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

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.