RAPPORT
WWW.RECORDINGACHIEVEMENT.AC.UK
Issue 2 (2015)
impact of such activities. Given the expenses
incurred by schools in engaging with these events,
including those associated with transport,
administration and staff time, it made sense from a
cost as well as an educational perspective to take
this learning back into the classroom.
Similarly, a consideration of the wider literature
suggests the indirect benefits of educational
schemes are judged to be of significance. Here,
Pugno et al. (2010, p.158) argue that ‘a full
appreciation of the breadth and depth of [the]
benefits these [initiatives] render provides an
important perspective for planning and resource
allocation’. Beyond this, McNamara et al. (1996,
p.9) argue that the existence of indirect or external
benefits is ‘a standard justification for [the]
provision of education as a public service’.
Harnessing the transmission mechanisms
Whilst it was acknowledged that the indirect effect
of widening access interventions could be
transmitted through informal channels - with
classmates chatting to each other – both of the
practitioners consulted made the case for adopting
a more managed and planned approach that
would help to maximise the impact. Indeed, the
assistant principal described how their school had
already developed a number of approaches to
raising awareness of the widening access
activities it was involved with. Similarly, the other
practitioner was able to draw on their experience
to provide further examples. Taken together,
these included:
Displaying the posters and similar work
produced by participants during a university
visit in the school library ‘for all students to see’;
Should the event involve winning a prize,
ensuring this is displayed and acknowledged in
school;
Encouraging participants to give presentations
about
their
outreach
experiences
in
assemblies;
et al. 2005, p.54). Indeed, the suggestion was
made of recognising some outreach events as
opportunities for attendees to be ‘trained’, so that
they can ‘show other kids’ how to do things.
Recording
This leaves the question of how to record the
evidence of indirect beneficiaries. In this respect,
McNamara et al. (1996, p.9) note that ‘indirect
benefits are often difficult to specify or measure’.
Indeed, Murphy and Adams (2005, p.20) claim that
one of the reasons why many studies focus solely
on direct beneficiaries concerns the problem of
‘identifying robust measures’. They also suggest
that the potential costs involved in ‘reviewing the
impact of education and training within the wider
social and organisational context’ may deter such
investigation (ibid. p.20). This said, the
practitioners consulted for this study were able to
offer various ways of gauging the nature and scale
of the indirect impact.
Whilst those in management positions were not
always classroom-based, form tutors who were
could be asked. As a means of gathering
information, it was suggested that tutors could
survey their students before they attended an
event and then afterwards. The questions that
might be posed in such a survey would need to be
tailored to the nature of the intervention involved
and to its particular objectives. If the focus were
on raising awareness of HE, which is a prime
concern of many initial outreach interventions, the
questions might be directed at determining what
they understood by university, why people choose
to go to university, what can be studied there, and
how approaches to learning in university will differ
from those in school. If these questions were
accompanied by a list of options to be chosen, the
extent of change could be quantified. Moreover, by
distinguishing event participants from nonparticipants, the scale of the indirect impact could
be ascertained.
Rather than the teachers who attend outreach
events leading on applying the resulting
learning back in the classroom, encouraging
participants to do so.
In addition, there is the potential to use focus
groups for this purpose, and in order to gain more
qualitative insights. Those comprising outreach
participants could, for instance, explore the impact
of their engagement on classmates who did not
attend. For example, were their classmates
interested to know where they had been, what they
had discovered and what they thought of the
experience? Did they consider it had influenced
their classmates thinking about further study and
university as options?
Regarding the last of these examples, it can be
suggested that the potential for using ‘cascading
techniques’ of this kind could be further enhanced
by encouraging participants to see their role back
in school as one of communicating their
experiences and learning to fellow pupils (Goodall
It can be noted that the use of both surveys and
focus groups are consistent with the approach
taken by Murphy and Adams (op.cit. p.9) whose
exploration of the wider impact of various healthassociated training schemes included in-depth
interviews with those who had received the training
Posting outreach event reports written by
members of staff who had also attended these
events on the school’s website;
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