The Student Assistance Program: higher education's Holy Grail

This paper outlines an exploratory study conducted within the Sport & Exercise Sciences department at a higher education institution in Wales. Prior to the study it was identified that personal tutors were spending an increasing amount of time dealing with pastoral issues. This research sought to investigate the implementation of the Student Assistance Program, a peer-support group, to reduce the pastoral burden on staff and improve retention and to assess any changes in student behaviour. At the end of the programme students were asked to evaluate the experience by means of a simple questionnaire that also gave them the opportunity to add some open-ended responses. In addition, the facilitators were also given the opportunity to comment on the programme using a similar open-ended questionnaire. Data were analysed using qualitative analysis. The results were encouraging and changes occurred within the students who participated in the pilot study.