Improving the effectiveness of a university scholarship program in South Africa using applied behavioral science

• In Event: Higher Education in a Changing World

Proposal

Scholarship programs for low-income students, particularly programs that provide wrap around support, are a big step towards enhancing inclusion at higher education institutions and ensuring that all students who are enrolled can thrive. However, even students enrolled in these programs struggle to access all the support available to them at the right time. Uncovering the behavioral barriers preventing students from using the support available to them at no additional cost could go a long way in improving educational outcomes for under-resourced students. It could also help close the remaining gaps in the field’s understanding of how to best support low-income, high achieving university students in low- and middle-income countries, who have traditionally been marginalized, in a way that takes their unique lived experience into perspective and amplifies their voices.

In South Africa, we worked with a scholarship program that helps low-income, high-achieving students enrolled in university navigate through common barriers to graduation, offering academic, financial, wellness, and career support. Although enrolled students have a high rate of graduation and job placement (83% and 98%, respectively), the scholarship program was concerned that scholars who could benefit the most from services, such as psychologist counseling and academic tutoring, were not readily using the support available to them. They found that students tended to access this type of support after they had failed a course or experienced a mental health crisis, making it too late to help them. ideas42 partnered with the scholarship program to employ an applied behavioral science approach to (1) develop rich insights into the behavioral barriers and features of the context preventing scholars for using services to their benefit at a timely manner, (2) designing a package of solutions to encourage scholars to access these benefits, and (3) testing the impact of the designed solutions.

Methods and results:
Using a qualitative research approach, where we conducted in depth-interviews with 27 scholars across the three participating universities, we uncovered six behavioral barriers preventing scholars from using available resources in a timely manner:
• “I am a high achiever” – Scholars are wary to admit that they are struggling (academically and/or mentally), because admitting so contradicts their identities of being high-achieving students. This cognitive dissonance makes many scholars shy away from admitting they are struggling in efforts to uphold their identity.
• “I can overcome challenges myself” – Scholars are overconfident that they’ll be able to overcome any challenges they face on their own, so they delay seeking support until it’s too late. Their hindsight bias leads them to believe that because they were able to overcome challenges without help in the past, they will be able to do so again, even though their current challenges may be more serious and complex.
• “As a scholar, I should do well in school” – Scholars feel that the (prescriptive) norm among scholars in the program is to do well in school and are wary to admit when they need help and go against this perceived norm.
• “I’m focused on getting by” – Scholars who are struggling have limited time and mental attention, making them more likely to tunnel on their most pressing tasks and less likely to realize they need help. Additionally, there are not salient indicators of academic standing or mental health status readily available, so most scholars realize they are struggling when test grades come out or if they have an adverse experience (which tends to be too late to seek preventative support).
• “The scholarship program has given me so much” – Scholars do not feel comfortable asking the program for more resources or support due to social and cultural norms, and feel that they must reciprocate by being a good student.
• “Seeking timely help is too complicated” – Scholars act in a present-biased way and change their mind about seeking support because of hassles and inefficiencies in the process.
Based on these insights we engaged in a collaborative co-design process to develop solutions to help students access the support in a more timely and simple manner. The co-design process elevated four potential solutions to help students:
1. Weekly planner that contains actionable, timely reflection prompts throughout the semester encouraging students to consider whether they are struggling, and form plans to seek support.
2. Communications campaign leveraging social norms to reset beliefs around “who seeks help” and providing clear, actionable guidance on how to seek help.
3. Pledge that scholars sign during onboarding pre-committing to use the supportive resources available if they are struggling. This document affirms that their identities as resilient students should not prevent them from seeking support.
4. Default all scholars into attending a therapy session to combat negative perceived norms and stigma, and ensure they know what to expect from services should they need them.
We are currently refining our package of solutions based on user testing feedback and plan to evaluate the effectiveness of these solutions using a quasi-experimental design from September – November 2022. By the CIES event, we will have results from the evaluation as well as lessons learned to share with conference participants.

Closing:
Although we have decades-worth of work showing the impact of behavioral science in improving higher education outcomes in the U.S., less evidence exists in LMICs. Our insights shed light on the fact that an applied behavioral science approach may be a useful way to approach persistent problems in higher education globally. Our research highlights how various behavioral barriers may get in the way of well-intentioned programs having desired effects on improving equity and inclusion, and show the importance of fully understanding students’ perspectives and voices when designing programs to help them. After our evaluation is complete, we hope to share results that demonstrate how low-cost interventions that adequately address the drivers of behavior can improve the effectiveness of existing scholarship programs, and further improve inclusion and equity of support given to all students across universities.

Author

• Abigail Sellman, ideas42