2.7 STUDENT SUPPORT
2.7.7 I MPORTANCE OF STUDENT SUPPORT FOR HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS AND
three sub-units, namely, Tutorial Support Services, Telecentre Community Outreach and Experiential Learning. The Tuition Support’s vision is to create excellent structures, processes and tools to provide prime support for needy students (University of South Africa, 2016c). Unisa, furthermore, has the Directorate for Counselling and Career Development which classified types of student support services they offer into three – ‘Manage my career’, ‘Manage my studies’ and ‘Manage myself’. The ‘Manage my career’ entails services that are aimed at supporting students to manage their careers by informing about them, assisting to understand how they can make informed decisions on which career to opt for from a range of the available career options and to impart students with the necessary skills for the workforce (University of South Africa, 2016b).
The ‘Manage my studies’ category of student services assist students to manage their studies by providing them with effective learning abilities and capabilities, time management skills and abilities for the preparation of examinations (University of South Africa, 2016b).
The ‘Manage myself’ classification of student support at Unisa focuses on helping
meet their needs and expectations and purposes for which such support services were meant.
The previous discussion looked into how higher education institutions implement their student support intervention programme. In this section, the focus is on the importance of student support in higher education zone. It looks at and discusses the necessity of having student support in the higher education institutions and their benefits to both students and the academic institutions offering them.
It is profoundly acknowledged in the documentation on student support that the needs and expectations of students must be at the heart in the operations of the higher education institutions. Within the global post-school system, particularly the university terrain, Ramsay, Jones and Barker (2007, p. 249) postulate that universities have to become aware of students’ needs for support and ultimately strive to achieve a steadiness between the variety of challenges and academic needs and the demand for support interventions, recognition and reassurance. Student support offer numerous and varying benefits, both to students and academic institutions and their countries. Canton and Blom (2010, p. 49) assert that students’ incapability to pay for their education expenses might be the reason for low access rate to higher education and must be curbed by means of financial aid to contribute to the human capital and economic advancement. Study loans, grants, scholarships (Canton and Blom, 2010, p. 49) and bursaries are important in mitigating students’ financial problems. Delving into online student support frameworks, Stewart, Goodson, Miertschin, Norwood, Ezell (2013, 290-291) posits that online student frameworks assist academic institutions to assess the quality of teaching and learning. In their assertion, Sirin, Gupta, Ryce, Katsiaficas, Suarez-Urozco and Rogers-Sirin (2013, p. 200) supports offered to people in order to help them realise their social needs may enable them positively enhance their developmental paths. Sirin et al (2913, p. 204) further discovered that social support is important in reducing the acculturative stress that students suffer from as they try to adjust with academic life in the transition period. Extending the role demarcation of student support component in the higher education system, Simmons (2013, p. 63) perceives social inclusion as fundamental in motivating students to learn and to complete their qualification programmes.
In the view of Andrade (2006, p. 131), within the countries in which English is the most spoken language, international students contribute positively towards the education and economy and therefore must be backed through support interventions. Edward (2003) postulates that ensuring an effective transition of students from schools to universities lead to an increased retention capacity, improved students’ performances and speed up their progress towards completion of the enrolled programmes.
Confirming an increased retention element, Simmons (2013, p. 62) also contends that suitable support interventions help students to persist learning and eventually accomplish their goals. Locating this view within the study to detect aspects that lead to retention of the African American men who are affianced in Project Empowerment in the University of Memphis, Simmons (2013, p. 62) suggests that higher education institutions should develop and implement effective support intervention strategies that are aimed at nurturing student retention and assist them to realise their academic success.
