Improving retention through small interventions: The U101 postcard project

Project leader(s): Theodora Philcox Elouise Huxor

Theme: Supporting students
Project faculties: STEM
Status: Archived
Date: November 2022 to December 2025

Post pandemic, student retention on the Level One design module Design Thinking: Creativity for the 21st Century was notably lower than on other comparable Level 1 modules in the School of Engineering and Innovation (E&I). This was particularly concerning with the imminent launch of the new Bachelor of Design (BDes) degree. We, as two of the staff tutors, therefore set out to investigate whether a design-led communication intervention could improve student engagement and retention.

U101 has always faced distinctive challenges. It recruits from a wide range of qualification pathways, and although part of Q61 (the Design and Innovation degree), until October 2024 did not contribute to a dedicated design qualification. This changed in 2024 when U101 became compulsory for the new Bachelor of Design (R63), but historically the module needed to work harder to meet the needs of a diverse cohort who joined for varied, and sometimes extrinsic, reasons. To help address this, we launched a project at the start of the October 22 presentation to improve engagement and retention.

The project introduced a small intervention that ALs could integrate into their teaching practice with minimal time expenditure. This was important, as we did not want to add pressure to ALs but needed their commitment to ensure parity for all students. To test the intervention’s effectiveness and scalability, we ran a pilot across 13 tutor groups—one in each region of the four nations. ALs in the pilot sent a weekly digital postcard, via email, to every student in their group. The postcards contained bite-sized, visually engaging information highlighting key learning points from the week’s planner, ensuring students had regular, meaningful contact with their tutor. The pilot enabled us to compare the impact of this intervention with student performance in a control group. To evaluate it, we adopted a mixed-methods approach combining engagement analytics, tutor feedback and a student survey.

All postcards were created by the two staff tutors leading the project to ensure consistency, but it was important that they were sent by the students’ own tutor to encourage interaction and strengthen relationships within the group. No new teaching material was included, ensuring that students in the pilot did not gain an academic advantage over their peers. We used OU Analyse to monitor engagement in both the pilot and control groups.

During the pilot, the completion rate increased by 2.4%, which was encouraging given that the pilot covered less than a third of the cohort. This early indication of positive impact led us to extend the project so that all students received the postcards on both the October and February presentations of the module. Completion rates have continued to show a steady year-on-year rise.

Recommendations
Our findings indicate that regular, predictable correspondence from ALs had the greatest impact on strengthening students’ sense of belonging. The digital postcards proved an effective vehicle for this communication: their visual format aligned with the design ethos of U101, and their concise weekly prompts offered a friendly, low-pressure way for ALs to stay in contact. We recommend maintaining this pattern of structured weekly tutor communication and continuing to use visually led postcards to support it. More broadly, these outcomes suggest that small, design-informed interventions that promote regular tutor–student contact can make a meaningful contribution to engagement and may offer a scalable approach for other modules where belonging is a known challenge.