Putting Student Voices to Use
Raymond Peart, ASD Coordinator
From Strengthening Transitions for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder to All First Year Students Registered with Student Accessibility Services
Since 2014, Student Accessibility Services has been surveying its First Year Cohort of newly registered students in their first year of service with the department. At first, we worked with first year students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) by identifying key moments in their first year where we felt that they may be at risk of an early exit:
- After the first week of school
- After the first month of school
- After the first semester of school
Therefore, Student Accessibility Services set out to survey this cohort of students to understand their experiences better. We took this feedback and shared it with students to enhance the probability for success within their first year. This initiative proved to be so successful that we broadened the scope of our students to all students registered in their first year with Student Accessibility Services.
In 2016, Student Accessibility Services began to survey all first-year students registered with the department to understand their experiences during the Fall and what factors contributed to their success.
Our students have provided us with invaluable feedback to support future first year student cohorts within Student Accessibility Services. We continue to support first year cohorts through their school year by proactively disseminating past responses from peers.
Our generalized findings have been consistent over a three-and-a-half-year time span. Based on student feedback, we identified five prominent best practices:
- Students who connected with campus services prior to their September start were more likely to be successful and had a significantly broader definition of what success in first year looked like
- Students who connected early with campus services accessed campus resources more often than students who did not participate in some form of summer transition event
- Students who connected earlier with campus through some sort of summer transition program, were more likely to form positive peer and instructor relationships throughout the year
- When students connected with a "live" resource (i.e. a human being), they tended to feel like they were part of the community as opposed to just a number
- Getting to campus and showing up for class is a marker of success
We have synthesized these findings into a strategy called PACT: Plan – Act – Connect – Tailor.
For more information, visit the links below:
