Empowering first-year social work students: improving student success and retention with a discipline-specific tutor to provide feedforward on assessments

There is an increasing demand for university level qualifications to service the evolving social work workforce in Australia. With many students entering university from non-traditional pathways, it is important to provide support as students transition to higher education. Here, a discipline-specific model is established to support first-year students in the Bachelor of Social Work at a regional Australian university. The 235 students who met with the tutor had on average 7.5% higher assessment marks and 11.5% higher cumulative marks than students who did not meet with the tutor. In addition, students who met with a tutor were more likely to receive a passing grade and to be retained the following year. Feedback from students, the tutor and a unit coordinator describe the positive impact tutoring had on the student experience. Here, we present a scalable model of support that increased students’ confidence, self-efficacy and feedback literacy, and overall improved student success and retention.