Creating a co-produced strategic framework for enhancing student engagement and outcomes through addressing inequalities experienced by healthcare students

Background: Students experience various inequalities within higher education institutions influenced by the intersectionality between socioeconomic, ethnicity, age and gender (House of Commons,2023; Richardson, Mittelmeier and Rienties,2020). To meet the central principle of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is to Leave no one behind (UNSDG,2022). Aims: To investigate the relationship between socio-economic status, ethnicity, age, gender and students’ educational outcomes; to inform the design and development of a framework co-created with students. Principal research question: Is there a relationship between socio-economic status, ethnicity, age and gender in relation to students’ educational outcomes and social identification with the university culture? Methodology: A three-phase, cross-sectional, explanatory sequential mixed-method design using a purposive sample of students on healthcare professional programmes. Phase 1 was an online survey followed by phase 2 semi-structured interviews. Survey data was analysed using descriptive statistics and triangulated with interview data using thematic analysis. Phase 3 will be completed using Nominal Group Technique workshop with students and university representatives. Findings: Preliminary findings from survey (n=144) and interviews (n=7) indicate various barriers to student identification with university culture, namely structure of healthcare programmes requiring intensive theory blocks and extensive time on work-based learning experiences compounded by personal life demands, as age and socio-economic status. Conversely, support from staff contributed to university belonging, connection and identification. Conclusion: Phase 3 will lead to the development of an engagement framework co-created with students to support the school Equality Diversity Inclusion strategy and manualised for adoption by other faculties to enhance student experience university wide.