Providing student support and student satisfaction at the Faculty of Health Sciences: Implications for curriculum reform

In 1997 the Faculty commenced a program of investigation focused on students first year experience of tertiary study. Each year a modified form of the First Year Experience Questionnaire (McInnis 1996) is administered to all first year students. The aims of this program are to obtain baseline data on student background, attitudes towards study at university and social perceptions that students have in their first year of university education. This research is now in its fourth year and cross sectional data over this period has produced considerable information about the background and motivations of the faculty's undergraduate population.

The advantage of this research has been the generation of an extensive multipurpose database. More importantly the data has facilitated the identification distinct clusters (segments) of the cohort with specific implications to the provision of support and the development of curriculum reform.

Aim:
The aim of this workshop is to assist participants to develop an in depth understanding of the complexity of the issues related to student support, Motivation for study, persistence and satisfaction with being a tertiary student in the context of curriculum reform.

This workshop will take a case study format and will present data generated from the First Year Experience Questionnaire to provide insights to the exploration of the following issues:

• How students report the quality of the learning experience and those factors that would assist in improving it,
• what students say about the business of study, their motivation to study and the perception of satisfaction with being a tertiary student,
• the quality of learning and its relationship to student retention,
• student performance and flexible teaching and responding to different learning styles,
• using the database generated by the Year Experience Questionnaire to define market segments,
• the relation ships between the reported literature and the present study's findings,
• how students seek out support