Centre for Transforming Access and Student Outcomes in Higher Education

TASO is currently researching and evaluating the impact of access and participation interventions across the student lifecycle. It also provides an evidence toolkit and evaluation guidance for providers to use.

TASO provides both practical and theoretical support to help upskill and empower the sector to be better able to overcome the challenges associated with robust and effective evaluation.

TASO’s evaluation resources include theory of change, economic evaluation, implementation and process evaluation, and survey design and validation.

TASO has four key research themes and provides evaluation guidance and resources. Its work covers:

• Access and outreach: effectiveness of widening participation outreach
• This includes projects focused on summer schools, its mapping outcomes and activities tool, and theories of change for attainment-raising initiatives.
• Gaps in the student experience
• This includes projects focused on ethnicity and race equality gaps, learning analytics and institutional data use.
• What works for employment and employability
• What works for mental health and disability
• This includes the OfS-funded Student Mental Health Evidence Hub.

TASO’s other projects are focused on the value of higher education, education pathways, and evaluation with small cohorts.