Short Abstract

The K+ programme is King’s College London’s flagship outreach activity to support progression into higher education. We demonstrate how evaluation activities, ranging from pre-post surveys to multiple RCT’s, have shaped and influenced the programme and how evaluation is embedded into the programme.

Description

The K+ programme is King’s College London’s flagship outreach activity to support progression into higher education (HE) for sixth form students from under-represented backgrounds (e.g. non-selective state schools or first in family to progress to HE). The two-year programme consists of events and activities to equip students with the confidence, knowledge and skills to succeed at university. Approximately 600 students take part each year, for a total of 1200 students enrolled in the programme at any one time, organised into 9 pathways based on the subjects they wish to study.

Students begin their first year with a welcome induction event, also attended by parents and carers, to launch the programme followed by a non-residential spring or summer school to engage in academic lectures careers experiences and bespoke skills-based workshops. Their second-year focusses on the skills needed to succeed in their a-levels and their transitions to university including support with UCAS applications. Alongside the core K+ programme, additional intervention components are delivered supporting students with Black and mixed heritage, LGBTQ+ students, and aiming to raise attainment.

The K+ programme has undergone several rounds of revision throughout its lifecycle and has been subject to a range of evaluation activity ranging from pre-post surveys, to examinations of individual components, to two currently underway RCT’s (one in collaboration with TASO) aiming to demonstrate the causal impact of the programme on student progression to HE.

We demonstrate how the K+ programme has been shaped and informed by evaluation throughout its lifecycle and how this body of evaluative work has been built upon, including the emergence of longer-term findings. This covers multiple evaluation designs from pre-post surveys, process evaluations, participant focus groups, and the use of causal designs including two RCT’s. This also includes the use of validated measures such as the Access and Success Questionnaire (ASQ) and the Academic Behavioural Confidence – Revised (ABC-R) scales. The ABC-R is a recently validated measure developed between the Social Mobility and Widening Participation team and the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience at King’s.

We will showcase how evaluation activities are embedded throughout regular delivery, including the use of pre-post surveys within programme activities to permit consistent monitoring of impact and open-ended student feedback. In addition to showcasing evaluation activities we will bring together perspectives from those delivering the programme on the practicalities of embedding evaluation as well as engaging with evaluation to affect change.