, can be driven by increased opportunities for extended education. Movement beyond a family ’ s social class will often see positive changes to overall life satisfaction, however, this movement can introduce feelings of alienation. This in turn can lead to detachment either from the social group or, more likely, from the educational provision. As such, institutions are spending time and resources to investigate strategies for retention. This study looks at the impact of foundation year bridging programmes and the potential they have to increase course retention and persistence of students. A retrospective statistical analysis of seven academic years (using chi square) highlighted that completion of a foundation year bridging programme


Introduction
In the United Kingdom, there is a strong drive within government practice and policy to create a fairer society with equal opportunity for all (Brown 2013).This equality of opportunity is justified by concepts of increasing human capital and social mobility, benefitting the national economic state, and from a moralistic perspective (Hale 2006).One way in which this equality is sought is through education and the opportunity of education for all.Post-secondary education, in particular Higher Education (HE), was once a reserve of the elite but the massification of HE has led to more individuals being able to access such an education (Knight 2019).The perceived equity of this massification has two dimensions.One looks at the equity of access and the second looks at the equity of outcome.Inclusive, equitable education is a process that eradicates barriers to both participation and success (Ainscow 2020).This equity of success is as, if not more important than the equity of access.
One avenue that allows for the successful massification of HE is introductory courses such as UK style Foundation Years (FYs) or international foundation degrees or bridging programmes such as those seen in South Africa, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and India (Aluvalu 2016;Ashour 2020;Machika 2007).The work of Strayhorn (2011) is indicative of the success of such programmes in which it was found that students have taken such a course developed the self-identity and academic skills required for higher education especially in underrepresented student groups including mature students and ethnic minority groups.These FYs and bridging programmes are designed to prepare students for academic study and in the case of the UK they are for students who have missed the required grades needed for entry onto an undergraduate programme or those students who have taken a non-traditional route of entry such as those students returning to study as mature students (classed as 25 years or over) or those who have come from alternative qualifications which do not have the traditional and nationally accepted benchmarked grades.The students on these courses are as diverse in sociological background as the traditional undergraduate student body and undertake the course to achieve a qualification, or a set of skills, both academic and subject specific, which makes them ready for undergraduate study.Academically they perform as well as their traditional straight-entry counterparts and they are indistinguishable from other students upon graduation despite their non-traditional entry qualifications.However, there is limited evidence as to the impact these studies have on other elements of student success such as integration and persistence as measured by attrition or 'drop out.'

Non-traditional students
Massification of HE has been driven in part by universities' widening participation plans which seek to address the disparity between 'traditional' and 'non-traditional' student balance (Giannakis and Bullivant 2016).This redress is, in turn, anticipated to affect social mobility and make changes to an individual's class (Carreira and Lopes 2021).Thanks to this widening participation, students who would be less likely to attend university are encouraged and supported in their education.The term non-traditional or 'underrepresented' encompasses mature students (older than 25 years), young adult carers, black and minority ethnicity (BAME) students, students with a disability, care leavers, and students who have come from an economically disadvantaged background or an area with low HE participation or knowledge (Gill 2021).
Students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are often thought to be underrepresented in HE due to financial pressures but research also suggests that it is the result of a lack of familiarity with the system of higher education within their family (Frempong, Ma, and Mensah 2012).It is likely that the non-traditional, low socioeconomic, first-generational student will need to undertake paid work to support themselves through university.They will also likely need to change their social norms to 'fit in', to adopt the identity of a university student whilst retaining their competing 'working class' identity (Reay, Crozier, and Clayton 2010).All non-traditional students are more at risk of attrition (Kezar, Hypolite, and Kitchen 2020) and require specific interventions to support their transition to university life (Gilardi and Guglielmetti 2011).Interventions and strategies for widening participation have been successful in increasing recruitment amongst these underrepresented students, but once enrolled, the non-traditional student can face significant issues such as culture shock and alienation (Loeb and Hurd 2019;Oldfield 2007).Students must navigate these issues quickly or they run the risk of dropping out and HE must consider the best way to support students from underrepresented groups (Cotton, Nash, and Kneale 2017).

