Outreach Metric Project Update: Data Collaboration in Action

The Outreach Metric Project is a collaborative initiative with our sector partners the University College London, researching the coverage and effectiveness of widening participation outreach programmes in England as part of the Office for Students (OfS) Equality in Higher Education Innovation Fund.

As a reminder, we are tracking the cohort longitudinally to determine progression patterns. For that reason, our cohort is historical; the first Key Stage 4 (KS4) Attainment year tracked is 2014/15 and the last KS4 year is 2019/20. We will then track them through to higher education (HE) years up to 2023/24.

Although historical, this cohort is rich in its composition, all due to our long-term collaboration and commitment to data capture through our shared tracking system.

A Significant Cohort for Analysis

We will track around one million participants of outreach; this is an impressive population. 126 members (including Uni Connect partnerships and third sector outreach providers) have collected this data. Due to the wide national coverage of our HEAT membership, the cohort has good geographical spread where every English region has significant populations.

We also know the following about the participant cohort in this study:

• 37% of participants engaged in pre-16 outreach activity
• Around half of participants live in areas of higher disadvantage:
  • 49% are in TUNDRA Quintiles 1 and 2, or
  • 52% are in IMD Quintiles 1 and 2 (targeting is improved within the pre-16 group, where 57% live in TUNDRA Quintiles 1 and 2)
• 45% of the overall cohort engaged in more than one activity, and this increased to 53% among the pre-16 group

The project steering group has asked that we explore any limitations of the study in particular gaps in outreach delivery in rural areas. Dr Paul Martin and Professor Claire Crawford, researchers at the Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities (CEPEO) researchers at UCL, are working with the National Pupil Database (NPD) to obtain NPD and attainment data for an entire cohort of young people.

This will allow us to distinguish between participants and non-participants, opening new possibilities for the analysis and strengthening the quality of the study and any standards of evidence. We are also hoping that the large population will allow an exploration of patterns of outreach participation and progression for groups on the OfS’s Equality of Opportunity Risk Register (EORR).

Stronger Together

Remember, this will be an experimental dataset, the purpose of the project is to determine whether we can design a reliable and informative Outreach Metric that helps the sector to self-monitor, plan and improve their work. We acknowledge that this is not going to be an easy task, but we stand more chance of success working on this together using the aggregate dataset.

We anticipate that refining the methodology and producing a final dataset that can be refreshed over time will be evolutionary. Importantly, if we are successful then it is a metric that we, together, can own and one that we will all feed into in the years ahead, providing a legacy for the sector. If we encounter hurdles, then we will tackle them together.

HEAT members will have the opportunity to review their own results and feedback on their reflections. The public results will be geographically based in the first instance. In addition, due to collaboration with regional trackers, our cohort will include participants from the West and East Midlands, making the total tracked cohort even larger!

Once again, we thank the contribution of all our HEAT colleagues and sector partners who are supporting this project; we are excited about the impact our collective research can make by learning, adapting, and improving together.

If you would like to find out more about the project please contact HEAT Support.