General Observations

Students did not necessarily feel that sufficient IAG had been available to them during their compulsory education and this was reiterated in the qualitative data with students feeling that limited access to careers guidance advisors had been a

particular issue.

Students from both groups felt that more contact with careers guidance advisors and better information about the careers available based on degree choice would be helpful. They also felt that there should be more opportunities for graduates to visit schools as ambassadors for HE or for their own teachers, or other professionals, to talk about their experiences of HE.

Another emerging theme was that those with experience of the HE sector could have done more and while college students preferred the IAG from their college tutors to other sources of information they felt everyone they encountered during their compulsory education could have done more to enlighten them about university. There was a strong feeling from both groups of students that teachers and careers advisors had experienced university but never shared their own experiences. Similarly they felt they would have liked to hear from other graduates about their journey through education and into employment.

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College students described having been admitted onto programmes without a clear idea of what they could reasonably expect in terms of graduate employment or without having considered what they wanted to do afterwards and if the course therefore was appropriate. University students also described poor advice which had resulted in them pursuing awards that they would not be admitted on to or being recruited on to courses that were unsuitable to fulfil their needs despite believing they had asked the appropriate questions.

A number of authors (Gorard and Rees, 2002; Moogan, 2011 and Slack et al, 2012) have commented previously on the mistakes students make in their pursuit of HE as a result of poor advice and an inability to question, but now in the days of higher fees these mistakes are potentially much more costly.

This is particularly concerning for students from WP backgrounds who are more likely to be concerned about money as they are being disadvantaged in a number of ways. Firstly they are having a negative experience of education that could knock their confidence reinforcing their tentative learner identity as described by Shaw (2012) and not encouraging them to become independent learners. Secondly they are lengthening their time in education, which costs more upfront and reduces their earning capacity as they extend their time in education unnecessarily.

5.2.5 Summary

Figure 5.2 illustrates how students from the two groups used IAG when deciding on their HE. For students attending FECs they weighted more heavily the ‘hot’ and ‘warm’ IAG and were contingent on their use of it, university students in contrast

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weighted more heavily the ‘cold’ IAG sources and were keen to research this but without the advantages of the typical embedded chooser.

Figure 5.2 Chooser typology – ‘hot’, ‘warm’ and ‘cold’ IAG

University students identified people in general, be this friends, family or education staff, as least useful sources of information. In the absence of social networks with the ability to give experiential IAG they showed a preference for hard or ‘cold’ data they could research and assimilate and less interest in the softer, ‘warm’ data

preferred by their college peers. They have shown themselves to be more aligned to

Embedded

Choosers

• Use 'hot', 'cold' and 'warm' IAG

• Wide range of friends and family with HE experience

• Able to research, validate and assimilate IAG

Pseudo-

Embedded

Choosers

• Use 'hot', 'cold' and 'warm' IAG, preferring 'cold'

• Limited or no friends and family with HE experience

• Able to research and assimilate IAG but not always to

validate

Contingent

Choosers

• Use predominantly 'hot' and 'warm' IAG

• Limited or no friends and family with HE experience

but reliance on college tutors

• Unable or unwilling to research, assimilate and validate

IAG

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the embedded chooser although without necessarily having the same degree of first- hand experience to draw on that is usually associated with the embedded chooser so perhaps need their own descriptor as ‘pseudo-embedded choosers’ who have the skills to research and assimilate ‘cold’ knowledge but lack the family networks with experience of HE. We can therefore conclude that university WP students rely on ‘cold’ IAG and are pseudo-embedded choosers.

College WP students on the whole preferred the ‘hot’ and ‘warm’ knowledge sources and were less likely to undertake research to find the best fit. They were particularly influenced by the advice of their college tutors despite some suggesting that this may have been biased and others indicating a certain amount of pressure to remain at the college. We can therefore conclude that college students, who in the main get their IAG from the colleges prefer ‘hot’ and ‘warm’ IAG, have an approach typical of the contingent chooser and are more inclined to remain at the college for their HE.