Automated system test schedule
Abstract
Previous research has found that students’ belonging in higher education contributes to their success – to both their retention and their attainment. Current work with first year education students has demonstrated that the built environment is intimately connected to their sense of belonging in higher education. These are the places in which friendships are forged and strengthened, help and support is received, and student and professional identities are developed. Students have demonstrated the importance of the built environment by the photos they have taken at the start of the academic year, and subsequently selected towards the end of the academic year, to represent belonging to Edge Hill University.
Liz Thomas is professor of higher education at Edge Hill University, and an independent higher education researcher and consultant. She has more than twenty years’ experience undertaking and managing research about widening participation, student engagement, belonging, retention and success, and institutional approaches to improving the student experience and student outcomes. She directed two phases of the What works? Student retention and success programme; was part of the pan-European team examining student withdrawal, persistence and success in 36 countries.