Dr Paul Ian Campbell @drpauliancampbell.bsky.social
The Race Award Gap
There currently exists a difference in degree outcomes between domicile students of colour and their White peers across UK Higher Education Providers (HEPs). This means that a student’s likelihood of achieving a 2.1 or First-class degree varies based on their racial or ethnic background, with some groups being less likely to attain these grades than their White peers—even when they enter with the same qualifications.
This disparity is commonly referred to as the race or ‘ethnicity’ award gap (henceforth RAG). Latest figures show that the aggregate gap between all students of colour and their White peers is 10.8% (Campbell, 2024). However, this gap is lower, or significantly higher, for UK students from different minority ethnic communities.
Institutional responses to the RAG
Current responses to the RAG by HEPs are driven by an assumption that there is a causal relationship between a largely White and Eurocentric curricula and students’ academic performance. Consequently, many HEPs have attempted to address this by pluralising, decolonising and/or co-creating their curricula through the introduction of curricula toolkits and students as curriculum consultants. Research on the impact of these curriculum-based initiatives has shown that while they significantly improve the general educative experiences of students, they have negligible impact on reducing the RAG (The Center for Transforming Access and Student Outcomes, 2022).
For the last half decade, I have been leading the UK’s first large scale interdisciplinary research project specifically on the relationship between race and assessment in HE. It showed that the sector had been looking in the wrong place for solutions to the RAG. We should instead be focused on addressing the racial barriers that exist in HE assessment and related practice.
How HE assessment currently works unevenly for students of colour
The project’s findings, published in my recent book, Race and Assessment in Higher Education: From Conceptualizing Barriers to Making Measurable Change (Campbell, 2024), show that existing HE assessment, assessment-practice, and assessment-policy are all framed around an imagined ‘ideal student’ (Campbell 2024). This is a student who, for example, can attend all lectures and seminars, understands the jargon-heavy language used in assessment rubrics, feels safe and that they belong at university, has family and friends who can support them with coursework, and so on. When we look at which students are most likely to fit this profile, we find that they are usually White, middle class, able-bodied and neurotypical.
Race-based structural inequalities in the UK mean that students of colour are comparatively less likely to be able to afford to live on campus and thus more likely to be commuter students. They are also statically more likely to need to find paid employment to support their studies, more likely to have family and/or care responsibilities, more likely to be first in their family to go to HE, and more likely to be from socioeconomically challenged households.
The consequence for students who fall outside of the ideal student frame, is that they are not meaningfully accounted for in HE assessment and thus they have to work much harder for equitable results. For example, my research found that students of colour are less likely to arrive at HE with a clear understanding of when to start working on their assignments, what their assessments were asking them to do, what was expected in their assignments and how to do them, and finally, the differences between a stronger and weaker piece of work and reasons for these. It also found that existing assessment pedagogy often failed to teach these hidden lessons for success, leaving students to have to learn through a costly process of trial and error.
Against all this, I developed the Racially Inclusive Practice in Assessment Guidance Intervention (RIPAIG), which is a set of resources to help frontline lecturing staff and professional services colleagues respond to their students’ needs and provide this support in their practice.
THE RIPIAG: Making a measurable difference
Trialed on a sample of 175 students across three UK universities, the results show that the RIPIAG is the first intervention to date to directly and measurably reduce the RAG. For example, the reported RAGs on all treated modules were below the overall RAG reported at their respective HEPs. In 83% of modified modules, the reported RAG difference was lower than the 8.8% national average that year. Also, all treated modules reported narrower gaps when compared to their aggregate RAG performance for the previous two years.
The intervention also improved the qualitative assessment experiences of students from all backgrounds, and significantly reduced exam anxiety, a key contributor to mental ill health (Howard, 2020). The RIPIAG is now being embedded, and changing assessment practice, at 16 UK universities including Loughborough, Leeds Trinity, University of South Wales, University of Winchester, London School of Economics, and Birmingham City University.
It is wrong to think that the RIPIAG alone will eliminate the RAG fully, because it is also caused by factors that exist outside of assessment practice. However, it is clear that assessment focused interventions, such as the RIPIAG, go a significant way in making university degree outcomes more indicative of an individual’s talent, skill and ambition, and not their racial background, as is the case, currently.
Acknowledgements
This piece was adapted from Campbell, P. I. (2. 10. 2024) Decolonising the curriculum hasn’t closed the gap between Black and white students – here’s what might. The Conversation. Available at: https://theconversation.com/decolonising-the-curriculum-hasnt-closed-the-gap-between-black-and-white-students-heres-what-might-238728
References
Campbell, P I (2024) Race and Assessment in Higher Education: From Conceptualizing Barriers to Making Measurable Change. Bingley, Emerald Publishers
Howard, E. (2020) A review of the literature concerning anxiety for educational assessments. Available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5e45825340f0b677bf6eb3ea/A_review_of_the_literature_concerning_anxiety_for_educational_assessment.pdf
The Center for Transforming Access and Student Outcomes (2022). The Impact of Curriculum Reform on the Ethnicity Degree Awarding Gap. Available at: https://cdn.taso.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022-11-23_The-impact-of-curriculum-reform-on-the-ethnicity-degree-awarding-gap_TASO.pdf
Dr Paul Ian Campbell is a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Leicester. He is also an award- winning academic in race and inclusion. His first monograph won the British Sociological Association’s Philip Abrams Prize in 2017, and he has continued to publish widely in this area. Paul also has a distinguished track-record and commitment to inclusive pedagogical practice, first as a secondary school teacher, then as an academic and researcher, and now as a senior leader. Since 2020, Paul has been directly involved in leading the University’s strategic response to eliminating the awarding gap between White and minority ethnic students at the college, university and national level and in devising toolkits, strategies and training for improving racial literacy among teaching staff. Paul currently leads on several cross-university Race Equality and Education projects and supports a number of UK universities in addressing racial inequalities in their curricula and in their assessment processes. Paul is also Chair of the University of Leicester Race Equality Action Group, a University Distinguished Teaching Fellow and current winner of the University of Leicester’s Citizens’ Award for Inclusivity. Paul was recently appointed to Director of the Leicester Institute for Inclusivity in Higher Education. In this role, he will continue his ground-breaking work and contribution to informing best racial inclusion practice at Leicester and across the sector.
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