Version 2 of C-xtra has developed from being an online student retention toolkit developed to help post 16 institutions with retention issues to a website which supports students, tutors and institutions.
Our occupational psychologists following their research on student retention , identified a lack of any online measure of student retention issues.
Through a significant development and research stage---literature review of research, focus groups and interviews with teachers and two significant quantitative analysis of paper based questionnaires ---C-xtra online was created.
Version 2 of C-xtra has seen improvements based on feedback from our first pilot year when over 1000 students used C-xtra.
This has helped develop it into a tool which:
• Supports students by getting them to think about how they are managing in college/sixth form and offers instant advice and guidance through a personal report
• Supports tutors in their tutorial work/ student reviews by giving an indication of which students may need support; providing group information about topics that may need to be covered in tutorials and provides tutors with advice and guidance
• Supports institutions in showing that they are; listening to student voices; monitoring student retention and through use of the reports measuring distance travelled.