Abstract:

This paper examines one specific question: How students as partners has contributed to the First Year Transition Program (FYTP), student engagement and retention. The partnership with senior students as First Year Mentors (FYMs), First Year Transition Officers (FYTOs) and staff in the academic space at the selected university created a shared responsibility to student retention goals. Peer support is not a new concept and various programs in higher education institutions, such as tutoring, mentoring and peer facilitation have successfully used peer-to-peer interventions. Peer-to-peer interventions is founded on the idea that students connect with other students who can identify and understand their particular experiences in adjusting to university life. This connection is usually nurtured outside of the formal academic program. This paper first introduces the framework of the First Year Transition Programe (FYTP) piloted in 2019 at the selected university before describing how the student partnership enhanced first year student engagement, transition and retention. The key objective of the FYTP is to enhance students’ sense of connectedness to the institution so that they will stay and succeed beyond first year of study. A critical component of the FYTP, based on the principles of respect, reciprocity and shared responsibility, is the use of peer-to-peer engagement to support first year students with a smooth transition to university studies. The use of senior students as partners and co-creators of the FYTP moved away from the deficit approach to create an enabling environment for the students’ to seek help and nurture their abilities in a safe and caring environment. With the use of Kift’s Transition Pedagogy principles, this paper includes examples of how the more personalised and interactive approach of the FYTP enhanced peer engagement and active participation in academic support while also improving students’ self-efficacy and confidence. The findings of this study indicates that a carefully designed and intentional use of students as partners in the FYTP can achieve successful results. The study demonstrates that the sharing nature of the reciprocal peer-to-peer support relationship increased feelings of acceptance and being understood that contributed to the students’ sense of connectedness to the university.

Keywords:

Students as Partners, First Year Transition, Peer Mentoring.