Improving Time-To-Degree of Health Sciences Students through Adapted Postgraduate Student Support Initiatives: An Initial Evaluation

Abstract

Postgraduate student progression and attainment remains a measure of success for universities. Postgraduate student support is important to improve retention and time-to-degree. South Africa has poor postgraduate student output and the literature on integrated postgraduate support strategies remains scarce in this context. This paper describes the development of an integrated postgraduate student support programme for health sciences students at a South African university. Furthermore, it provides an initial evaluation of the influence of the programme on the postgraduate students’ progression from time-of-entry to pivotal milestones, compared to the progression of students prior to the implementation of the programme. Institutional demographic and school-specific data on the time taken to achieve pivotal milestones for 65 postgraduate students were included in this descriptive analytical study. The sample consisted of 50 master’s and 15 doctoral degree students. A comparative analysis was conducted using quantitative progression data for the master’s 2018/2019 cohort (prior to intervention implementation) (n=28) and the 2020/2021 cohort (after intervention implementation) (n=22). The support strategies implemented almost halved the time from entry to evaluation committee (i.e. research protocol approval committee) (mean 7.3 months) and final ethical approval (mean 14.5 months) for the 2020/2021 cohort. The current limited analysis found the time-to-submission for the 2020/2021 cohort (mean 33.6 months) (n=7) comparable to that of the 2018/2019 cohort (mean 37.4 months)(n=28). Ongoing mapping and analysis of time-to-pivotal-milestones is necessary to identify the barriers and facilitators to achieving sequential pivotal milestones. The initial evaluation indicates that a variation in the type, format, and timing of support interventions is needed to reduce time-to-degree.