Nurturing success through personalised communication

Student attrition is a significant problem for higher education institutions worldwide. Some of the main reasons that trigger attrition include factors such as academic failure, financial problems, high workload and lack of student support. There are various strategies designed by universities to improve completion rates, many of which are based on student data collected at the course or program level. Universities use large amounts of student data to predict attrition. While this data may paint a big picture of student performance, it is often less helpful in crafting unit-level support strategies for students while they are still enrolled. We argue that strategies designed to enhance completion rates should aim at improving early intervention and support provided to students placed at risk of academic failure within individual units of a degree. In this paper, we analyse the impact of an early intervention system designed to improve the completion rates of non-specialist introductory Statistics units. Students are identified as at risk of academic failure based on their performance in major assessments. The intervention involves sending personalised feedback via emails to students. Emails are sent twice during the 12-week semester, once during week middle of the semester and again later, closer to the end of the semester. Those receiving personalised emails can consult their lecturer and develop a study plan. Therefore, the emails act as a nudge that prompts those at risk of failing the unit to reflect on their performance and improve their learning behaviour. We analyse the effectiveness of this nudge by using a behavioural approach, where we compare student engagement and performance in assessments both pre- and post-nudge. Previous research often only focused on the students' academic performance in assessment tasks. In this research, we investigate the effectiveness of students completing assessments. Quantitative data collected, including assessment scores, efficiency in completing assessments, and their relative improvement across the semester, is used to analyse the following: the differences in completion rates across the units, crucial differences in learning behaviours and academic outcome improvements between students based on the timing and quality of nudges. This research will contribute to our understanding of the impacts of teachers’ nudges on student learning. The result will further the development of early intervention strategies for students at risk of academic failure in a higher education context.