Social mobility
Social mobility defined by Breen and Breen as the movement of individuals or groups through social classes, can be considered as a link between an individual's financial and occupational status and that of their parents/guardians (Breen and Breen 2004).Movement is most often guided and influenced by a person's socioeconomic status or background and typically occurs in a vertical manner whereby one would move up or down from one class to another usually by education and subsequent employment (Nazimuddin 2015).Linked to this vertical movement is intergenerational mobility which refers to the social movement that a child has independent of their parents (Breen and Breen 2004).A university education is thought to be an important step in this intergenerational mobility due to the financial payback that comes from having a university degree (Banerjee 2018; Haveman and Smeeding 2006).Life choices improve upon completion of a university degree with increased career prospects, the prospect of a better salary, and self-satisfaction and esteem (Grebennikov and Shah 2012;Mok and Neubauer 2016).
Despite this, young people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are less likely to attend university with approximately 73% from a professional background (most often observed as an immediate family member holding a degree in a management position) attending HE whilst only 13% from unskilled and manual backgrounds will, suggesting a limitation on the prospect of social mobility (Crawford et al. 2016;Lewis 2002).In the UK, a measure of a person's socioeconomic background can be inferred from their 'POLAR' quintile.POLAR (Participation of Local Areas) classifies UK postcodes into one of five groups or 'quintiles.'All locations in the UK are assigned a quintile and it is based on the historical participation of 18-and 19-year-olds in HE which is calculated as percentage of the total young people in a given geographical area.Within these quintiles the participation rate differs; within quintile 1 less than 16% of young people go to university whilst in quintile 5 it is observed to be as high as 43% and upward (Harrison and McCaig 2015).This is in part related to the deprivation in their area of residence but is also contributed to by the lack of family background in HE and an unfamiliarity or drive to attend.For the purpose of this study, the role of social class and associated deprivation has been considered as a contributing factor to the POLAR quintile in which a student sits.POLAR is the most common measure used to describe a student as disadvantaged however it is not the sole measure of disadvantage available and forms part of a bigger picture (Richardson, Mittelmeier, and Rienties 2020).POLAR doesn't try to explain why there are variances across the postcodes and, whilst it is a purely geographical measure of disadvantage in HE, it can serve as a useful indicator of socioeconomic status, social background, and the likelihood of a student being first generational (the first in a family to attend university) (Martin 2018;Waller, Ingram, and Ward 2017).

Social stratification
Social stratification has long been discussed and the most prevalent voice in the mid-1800s was Marx with his political composition The Communist Manifesto.Within his writings, Marx identified different social classes or stratifications and attributed them to property ownership (Kerbo 2006).Functionalism proponents such as Weber approached the notion of stratification quite differently.Instead of considering a dichotomy of ownership, Weber defined stratification from three dimensions: economic class, social status, and political power (Pyakuryal 2001).
Both Marx and Weber identified class as a product of inequality between groups within societies.This inequality may, in the case of Marx, be an inequality in property or, more nuanced in the case of Weber, with an inequality in power or status.It is this inequality of opportunity between social classes and the notion of capital (skills, honour, and prestige) which make education a key driver for change within one's social capital (Haveman and Smeeding 2006).Not only does it increase materialistic assets such as knowledge and skills, but it also provides symbolic assets of having been awarded recognition of effort.The acquisition of such allows for a redress of an individual's position in the field and aids in an individual's social mobility (Dika and Singh 2002).
These historic theories and posits surrounding the notion of class and stratification are, by some, thought to blind us from current issues in society yet, the division of societies into the long-determined categories is advancing, not diminishing (Reay 2006).One of the most problematic categories for mobility within social class systems is the inequality in educational provision and acceptance within.The introduction of education for all meant that all social classes would be educated and should have, in theory, an equal opportunity to a complete education which would facilitate their movement through social classes.However, there still exists a division, with schooling undertaken by those students from working-class backgrounds being seen as inferior to that taken by middle-and upper-class students.This inferiority is the result of poor aspirations, lack of motivation, and exogenous factors such as the requirement to enter the job market early (Reay 2017).This is most notably seen in post-compulsory further and higher education (Crawford et al. 2016).Working-class children are less likely to undertake a post-compulsory education and such perpetuates the notion of class.This reluctance or inability to undertake post-compulsory education, especially at a tertiary level, often arises from financial implications, a feeling of rejecting their roots, a fear of non-belonging, and failing exams needed prior to undertaking such educational routes.(Crawford et al. 2016;Reay 2001;Reay 2017;Stephens, Hamedani, and Destin 2014).

