Helping students to succeed

In this chapter, we review the stories of how students from diverse backgrounds succeeded in higher education to identify the main factors that contributed to their success. We consider these factors in the context of recent literature on how students succeed and then discuss the overall implications of the stories for managing and supporting student diversity. We summarise the key implications for university staff, noting the value of thinking about these in terms of strategies to assist the transition and retention of students from diverse backgrounds who enter higher education, with a particular focus on supporting international and mature age students, and encouraging transformative learning. These are the topics we focused on in our discussion of the implications of students’ stories in Chapters 2–6  <a class="cLink" queryStr="?_fmt=high&_origin=article&_docanchor=defaultINDEX_LINK_ANCHORm offering feedback and encouragement; being flexible in response to student needs and circumstances; and facilitating student-centred access to information and services.