Cindy Bradshaw Consulting Ltd.
Analyse - Act - Achieve
Student Outcomes (Condition B3)
Condition B3 of the Office for Students' regulatory framework (England) requires that: 'The provider must deliver successful outcomes for all of its students, which are recognised and valued by employers, and/or enable further study. '
The OfS calculates a series of Student outcomes (Condition B3) indicators for each provider, as part of their registration. This can potentially be over 3,000 indicators for a provider, depending on their student population.
The OfS calculates a series of Condition B3: Student outcomes indicators for each provider, as part of their registration.
The student outcomes indicators for continuation and completion use the latest four years of HESA data and include both Home and Overseas domiciled students (some of which are also used in the TEF)
The student outcomes indicators for progression use the latest three years of Graduate Outcomes data and refers to Home domiciled students only.
There are three key figures that providers need to note, and these are:
1. The indicator calculated by the OfS, e.g. continuation rate
2. The numerical threshold set by the OfS as a minimum expectation for the indicator
3. The benchmark set by the OfS to understand how well a provider has performed compared with performance for similar types of students on similar types of courses in the higher education sector as a whole
Indicators
Indicators are provided by the OfS, at provider level, for each of the following stages of the student life cycle:
Continuation rates - proportion of new entrants continuing to their second year of study
Completion rates - proportion of new entrants completing their programme of study (using the cohort tracking method)
Progression rates - proportion of students counted as a positive outcome in the Graduate Outcomes survey
Further (split) indicators are provided by the OfS, the details of which can be found in the OfS Description and Methodology document.
Numerical Thresholds
The OfS provides numerical thresholds for each of the split indicators for each of the student life cycle stags. These thresholds can be found of page 4 of the the OfS document Setting numerical thresholds.
Benchmarks
The OfS also sets adjusted sector benchmarks for each of the indicators.
Student Outcomes Dashboard Samples
The first section of the Student Outcomes Dashboard shows the four year aggregated continuation rate broken down by characteristic, and shows if the indicator is materially above or below the benchmark and threshold.
The second section shows the denominator used in the indicator for each of the four years, together with a graphical summary to show the trend over time.
The third section shows the indicator for the four individual years, together with a graphical summary to show the trend over time, and an indication as to whether the indicator was above or below the threshold for each year.