Desa et al (2011, p. 366) argue that support aimed at helping students to become proficient in English and expedite them towards attaining their academic goals is important and, therefore, higher education institutions should strive to realise that in their endeavours. In the context of the blended learning, student support services are offered through many ways including the establishment of services centres. The Open University (OU) in the United Kingdom of America established a Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) and the so-called the Personalised Integrated Support Centres (PISC) to respectively, inter alia, uphold student support services and to develop an all-inclusive student support model that entails the variety of study programmes to support students so that they are ultimately able to meritoriously succeed in learning (Stevens, 2012, p.137). Garrison and Kanuka (2004, p. 102) articulates that in order for students to progress positively, support services centres must provide students with access to computers or other gadgets with internet networks as well as to support them by means of a skill-transfer so that they are able to utilise the necessary technologies for learning purposes. A similar view towards the prime need to have support centres for college students is given by the South Africa’s Department of Higher Education and Training, stating that it is intrinsically pivotal to initiate support services office that will coordinate all support activities (Department of Higher Education and Training , 2013, p. 17).
Not only does offering support become important at the university level. At college level, support is also prominently a need for some students and must be provided to assist students in their endeavour to meet the institution’s anticipations and adjust to the demands of the qualification programmes (Department of Higher Education and Training , 2013, p. 17).
Student-support is an integral and influential factor in boosting learning experiences within all academic institutions (Lee, Srinivasan, Trail, Lewis and Lopez, 2011, p. 158).
Reduced support, such as social support from friends and families, more especially among students who are away from home to carry on with their higher education studies, can make them feel uncomfortable with the academic environment and ultimately performance academically poor. Such stressful conditions relative to challenges in transitional processes that students in higher education are going through often result in an escalated psychological misery and low academic successes (Tajalli, Sobhi and Ganbaripanah, 2010, p. 99). In the sociocultural need, being successfully adjusted to the higher education institutions’ stresses, especially for international students, is attributed to the sociodemographic factors that include, among other variables, prior cross-cultural knowledge, level of education, family income, superb academic performance and host linguistic skills (Swami, Arteche and Chamorro-Premuzic, 2010).
The issue of low success rates does not only speak to the university system, but remains a gigantic challenge to the colleges as well because they are part of the post- school system and are also characterised by diversity with regard to students coming from the variety of backgrounds which subsequently affect their scholastic performance. Belot et al (2006, p. 262) assert that the effects of public support on students’ scholastic achievements is inadequately examined. Although there were efforts made in the context of South African colleges to minimize or attempt to curtail the low success rates, college students’ success rates are still low (Department of Higher Education and Training , 2013, p. 17). Sandhya et al (2012, p. 47) argue that various factors allied to teaching and learning can lead to poor services.
Vergara et al (2010, p. 1498) conducted a study to find out the relationship between the acculturative stress and emotional intelligence (EQ) and determined that
international students’ acculturative stress is caused by students’ perceived discrimination, homesickness and a culture shock. Acculturative stress is defined as the process in which students undergo a culture change, characterised by unfamiliar customs and norms of the other cultures (Vergara et al, 2010, p. 1499). The study conducted by Desa et al (2011, p. 364-369) on the accumulative stress of the international postgraduate students reveals that the attitudinal and environmental stress cause a hindrance in adjusting to academic life and achieving academic goals.
Environmental acculturative stress relates to finding accommodation and familiarising yourself with modes of transport used and can be more challenging to international students than local ones (Desa et al (2011). The study done by Ye (2005) reported that there is a relationship of acculturative stress with social and academic satisfaction.
There is an alarming increase of shortage in accommodation in many higher education institutions (Department of Higher Education and Training , 2013, p. 33). To foster a comfortable and conducive educational environment to study, insufficient student accommodation requires remedial actions such as upgrading accommodation and expansion of capacities. The need to address students’ accommodation challenge is a global concern both in national and international higher education contexts. Within the international outskirts of higher education, the Norwegian State Educational Loan Fund (NSELF) does not support students only for their tuitions, but also for other expenses, incorporating paying for their accommodations (Opheim, 2006, p. 278).
Desa et al (2011, p. 368) argued that addressing the attitudinal and environmental stress demands the higher education institution’s attention and support intervention.
