Focusing on student success and robust technological solutions can put institutions of higher learning in a position to offer proactive — not reactive — student support. The right tools prevent data silos, track student performance, and streamline operational processes to improve workflows and create more visibility into student behavior.
Read on to learn how Watermark’s VP for Student and Customer Success, Heather Taynor, uses a 5-stage plan to improve student outcomes.
The five stages of student success help an institution guide students through the college experience. They help identify what retention strategies and interventions to provide students as they matriculate and progress towards their educational goals. The methodology is based on a solid foundation of theory, research, and practice on college student retention.
The five stages of student success are:
These five stages represent a framework that actively implements student engagement strategies to promote positive student outcomes. Supporting students through every stage of their academic journeys is critical for overall student satisfaction and success.
Institutions spend a great deal of energy understanding how students progress through the recruitment or admissions funnel. They must detail what type of communications should happen at different stages, what outreach is necessary and how they should be helping students. Just as admissions or recruitment has a funnel, the five stages of student success serves as a retention funnel from enrollment through the remainder of the student lifecycle.
The five stages of student success help institutions define the outreach, intervention services, retention, and student engagement strategies at each stage to help maximize student resilience and student success. Institutions define these stages by student behavior during enrollment to understand what coaching behaviors to use and how they must communicate with their students. Some areas the five stages of student success cover include:
The components of each stage consist of the following:
Entering institutions of higher learning can be a challenging process for students. Institutions that allow natural progression through the five stages below can help refine communication and retention strategies and increase engagement.
The learner intake stage aims to help students enroll in the right courses, adjust to their new environment, and finalize any outstanding registration processes. Some of the focal points of this stage include the following:
The early intervention stage helps students acclimate to college life and academics. It also encourages independent learning within their chosen course material. Some of the primary objectives throughout this phase include the following:
Implementing early intervention strategies enables you to help students early in their college careers, letting you learn more about them as you develop and establish a relationship. You may discover which students may be at risk and will benefit from additional support. When you intervene early, you ensure students start on the path to success immediately during their new journey.
As students settle into a rhythm, accepting responsibility for their own skills is the logical progression in their academic journeys. This stage’s primary goal is to use student engagement strategies to support students and encourage them to accept this responsibility. The principle considerations in the learner support stage include:
A critical part of student success is the support provided to students by their institution’s faculty. Support helps them feel capable of their tasks and requirements for school. It also lets them know they have access to help if they need it, whether it includes finding clubs to join or determining which classes work best with their schedules for the upcoming semester.
Support encourages students to persevere and accomplish their goals. Many students rely on the support they receive from others to make it through each school year, so the learner support stage is an important one that may require extra time, depending on the student.
This stage aims to help students start to transition into their end goal, whether that be a career, completing their bachelor’s degree, or continuing to graduate school. Methods to achieve this objective include:
Ensure a student’s success carries on into their plans after college. Interventions may occur to help students refocus on their goals and gain additional resources to achieve them. Students may meet with advisors to discuss their next steps.
As an institution, you want to document student outcomes and satisfaction and collect as much information as possible to make better-informed decisions. This final stage aims to ensure that students have achieved their educational goals by focusing on:
Student feedback is the best way to see if your student success framework strategies have worked. Higher education institutions using this framework must track the progress of students who use the provided services to know if they’ve truly made an impact.
The five stages of student success is a framework for an institution to decide what type of communication, retention strategies, and services to provide throughout the student lifecycle. It’s a great way to improve your understanding of how and when you should communicate with students and how to best increase student success.
With an established student success framework, your institution can cater to students’ needs more effectively. Student success is contingent on the work your institution’s staff and faculty do to make a positive difference. Other benefits of the student success framework include:
Watermark provides institutions of higher learning with a proactive means of collecting, managing, and measuring data to drive change and foster student success. We empower colleges and higher education institutions to support meaningful data collection to enhance the student experience and garner the best possible results. Our solutions help you and your faculty stay on top of student-focused services to provide the best options for students with diverse backgrounds.
Watermark Student Success & Engagement can help keep students engaged, elevate retention, and increase the chances of successful course completion. Our AI student success and equity solution makes it easy to identify roadblocks preventing student success. Request a demo today to see how we can help you develop actionable strategies through advanced, intuitive reporting and guided pathways for students.
