Uni Connect is being evaluated at a national level to assess how successfully the programme meets its aims, in addition to local partnership evaluation.
We'll use evidence from the evaluation to understand:
- whether Uni Connect is working
- how well it's working
- who it's working for.
We'll use this information to support our funding decisions and refine practice at a local level.
External national evaluation
We've commissioned CFE Research to undertake an impact evaluation assessing the changes that have resulted from Uni Connect interventions.
This will use a range of quantitative, experimental methodologies and include a review of the evidence from partnerships' local evaluations with reports at key points in the programme.
We will also work with external evaluators to conduct a formative evaluation of Uni Connect.
OfS national evaluation
We will undertake:
- quantitative analysis using national administrative data sets to assess:
- key stage 4 and 5 behavioural change
- numbers of entrants to higher education
- attainment
- progression
- ongoing monitoring and governance of partnerships, including account management and monitoring of biannual financial returns and operating plans.
Partnership local evaluation
Partnerships will undertake:
- longitudinal tracking of Uni Connect target learners at local and national level to evaluate the impact of particular interventions
- local evaluation of their activities, supported by a team of evaluation experts led by the University of Exeter’s Centre for Social Mobility. The evaluation capability building team will help partnerships tackle evaluation challenges together and develop a legacy of evaluation resources. Read more about this new team.
Evaluation reports
CFE Research published an evaluation report on the first year of the programme in March 2018.
Their latest evaluation report at the end of phase one was published in October 2019.
