STRATEGIC PROJECT
use case
Boosting student well-being for enhanced retention
How Vytautas Magnus University utilises StudentPulse to improve student retention
Segment
University
Size
8000 students
Location
Lithuania
Name
Duration
Focus area
Vytautas Magnus University (VMU), is one of Lithuania's prominent educational institutions located in Kaunas, known for its interdisciplinary approach to education and commitment to providing diverse educational programs. Mykolė Lukošienė, the Head of Study Department at VMU, plays a crucial role in managing study processes, regulations, quality, and research. With a focus on student-centered learning and well-being, VMU recognizes the importance of addressing challenges in student retention and providing comprehensive support for their diverse student population. VMU implemented StudentPulse, a data-driven solution in 2019.
Like many universities, VMU faced challenges in retaining students, especially those requiring individualized learning paths due to the rapidly changing job market and uncertainties.
The student retention and especially the students anchoring to the university, is a challenge that has never been grasped really well. We are involved in a lot of working groups that try to accommodate students who need individual paths for their studies because life is changing and it is very uncertain and it’s not always easy to adapt to the changes.
VMU's interdisciplinary approach to education acknowledges the individual paths and diverse needs of its students. However, in the past, there was a lack of focus on students' personal and social well-being. There was a lack of a genuine engagement culture at the university. Traditional student surveys provided feedback, but the lengthy turnaround time and extensive questionnaires hindered meaningful engagement and timely response to students' needs. These shortcomings of traditional surveys couldn’t provide timely support to students' evolving needs.
We have student surveys. We collect feedback all the time. That is a requirement in quality assurance. But for example, students' engagement in their responses and the response rate? And is it a formal response or is it a true heartfelt response, what is needed from a student? So we saw a lack in that. We met a lot of formal requirements, but we needed an engagement culture in our university for the students to be strengthened.
There were various factors such as demographic changes and varying student needs that made it crucial to ensure that students feel connected, supported, and engaged during their academic journey. To tackle these challenges, VMU adopted StudentPulse, a data-driven solution and an effective tool that could provide insights into student well-being, identify areas of concern, and offer targeted support before it’s too late.
When he or she is dropping out, it's a bit too late to do something. I mean, these are not preventive measures. And StudentPulse helps a lot with connecting a student having a problem or a challenge with the support that is needed.
The introduction of StudentPulse at VMU delivered significant positive outcomes. VMU embraced a data-driven culture, collecting ongoing data through regular student check-ins. This approach offered a continuous pulse on student sentiment and needs, empowering the institution to make informed decisions.
StudentPulse can identify those soft, hardly tangible feelings, doubts that lead to the dropout of a student.
VMU's experience with StudentPulse illustrates how a data-driven approach can lead to remarkable improvements in student outcomes and create a more student-centric learning environment. It empowers both students and staff, fostering collaboration among stakeholders and positively impacting student retention.
StudentPulse is a tool that focuses on student-centered teaching and learning. And I think that helps a lot, because the student feels that he's needed, that he's important.
Furthermore, StudentPulse encouraged more efficient collaboration among staff members, leading to enhanced decision-making processes and better-targeted student support.
When focusing on student wellbeing, what’s really important is that StudentPulse helped a lot in engaging not only students, but also our staff to take care about student wellbeing in university and that’s a central part of our student retention.
VMU's proactive use of StudentPulse check-ins actively promotes student well-being across the university, ensuring that students' personal, academic and social well-being is prioritized. VMU noticed that the StudentPulse check-ins didn’t only encourage students to be responsive but also to actively seek self-help resources related to well-being, stress management, and personal development. The unexpected interest in these resources has underscored the importance of nurturing students' well-being within the university context. VMU's commitment to addressing this often overlooked area not only enhances the student experience but also significantly contributes to student retention.
We see a lot of clicks to self-help links that we provide. Psychological, stress management, or offering students well-being courses. And they're really interested in that. And we would never expect that. I mean, it has never been included in national regulations or recommendations to somehow nurture students' well-being in the university. And it's a big part of student retention, so we appreciate that a lot.
Mykolė also emphasized the importance of engagement items in promoting student well-being and attachment to the university. In an institution as vast and diverse as VMU, ensuring that every teacher can actively engage with student feedback at the course level is a monumental task and StudentPulse's engagement items play a pivotal role in addressing this challenge. They enable the university to uncover the "gray areas" of well-being often overlooked in traditional assessments, enabling VMU to promptly connect students experiencing doubts or challenges with the support they need. It facilitated a real-time approach to addressing student concerns, helping to bridge communication gaps and providing students with an inclusive and supportive educational experience.
It's a huge university where it’s not that easy to ensure that every teacher could respond as soon as possible when they get inputs that students lack something or need support and so on. And it's too big of a risk to lose the grip of the responses about the study and teaching assessment. So I think StudentPulse engagement items grasp those gray areas of wellbeing, which are a big part of students retention strategy to keep students attached to the university, because university should give more than education, qualification, and diploma.
In conclusion, the introduction of StudentPulse at VMU delivered significant positive outcomes. VMU embraced a data-driven culture, collecting ongoing data through regular student check-ins. This approach offered a continuous pulse on student sentiment and needs, empowering the institution to make informed decisions.
We would recommend StudentPulse because the visualization is nice for those who work with data. The results look good, you don’t have to do any kind of data visualization by yourself. You can just take it from the platform and that is very useful. And also, I would recommend it because of the gray area of student well-being at many universities. The framework of questions you have with different themes, they cover a lot of topics that are important for students but are not covered in many universities in the student feedback. And if it is important for students, it should be important for universities too.
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