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A great deal has been achieved in recent years in understanding how universities can best support the transition to higher education of an increasingly diverse student body (Kift, 2015). Numerous studies have identified transition program elements that correlate with improved success and retention for commencing students. Lizzio’s ‘five senses’ model (2006) rationalises these diverse features into a framework consisting of five affective domains that need to be developed in students to ensure successful transition. To assess how well a program based on the Lizzio model supports transition in practice, we evaluate our Get Ready transition program, developed for a large-enrolment first year Human Physiology subject with a highly diverse student cohort. We conclude that embedding the development of Lizzio’s five senses in a performative way is the key to building students’ agency and nurturing their identity as thriving members of a new academic community. Please cite this article as: Larsen, A., Horvath, D., & Bridge, C. (2019). ‘Get Ready’: Improving the transition experience of a diverse first year cohort through building student agency. Student Success. Advance online publication. doi:10.5204/ssj.v11i3.1144 This article has been peer reviewed and accepted for publication in Student Success. Please see the Editorial Policies under the ‘About’ section of the Journal website for further information. Student Success: A journal exploring the experiences of students in tertiary education This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence. As an open access journal, articles are free to use with proper attribution. ISSN: 2205-0795 ‘Get Ready’: Improving the transition experience of a diverse first year cohort through building student agency 2 | Student Success, Early Release September 2019 Introduction Over the past few decades, it has become clear that broadening access to higher education requires much more than merely extending entry to ‘non-traditional’ cohorts: significant resources must also be invested into ensuring that the transition needs of an increasingly diverse student body are met. In particular, students with low tertiary admission scores are less likely to complete their degrees (Norton & Cakitaki, 2016). Edwards and McMillan (2015) have found the same to be true for students from low socioeconomic (SES) backgrounds, though other periodic studies have consistently concluded that attrition rates are no higher for low SES students once tertiary admission rank is taken into account (Krause, Hartley, James, & McInnis, 2005; Norton & Cakitaki, 2016). Nevertheless, it is clear that this demographic is still greatly under-represented in higher education (Norton & Cakitaki, 2016). Kift (2015) also draws attention to ‘hidden’ attrition, over and above officially reported levels, by which she means students who ‘don’t take up their offer, don’t make it to Orientation Week or don’t make it to the official week 4/5 census date’ (p. 53). Studies have shown that students with low tertiary admission scores or from low SES backgrounds are more likely to feel ‘insufficiently academically prepared for university’ (Baik, Naylor, & Arkoudis 2015, pp. 69). At the same time, a discourse of more ‘underprepared students’ entering university has gained currency amongst university staff. An Australian study published in 2000 found that about one third of academics surveyed believed that the calibre of their students had decreased over five years (McInnis, 2000). In the UK, according to the 2016 Times Higher Education University Workplace Survey, over 50% of lecturers felt their university had ‘compromised on student quality’ (Times Higher Education, 2016). Associated with the ‘underprepared student’ discourse is the trend towards place offers being based increasingly on overall performance in the final year of high school, rather than on academic achievement in certain prerequisite subjects. In particular, the phenomenon of students attempting to maximise their university entrance scores by choosing ‘easier’ subjects in their final year of high school has been observed (Nicholas, Poladian, Mack, & Wilson, 2015). Others have noted a discrepancy between what university teachers believe is a necessary pre-entry level of achievement in a subject area and what is actually prescribed by institutions (Galligan & Hobohm, 2015). These changes have coincided with a major shift in the conceptualisation of how issues such as transition and ‘preparedness’ are theorised. Lawrence (2005) describes a ‘deficit-discourse shift’ away from a construction of students themselves as lacking in certain competences and thus in need of remediation (p. 243). There is now increasing recognition that ‘higher education institutions themselves are underprepared for meeting the needs of the changing student body’ (Smit, 2012, p.374), and that characterising certain student groups as deficient only results in perpetuating inequality and exclusion (O’Shea, Lysaght, Roberts, & Harwood, 2016). By the same token, it has also been recognised that responsibility for bridging gaps cannot lie solely with the institution. Devlin and McKay (2014) contend that there must be movement from both directions. They note that the problem with the ‘blame the institution’ approach is that it negates student agency. Devlin (2013) rejects ‘the rather simplistic approach of advocating that either students try harder or institutions make expectations more explicit’ in favour of one characterised as a ‘joint venture toward bridging socio-cultural incongruity’ (pp. 939, 946). Similarly, Kahu and Nelson (2018) call for a reconceptualisation of transition in terms of a dynamic ‘educational interface’ between the student’s particular

‘Get Ready’: Improving the Transition Experience of a Diverse First Year Cohort Through Building Student Agency