This is reflective of the existing relationship between the student support interventions and the academic success. In support of this contention, it has also been ascertained that good student-student and student-instructor relationships is a cradle of encouragement to learn and can consequently result in good performance (Roorda, Koomen, Spilt and Oort, 2011). An assortment of discussions of student support in the literature believes that there is a relationship between student support services offered and the attainment of learning outcomes. Stewart et al (2013, p. 291) are collectively an epitome of community of interest that uphold that student support is important component for the student success. Lee et al (2011, p. 161) recommend that in order for students to develop a course satisfaction, learning environments should foster a learning experience that is geared to the student mode of learning by offering diverse
support from which students opt for the methods most appropriate for them. The study conducted by Ssempebwa, Eduan and Mulumba (2012, p. 140) surveyed the variations between the academic performances of Kampala International University students enrolled through the bridging programmes and those who met the admission requirements straightaway and reported that there is no significant difference between the two admission routes. Whereas higher education institutions consider bridging programmes to be effective pre-requisites for students who do not precisely meet the benchmarks in promoting readiness to enrol for the qualification programme, Hay and Marais (2010) contend that view and disparage it that it deprives higher education institutions of the quality of enrolees. In their observation, Hay and Marais (2010), bridging programmes are direct endorsements of avaricious minds to generate fiscal resource without being thoughtful of the timeframe, content, assessments, teaching pedagogy (Ssempebwa, Eduan and Mulumba, 2012, p. 142) as well as quality assurance.
Another crucial area that is extensively underlined as demanding support intervention in higher education institutions is the academic or learning component as well as financial support initiatives. Furthermore, the relationship between financial student support intervention and the scholastic performance phenomena are not sufficiently documented in the related literature (Alon, 2007; Belot, Canton and Webbink, 2007, Canton and Blom 2010, p. 49). Belot, Canton and Webbink (2006, p. 261) made an inquiry on whether the diminution in student support delivery affect students’ scholastic standard of performance, and noted that, within the confines of a decreased financial support intervention, the dwindling could have had fiscal consequences. An examination carried out by Canton and Blom (2010, p. 49) upon the experiences of universities in Mexico on academic performances and support services offered to students revealed that aiding students financially can lead to higher accrual of human investment through an enhanced academic performance as well as an amplified rate of enrolment. Lee et al (2011) studied the relationship among students’ perceptions of support, their satisfaction level of the course and learning achievements in online learning. The results of their survey discovered that there is a significant relationship the perceived student support and the inclusive satisfaction of the online course (Lee et al, 2011, p. 158). The student capability to retain the learning outcomes has also been identified in the existing knowledge as an advantage to be recognised if supports
towards improving learning experiences are effectively undertaken. Huett, Kalinowski, Moller, and Huett (2008); and Britto and Rush (2013, p. 29) also acknowledge that higher education support interventions can result in maximised student retention and competency level. Student support is also a paramount priority, following the use of diagnostic tests for admission purposes and to discover students’ weaknesses, skills and competency levels so that a necessary support intervention can be made to help them perform better in programmes, which they are enrolled in. In their research to find out the kind of support students’ need in order to cope with the university academic demands, a particular cohort seeking support intervention and to check students’
readiness, Sharif et al (2007, p. 215) assert that there is a correlation between the diagnostic tests and examination results. In their analysis, for first year students in Australian University, of the relationship among adjustment and types of student support, sources and support levels, as well as students’ satisfaction on support levels, Ramsay, Jones and Barker (2007, p. 247) found that less adjusted students have low levels of social friendship support as compared to the adjusted cohort. This finding further concurs with the gamut of worldviews that student support intervention can result in students adjusting well with the academic life. Examining the relationship of students’ difficulties and social companionship support on mental fitness of students in Islamic Azad University, Tajalli, Sobhi and Ganbaripanah (2010, p. 99) identified that the relationship between both the social support and mental fitness and between students’ daily difficulties and their mental fitness exist.
Every type of support that student may need to be assisted with is worthy to be noted and urgently responded to. Literature revealed in this regard that students’ challenges, such poor financial background, occupational burdens, study materials, educational background, and lack of family support might lower students’ academic performances (Andrade, 2006, p. 131 and 137). Andrade (2006, p. 131) investigated whether variables such as linguistic skill, personal traits, educational background, strategies to support students towards realizing academic success, support interventions put in place, as well as individual study habits affect students’ fulfilments, and the results showed that proficiency in language does not affect international students’
achievements.