Theoretical frameworks of attrition
The study of student retention has been a lengthy process and is still actively progressing (Nicoletti 2019).Reviews of theoretical frameworks demonstrate that although earlier models were developed, most of the work began in the late 1960s and early 1970s.Influenced by Durkheim's suicide theory, Van Gennep's investigation of the rites of passage in tribal societies, and Price's concept of labour turnover, the models of dropout or persistency are largely focussed on both the social and academic aspects and influences (Aljohani 2016).There are several theoretical frameworks on which to analyse the factors affecting dropout and importantly for this study, the impact that social background has on the dropout decision.
Spady's Model of the Dropout Process (MDP) (1971) considers both the academic and sociological determinants of dropout decision-making (Figure 1) and is largely influenced by Durkheim's suicide model.Family and social background supply an environment where academic success is to be expected and is nurtured and normative congruency of an individual; the degree to which a person's beliefs, attitudes, and interests match the collective norm of, in this case, higher education, are seen to be vital in success.What is also of interest is the concept of institutional commitment, the notion that a student would become invested in their HE institution of choice and feel a sense of commitment to it, is a variable that can influence a student's persistence.This is influenced by the progressive development of a community among like-minded individuals within the HE institution and the integration that this brings.This community develops over time and a bridging programme is likely to facilitate its establishment.Tinto and Cullen (1973) conceptual schema (Figure 2) was influenced by Spady's work and further developed the theoretical understanding of the dropout process.In this model, integration is preceded by the concept of goal commitment.This goal commitment sees students focussing on and being driven by the goal of their degree completion.Much like Spady, Tinto's model also has the added variable of institutional commitment This notion of belonging will influence a student's decision to drop out as much as academic integration and success.
Again seen in Pascarella's framework of dropout (Pascarella 1980), student background can be seen to have an impact on the persistency or withdrawal decision of students (Figure 3).Pascarella's model shows that student background is intricately linked with other college experiences.This may be in the form of having attended open days or having prior experience in higher education through the completion of summer schools, higher education led school activities, and preparatory programmes.This prior exposure will allow for the development of familiarity with the system and lead in part to increased normative congruency.Bean and Metzner's model (1985) further investigated and posited new ideas on the dropout process of those students who would be class as atypical or non-traditional.These included commuter students, mature students (those students over the age of 25 when first enrolled in an HE programme), and first-generational students (those whose parents did not attend HE).It can be seen in Figure 4 that several exogenous variables influence a student's attrition, notable academic factors, social factors, and environmental factors.All these factors ultimately impact the socialisation, or community building, of a student and their persistence.From a review of the conceptual frameworks of retention, it is seen that in all presented models family and social background, characteristics, and history have an influential role to play in student attrition or retention.This can be attributed to the embodied culture capital that one owns, the dispositions that make an individual suited to a particular field.These variables are likely to influence social and academic integration and commitment which in turn leads to normative congruence and a feeling of satisfaction in students making them more likely to persist even in adverse conditions.However, the institution also has a role to play in supporting these students towards that integration and this can be helped in several ways, this includes the development of a supportive  community which foundation years or bridging programmes can facilitate.These additional programmes can provide a safe space and time to mature into an undergraduate.

Methodology
A quantitative statistical analysis methodology was as the research focused purely on the numerical nationally constructed deprivation status individuals rather than personal reported status.Personal reported status could potentially be skewed by unintentional bias and as such would reduce the statistical significance of the result.The selected design allowed for a quantitative approach comparing the quintile as a dependant variable and the dropout rate as an independent variable.
Data pertaining to student POLAR4 quintile, route of entry (Foundation Year versus Traditional Entry), and the degree award they achieved, was mined from central registry deposits at the named institution.Data were selected from the years 2013 to 2020, anonymised by allocation of identification number, and totalled 1654 complete individual student records.Students were defined as having 'dropped out' if they failed to be awarded a full degree (of any classification) and instead were awarded a lower award (such as an Undergraduate Certificate or Diploma).Data were analysed through a chi-square analysis to determine if the difference in observed attrition rates of different quintiles were significant between the entry routes.A probability value of .05 was used in all analyses.Microsoft Excel was used to conduct all analyses and calculations.

