What\u2019s the implementation timescale?<\/h5>\n
First data collection:\u00a0 Sept 2019, from 2017\/18 finalists 15 months after completing their degrees.<\/p>\n
First league tables:\u00a0 2020, reporting data collected in September 2019.<\/p>\n
First new interventions:\u00a0 2018\/19 to influence June 2019 leavers, surveyed in 2020, reported 2021.<\/p>\n
What can universities do\u00a0with graduate wellbeing data?<\/h5>\n
Universities and courses can recruit students using subjective wellbeing\u00a0 data collected in the HESA Graduate Outcome survey,\u00a0with claims such as \u201cour graduates’ lives feel more worthwhile and more satisfying than 80% of UK adults\u2019 lives.\u201d HESA\u2019s Graduate Outcome survey explores how this life quality has been achieved, through graduates\u2019 accounts of their \u201creasons for taking the job\u201d. This data can be presented to prospective students as an indication of graduates\u2019 autonomy, in messages such as \u201c70% of our graduates are employed in exactly the type of work they wanted\u201d.<\/p>\n
Is it possible to improve student wellbeing?<\/h5>\n
Student wellbeing, autonomy and career development all work the same way. By introducing subjective wellbeing items in the Graduate Outcome survey, HESA enables universities to close the loop in the student development system. The Dynamic DOTS model illustrates this system<\/p>\n
![\"Dynamic](\"http:\/\/lighthousepolicygroup.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Model-for-blog-1-300x212.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
What does this mean in practice?<\/h5>\n
Career advisers, study skill advisers and academics can offer to make students\u2019 lives feel happier, more socially connected, more exciting and less anxious, more satisfying and more worthwhile. In doing so they can improve student performance and career development. Established literatures set out approaches for developing study skills and employability. There is less guidance about improving all students\u2019 wellbeing across the range of higher education contexts, through teaching and learning within and beyond the formal curriculum. Nonetheless, simple, versatile, low-cost interventions exist that yield measurable impacts.<\/p>\n
For example, university staff can use HESA\u2019s subjective wellbeing items as life-quality drivers in groupwork which begins with students reviewing and scoring their weekend highlights, or seminars, group presentations, exam preparation etc. on a scale of 0 to 10: satisfying, worthwhile, happy, anxious and socially connected. Then students share approaches to make the experience feel measurably better next time, improving their performance and productivity, and extending their sense of control. Through this sharing, students research and develop their internal and external resources, and improve their choices and transitions. Dynamic DOTS illustrates how this work\u00a0builds habits of autonomy formulated by Burchardt et al. (2012);<\/span><\/span>\u00a0it extends external opportunities, raises self-awareness and promotes more active decisions. Through the same process this groupwork drives the four components of career development described by Law and Watts (1977) and identified by<\/span><\/span>\u00a0Foskett and Johnston (2006)<\/span>\u00a0as the principle framework for university career education.<\/p>\n HESA\u2019s subjective wellbeing items can focus students\u2019 attention on choosing goals which feel individually worthwhile, performance and attainment that feels individually satisfying, and lived experience that feels happy, socially connected, and low in uninvited anxiety. Of course, not all anxiety is uninvited. Striving towards challenging, personally worthwhile goals is often anxiety-provoking. Exploring the dynamics of wellbeing and personal productivity can be a valuable part of performance and career development work with students.<\/p>\n Higher education is already well-equipped to deliver subjective wellbeing outcomes and social transformation at a significant scale. Students already invent and share occupational choices which impact on their sense that their lives feel satisfying, worthwhile, happy, socially connected and anxious. The subjective wellbeing framework and data can enable students to evaluate their experience and make better individual choices.<\/p>\n REACH & FIT: each year 2 million UK students can invent, evaluate,\u00a0select and share interventions Top-down drivers<\/span>: DVCs Teaching and Learning can be responsible for institutional strategic goals such as to increase mean HESA subjective wellbeing scores as student cohorts progress through the Stages of\u00a0their taught programme. Measurement can be achieved by including the HESA subjective wellbeing items in the annual online student registration process. Many UK HEIs collect data in this way, for example as part of the HEFCE Career Registration Learning Gain project. Student and graduate data can be compared with ONS UK adult data.<\/p>\n Mid-level drivers<\/span>: within specific programmes, course leaders can be responsible for improving mean HESA subjective wellbeing scores across the Stages of their programme. Data can be collected through in a variety of settings including student groupwork.<\/p>\n Bottom-up drivers<\/span>: regularly inviting students to evaluate and improve their subjective wellbeing in the various aspects of their university life frames students as co-producers of transformative student communities rather than passive consumers of educational services. The HESA subjective wellbeing items can structure students\u2019 life quality discourse, particularly where a university\u2019s career education raises students\u2019 awareness of their values and personalities as a basis for worthwhile, day-to-day life-wide occupational choices and satisfying performance.<\/p>\n Careers advisers and\u00a0study skills advisers may be more familiar and confident delivering groupwork in this style. University counsellors may be more convinced this work will improve student retention, academic performance, NSS scores and completion rates, and help manage demand for their over-stretched services.<\/p>\n The 40-minute How Student Wellbeing Works video guide illustrates approaches for universities to improve students\u2019 and graduates\u2019 subjective wellbeing. This is linked from a trailer is available at https:\/\/youtu.be\/K0YnhaZ8PZ8<\/a><\/p>\n Vice Chancellors can invite key institutional staff such as their institutional Head of Student Career Development, Counselling, Academic Skills Development and Student Union \/ Association \/ Guild sabbatical officers to review the 40-minute guide, as a starting place for integrating subjective wellbeing into the student career and performance development curriculum. A key groupwork exercise is described in Section 8 of the video. An annotated script is available via http:\/\/bit.ly\/HSWWScriptNotes<\/a>.<\/p>\n If you would like help establishing this provision, please contact Glen Crust at glencrust@hotmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With support from the Cabinet Office and Public Health England, four Office of National Statistics (ONS) subjective wellbeing items have been adopted by the HESA Graduate Outcome survey, which replaces DLHE from 2019. The items were developed by ONS to supplement economic performance metrics; they measure the extent to which graduates feel that the things … Continue reading “Guest Blog by Glen Crust: HESA\u2019s Life Quality Questions in the Graduate Outcome Survey”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-policy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lighthousepolicygroup.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lighthousepolicygroup.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lighthousepolicygroup.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lighthousepolicygroup.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lighthousepolicygroup.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/lighthousepolicygroup.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":207,"href":"https:\/\/lighthousepolicygroup.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198\/revisions\/207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lighthousepolicygroup.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lighthousepolicygroup.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lighthousepolicygroup.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nINTENTION: subjective wellbeingcan focus students\u2019 attention on attractive life quality goals
\nRIGOUR: HESA\u2019s work recycles tried-and-tested ONS wellbeing survey items
\nFEASIBILITY: higher education already achieves a graduate wellbeing premium
\nAUTONOMY: extends students\u2019 will-power and way-power, after Snyder in Day et al, 2010<\/span>
\nSYNTHESIS: applies Systems Thinking to student performance development
\nMARKET FORCE: annual UK-wide SWB league tables will drive development in HEIs\u2019 practice
\nPUBLIC POLICY: supported by Public Health England, Cabinet Office and ONS
\nCONTINUITY: repurposes existing university student groupwork
\nPEDIGREE: vast interdisciplinary research literature stretches back to Plato<\/p>\nManaging implementation<\/h5>\n
Getting Started<\/h5>\n