Inclusive Education Framework: Awarding Gaps: Frequently Asked Questions

Why use the language of 'Awarding Gap'? 

You may have seen awarding gaps referred to as 'attainment gaps', 'degree outcome gaps' or 'achievement gaps'. The University of Hull uses the term 'awarding gap' to emphasise the active role that the institution plays in who achieves a 1st or 2i. The term 'attainment gap' reinforces a deficit model whereby the individual student is seen as needing to be 'fixed' i.e. to raise their grades, rather than focussing on the role of the institution. 

Why have these particular Awarding Gaps been identified as targets for the university?

The Office for Students requires institutions to make evidence-based targets for reducing educational inequalities. The university has used publicly available data to identify our largest gaps, and to make targets to reduce them. If you want to explore the institution level data in more detail, please see the OfS Access and Participation Dashboard. 

Who in the university is responsible for closing Awarding Gaps? 

Formal responsibility for the Access and Participation Plan lies with the Academic Registrar. A Senior Fellow of the Teaching Excellence Academy (Dr Katharine Hubbard) has developed resources to help the university address awarding gaps. Programme Directors, Directors of Learning and Teaching and Associate Deans of Education are responsible for identifying and acting on awarding gaps identified at subject level.

What does the historical data tell us about Awarding Gaps at Hull? 

We have undertaken analysis of historical data at Hull to gain more insight into the trends, including formal mathematical modelling of differential student outcomes. The Hull awarding gap data report is available to all staff at the university. The key findings are:

1. There is considerable variation in awarding gaps by subject area; some areas have large POLAR gaps, some have large ethnicity gaps, some have both, some have neither. 
2. Awarding gaps persist even after controlling for entry tariff, i.e. it is not that students in the groups defined above enter with lower grades. 
3. There is no significant relationship between the proportion of students on a course belonging to the APP group and their outcomes. Courses with small proportions of minority group students can have large awarding gaps, no gaps or even a negative gap (i.e. minority group students do better).
4. The Black awarding gap is largest for students from POLAR quintile 5, i.e. those from the highest areas of participation in HE. This means these are two separate issues; we cannot close the POLAR and Black awarding gaps by targeting the same groups of students. 
5. Students with BTECs are less likely to achieve a 1st or a 2i than their peers who did A levels.

How do I find out what the Awarding Gaps are in my subject area?

If you are a University of Hull employee you can access Awarding Gap data via HUMID, under the 'Access and Participation' tab. You will need to use a university computer and/or the VPN to access the data. Instructions for accessing and interpreting the data are in the .pdf file below. Advice on interpreting your awarding gap data is available from the TEA. 

Why are Awarding Gaps presented as the % getting a 1st/2i instead of the average mark?

We are using the Office for Students definition of awarding gaps for this work, which uses the % 1st/2i definition. This is so we can determine where we are as a university relative to these metrics. This threshold based definition does obscure nuance; it is possible to have no awarding gap as defined by the OfS even if there is a highly significant difference in average marks, or to have an awarding gap as defined by the OfS without a statistically significant difference in marks. We are using the OfS definition for pragmatic reasons, not because it is the most robust statistical measure.