All entry routes.
To first understand if attrition is a significant problem within the identified department, all student records irrespective of the route of entry were analysed for attrition based on POLAR4 quintile (Tables 1 and 2).The hypothesis is that there is a significant difference in attrition rate between POLAR4 quintiles.
The corresponding null hypothesis that there will be no significant difference in attrition rate between POLAR4 groups was tested and generated a p value of .002and chi square value of 16.71.Such a small p value, when compared to .05, would show that there is a significant difference, and the null hypothesis can be rejected.Scrutiny of the data shows that quintiles 1-3 all have higher attrition rates than would be expected, whilst quintiles 4 and 5 have lower attrition rates than expected.

Traditional entry versus foundation year routes
To assess if the observed attrition rate is isolated to Traditional Entry or Foundation Year entry, further chi square tests were performed on the students' award following Traditional Entry and Foundation Year entry independently (Tables 3-6).For each of the tests, the hypothesis is that there will be a significant difference between observed and expected attrition rates across the different quintiles.
The null hypothesis, stating that there will be no significant difference between observed attrition rates of different POLAR4 quintiles and what would be expected was tested and generated a p value .010287and a chi square of 13.21.With a p value less than .05and a chi square value greater than the critical value at d.f. 4, we can, with 95% confidence, reject the null hypothesis and conclude that, within the Traditional Entry group, there is a significant difference in attrition rates when compared to POLAR4 quintile.1-3 have higher attrition rates than would be expected.The null hypothesis, stating that there will be no significant difference between observed attrition rates of POLAR4 quintiles and what would be expected was tested and generated a p value .558367and a chi square of 2.602.With a p value greater than .05and a chi square value less than the critical value at d.f. 4, we can, with 95% confidence, accept the null hypothesis and conclude that, within the Foundation Year Entry group, there is no significant difference in attrition rates when compared to POLAR4 quintile.All quintiles had attrition rates in line with the expected values.

