PIs: Widening participation of students in receipt of DSA - definitions (table T7)

Coverage

Higher education (HE) students are those students on programmes of study for which the level of instruction is above that of level 3 of the National Qualifications Framework, i.e. courses leading to the Advanced Level of the General Certificate of Education (GCE A levels), the Advanced Level of the Vocational Certificate of Education (VCE A levels) or the Advanced Higher Grade and Higher Grade of the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) Advanced Highers/Highers).

The data used in constructing the indicators have been taken from the HESA database. The data specification of the record uses the term 'instance' to describe a student's engagement with the institution, which, because a student can have more than one instance of engagement, will exceed the number of students. Postdoctoral students are not included in the HESA Student Record.

All students included in the tables are those whose normal residence is in the United Kingdom, excluding Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man. This information comes primarily from the HESA POSTCODE field, with the DOMICILE field used if there is no valid postcode supplied. If neither field supplies valid information, it is assumed that the student is resident in the UK. Incoming and visiting exchange students and students studying for the whole of their programme of study outside the UK are excluded from the tables.

In 2007/08 and 2008/09, data for the Open University have been excluded from the part-time figures due to changes introduced by HESA to the method of apportioning FTEs between years which has affected the count of Open University part-time students.

As with other tables, the number of part-time students at an institution can be small. Combined with the extremely small percentages of disabled students in the group, the values of the indicator in such cases could be very variable. They should therefore be interpreted with care.

Mode of study

• Full-time students are those recorded as studying full-time at an institution, or on thick or thin sandwich courses, provided that the length of the course is at least 24 weeks.
• Part-time students are those recorded as studying part-time, or full-time on courses lasting less than 24 weeks, but excluding those students who are studying less than 50% of the time.

From the 2009/10 edition, part-time mode of study includes students returned as having part-time mode of study and FTE (STULOAD) greater than 50 or, where a student instance spans HESA reporting years, the sum of FTE load A (LOADYRA) from the reporting year and FTE load B (LOADYRB) from the previous year is greater than 50. Previously only part-time students with FTE greater than 50 were included. The impact of this change is minimal for the majority of institutions.

Level of study

The level of study is taken from the qualification aim of the student. Only undergraduate students are included in Tables T1 to T7 at present. First degree students are those studying for any type of first degree; other undergraduate students are those studying for foundation degrees, diplomas, certificates and other undergraduate courses. The codes for qualification aims (HESA field COURSEAIM) used to define the level are shown below.

Disabled students

The definition of disability used for the performance indicator is based on the HESA field DISALL. This field records whether a student is in receipt of the Disabled Students Allowance (DSA). The indicator is the proportion of students in receipt of DSA, i.e. the proportion of students with DISALL=4.

Benchmarks

For definitions of the fields used to create the benchmarks, please refer to the benchmarks document. These fields include:

• subject of study
• entry qualifications.

Subject of study

Subject of study has been included in the benchmark for this indicator, in spite of concerns that to do so would imply an acceptance of the differences between subject areas. However, some of the differences may be due to the eligibility criteria set for the DSA and a number of professional bodies set physical criteria for their members which preclude some disabled people. These are outside the control of institutions and so including subject as a factor is reasonable.

Rounding strategy

Due to the provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Human Rights Act 1998, HESA implements a strategy in published and released tabulations designed to prevent the disclosure of personal information about any individual. This strategy involves rounding all numbers to the nearest 5. A summary of this strategy is as follows:

• 0, 1, 2 are rounded to 0
• All other numbers are rounded to the nearest 5.

So for example 3 is represented as 5, 22 is represented as 20, 3286 is represented as 3285, while 0, 20, 55, 3510 remain unchanged.

This rounding strategy is also applied to total figures; the consequence of which is that the sum of numbers in each row or column will rarely precisely match the total shown.

Average values, proportions and FTE values prepared by HESA will not be affected by the above strategy, and will be calculated on precise raw numbers. However, percentages and indicators calculated on populations which contain less than 20 individuals will be suppressed and represented as a blank value.

Enquiries

Press: Call 01242 211120 or email pressoffice@hesa.ac.uk.
General enquiries should be sent to piteam@hesa.ac.uk.
Enquiries regarding the Performance Indicators Steering Group (PISG) should be directed to the HEFCE Press Office on 0117 931 7307