Measures

Stage average mark was the dependent variable in all analyses and was expressed as a percentage with 100% being the maximum mark achievable. Although Universities often use a variety of methods to determine a student’s degree classification, students can be assured of a first class degree with a mark of 70% and above, an upper second class degree with a mark of 60% and above and a lower second class degree with a mark of 50% and above. Students with between 40 and 50% are awarded a third class degree and below 40% a degree is not normally awarded.

Sex was coded as male or female. Ethnicity data were recorded as declared by the students themselves using the 18 categories used for United Kingdom census data, but later grouped into the superordinate categories of “Asian or Asian British,” “Black/African/Caribbean/Black British,” “White,” “Mixed/Multiple ethnic groups” and “Other.” Whether or not a student had taken a placement was coded as “yes” or “no”. Socioeconomic status contained (arguably) ordinal data based on occupation and was coded from one to eight based on the National Statistics Socio-economic classification (NS-SEC) analytic classes (1 = Higher managerial, administrative and professional occupations and 8 = Never worked and long-term unemployed).

UCAS entry tariffs ranged from 40 to 480 with a mean of 309. UCAS tariffs are scores given to a variety of qualifications based on the ‘size of’ (effort required) and the ‘achievement in’ (performance level) those qualifications. UCAS entry tariffs were used as a measure of prior academic achievement. The calculation of these tariffs has recently changed, but for the data included in our analyses, an A level with a grade A would have been awarded a UCAS tariff of 120 points, an A level with a grade B 100 points and a grade C 80 points. As levels attracted half the number of points as their A level equivalents. In addition to the total UCAS tariff scores used in the analysis as a continuous covariate, we also created a ‘UCAS excellence’ variable to split students into UCAS higher (320 points or above: roughly corresponding to ABB A levels or above) vs. lower (lower than 320 points) performing students. In 2014, the United Kingdom government requested that restrictions usually applied to student recruitment to Universities be lifted for students with ‘very high’ grades prior to entry – this included students with ABB A level grades and above. Fifty-two percentage of our sample were defined as ‘high UCAS excellence.’