Discussion
Capital, as defined by Bourdieu (Edgerton and Roberts 2014), are the resources which allow navigation of a specific space or field.An individual has their own makeup of cultural and social capital and these can both be influenced by parental factors (Aragon and Kose 2007) but that is not to say that it cannot be acquired.Exposure to and undertaking different experiences will allow the adjustment of the embodied cultural and social capital and make an individual slowly change to fit the associated field and habitus (Aragon and Kose 2007).The field in this case is education and the habitus is the ability to operate within the norms of language, assessment, and institutional requirements (Gale and Parker 2017).Movement beyond a parent's education, known as educational mobility, will in turn influence social mobility in both capital and habitus (Gofen 2009).Most often those students seeking social mobility are the first generational students; those whose parents have no post-secondary education or students of those with post-secondary education but without a degree (Bettencourt et al. 2020).They are typically from a lower socioeconomic background and are more likely to be a race minority (Atherton 2014;Younger et al. 2019).The student body in UK higher education is more likely to be middle class, white, and second generational, and, for students who are not represented by this group, the move into an HE institution can be unsettling (Gofen 2009;London 1989).The impact of socioeconomic disadvantage in compulsory education is well known but this impact is continued through post-compulsory HE due to early overarching parental attitudes and behaviours towards education itself (Crosnoe, Mistry, and Elder 2002;Seay et al. 2008).Coupled with this, there is a perception that being working class and being clever are exclusive of one another, that students are required to be actively scholarly whilst in an educational setting but also maintain their 'status' amongst their working-class peers (Reay 2017), and that the cultural deficits an individual has, is largely responsible for the lower academic ambitions and attainment of such individuals (Ingram 2011).These students often face a monumental task in undertaking HE, as there is a strong link between a child and a parent's educational attainment (Gofen 2009;Toutkoushian, Stollberg, and Slaton 2018), and a crucial indicator of likelihood to persist is the educational level of a student's parents (Próspero and Vohra-Gupta 2007).The limited cultural and social capital that first generational students possess makes commencement and adjustment to HE much more difficult (Ivemark and Ambrose 2021;Martin, Miller, and Simmons 2014;Soria and Stebleton 2012).
Bridging programmes, such summer schools and foundation years, have previously been shown to support the transition to higher education for lower socioeconomic classes including those who may be first generational (Grace-Odeleye and Santiago 2019) and this data supports not just the immediate effect of increasing participation but also the long term influence in regards to persistence and completion such as that seen in South Africa (Machika 2007).In a report for the Pell Institute, Engle and Tinto (2008) found that students from disadvantaged backgrounds who enrolled in a four-year programme such as those containing a bridging scheme were up to 7 times more likely to earn their bachelors than if they had started directly onto a three-year programme.This statistic compounds the idea that the provision of a supportive, preparatory year will be an advantage to student persistence.Most bridging programmes are aimed at removing the academic barriers to the success of students from underrepresented groups and foundation programmes are an example of an early intervention that supports such students gain the academic prowess required for tertiary education (Salmi and Bassett 2014).
From reflections on the models shown here and in consideration of 19th and 20 th -century classical social theorists such as Marx, Weber, and Bourdieu; social alienation, created by the separation of one from their own natural social setting, creates tensions within the individual.It can also go as far as to create an aversion towards the new positioning in social settings leading to the inevitable dropout seen in undergraduate students (Kerby 2015).Student attrition or tendencies to drop out are multifactorial and form a tight network of factors that each influence the other.Each student has a unique set of problems or barriers to continuation of HE but most notable among studies such as Beer and Lawson (2017) is the role of family background and the impact this can have on intentions to study but also on the support and capital they can provide to maintain enrolment in HE.Previous research has emphasised the impact that family background has on the completion of undergraduate study, with families with limited experience of HE perhaps being less emotionally and practically supportive of the student's attendance and engagement (Thomas 2002).This may be due to family caring commitments, family financial position, or indeed through family attitudes and behaviours towards education (Aragon and Kose 2007;Reynolds and Cruise 2020).The step into higher education induces a change in social circles in and of itself and this can be both a positive experience, where a student adapts to their new social status and becomes integrated and persistent, or negative, whereby a failure to adapt to the HE social status and ultimately drops out.From data presented here, those POLAR4 quintile 1 students (likely to be first generational) who take a foundation year are less likely to drop out before course completion than those who enter straight onto a degree course.As shown through a review of the literature, first-generation students often lack the capital to be able to navigate the field and adapt to the habitus but using a foundation year or bridging programme, they have a minimal risk, light touch exposure to higher education during which they can develop the capital required for success.
In conclusion, the data and discussion shown here are indicative that students who are from backgrounds less likely to attend higher education and are therefore predicted to be first-generational students with limited experiences of the cultural norms are more likely to complete their studies if they first undertake a foundation year.This year of less intensive academic study will prepare them for higher education with less academic risk and give them time to adapt to and adopt the cultures and societal norms of higher education.It provides both time and experiences, often with a like-minded and similar background group of peers, to develop social and cultural capital allowing for their movement within the habitus and field.
Whilst this work is purely quantitative, an interesting avenue for further study would be to investigate the students' perspective via semi-structured interviews.This would allow for a thematic analysis of the students' self-reflection on capital acquired, hopefully compounding the conclusions of this study; that the foundation year bridging programme promotes the acquisition of necessary capital and norms.It may also highlight that part of the benefit of the foundation year is to 'learn' how to study and how to think effectively as an undergraduate student.

Table 1 .
Observed attrition rates in different POLAR 4 quintiles from the whole department.

Table 2 .
Expected attrition rates in different POLAR4 quintiles from the whole department.

Table 3 .
Observed attrition rates in different POLAR 4 quintiles from the traditional entry route.

Table 4 .
Expected attrition rates in different POLAR 4 quintiles from the traditional entry route.

Table 5 .
Observed attrition rates in different POLAR 4 quintiles from the foundation year entry route.

Table 6 .
Expected attrition rates in different POLAR 4 quintiles from the foundation year entry route.