The Zone: A Guide to Developing Supports for First Year Student Success

Welcome to The Zone: A guide to developing supports for first-year student success. This guide describes the Open Access College’s student support strategy, first trialled in 2018, aimed at supporting its Tertiary Preparation Program (TPP) students to make a successful transition into tertiary study. The project was supported through a 2018 Learning and Teaching Commissioned Project grant. TPP is an enabling program aligned with Australia’s widening participation agenda. The program provides preparation for and access to tertiary education for students who would otherwise be excluded from university study. Concerns about high levels of attrition, characteristic of enabling programs nationally, provided the impetus for the project. Research based on student transition into higher education, student experiences in enabling education programs (particularly literature which focused on recognising the challenges faced by many students in their first year of study), the critical importance of improving student engagement, and the positive role academic advisors can play in student success has informed the development of the College’s strategy. The Zone is part of the College’s student-facing response to engagement, retention, and attrition issues faced by students commencing TPP. It is an interactive web-based platform on the university’s Learning Management System. This guide presents the lived experience of how The Zone evolved to create a student-facing transition resource and a range of student support strategies. The aim of this document is to inform educators in higher education contexts who may consider adopting a similar approach to supporting their first year students. The Zone is a practical and illustrative example of how a collective approach can improve students’ experiences as they begin their journey in higher education