Sarah Yearsley argues pre-arrival feedback should identify strengths

Updated Sep 07, 2026

Pre-arrival student feedback should show what students bring to university, not only what might make them leave. On 21 August 2026, Advance HE published Student continuation starts before Welcome Week: rethinking pre-arrival support through an asset-based lens. The article draws together the national Pre-arrival Academic Questionnaire (PAQ) pilot and new research on why students who consider leaving decide to stay. For Student Experience teams, PVCs, and quality professionals, it develops the earlier PAQ evidence on expectations and support needs into a practical question: can institutions listen for students' strengths and support networks as carefully as they listen for risk?

What has changed in pre-arrival student feedback

This is not a new regulatory requirement or a change to PAQ methodology. The development is a clearer argument about how universities interpret and act on pre-arrival evidence. Dr Sarah Yearsley, Senior Lecturer at Liverpool John Moores University, says the PAQ should help institutions understand students' prior learning, expectations, concerns, aspirations, relationships, and resources. It should open a conversation about continuation, not simply produce a list of entrants labelled as more or less likely to leave.

The article connects the first PAQ pilot, involving 15 higher education institutions in England, with Yearsley's doctoral research into students who had seriously considered withdrawing but continued. Her account of the Student Continuity Factors Model brings together academic success, expectations, career aims, family and financial circumstances, geography, first-generation status, employment, caring responsibilities, health, belonging, course enjoyment, and relationships with peers and staff. Yearsley reports that no single factor explained continuation in her study. The repository abstract describes interviews with 36 participants who had considered leaving but completed their degrees, followed by a Q-methodology phase identifying five viewpoints. This is not a comparison with students who left or a validation of prospective risk prediction. A challenge in one area could sit alongside motivation, family support, prior resilience, or a clear sense of purpose elsewhere.

"The goal is not simply to predict who will stay."

Yearsley therefore proposes an asset-based reading of pre-arrival responses. That does not mean overlooking structural barriers or placing responsibility for continuation on students. It means asking what support already surrounds a student, what strengths they can draw on, and where institutional support needs to reinforce those assets. Jisc's 17 April pilot account gives September–November 2026 for wave two and June 2027 as the funded project end. These are published plans; this review does not confirm each institution's current fieldwork or recruitment status. The pilot scope covers participating providers in England and undergraduate and postgraduate taught entrants. This summary reviews Yearsley's full reflection and the thesis abstract/metadata, rather than the full thesis, underlying pilot data or an evaluation of the proposed approach. For institutions, the takeaway is to treat PAQ responses as a starting picture rather than a continuation verdict.

What this means for institutions

First, institutions should review what their pre-arrival questions invite students to disclose. Questions about finances, caring, confidence, disability, or previous study can identify barriers, but a risk-only questionnaire can make complex lives look like a deficit score. Prompts about motivation, existing relationships, successful coping strategies, community ties, and career aims can produce a more complete starting picture. The takeaway is better question design: collect enough context to support students without assuming that one characteristic determines what happens next.

Second, universities need to decide how PAQ findings will be used before collection begins. Yearsley warns that not every response should trigger an individual intervention, and that more information can create more sophisticated labels rather than better support. Teams should distinguish cohort-level evidence for induction or curriculum planning from individual follow-up, explain consent clearly, and name who can review sensitive responses. This matters particularly when interpreting feedback from commuter students, carers, disabled students, and those in paid work, because the same circumstance can create a constraint and provide an important source of connection or motivation.

Third, pre-arrival evidence needs a follow-through point. Programme teams can use cohort findings to adjust induction, explain academic expectations, create realistic routes into peer connection, and make support easier to find. They should then check early in term whether those changes helped. A short pulse after arrival or the first assessment could ask about current barriers, strengths and support access. Comparing separate respondent groups does not show how any particular student's experience changed, and feedback alone cannot establish an intervention's effect. The practical benefit is a feedback loop that tests action rather than treating PAQ results as a one-off intake profile.

How pre-arrival student feedback analysis connects

Open-text responses are especially useful when students describe mixed circumstances. A commuter may report difficult travel alongside strong family support. A student concerned about academic study may also explain the routines that helped them succeed before. Analysis should preserve those combinations rather than sorting every comment into a simple risk or no-risk category. It should also keep pre-arrival evidence separate from later feedback until teams are clear about consent, purpose, access, and data-retention rules. The student comment analysis governance checklist gives institutions a practical basis for documenting those decisions.

Where universities collect comments through PAQ, induction checks, module evaluations, and later student experience surveys, a consistent method can help describe the available responses at different stages. Comparisons require compatible questions and suitable samples, and identifiable linkage needs a justified purpose and appropriate safeguards. Student Voice Analytics can compare recurring themes while retaining the survey, cohort, and timing behind each finding. The restrained lesson from Advance HE's article is not that more analysis will predict continuation. It is that careful qualitative evidence can help teams understand what students already have, what they need next, and which effects of institutional action need further evaluation.

FAQ

Q: What should institutions do now with their pre-arrival questionnaires?

A: Review whether questions capture strengths and support networks as well as concerns. Then map each type of finding to a purpose, a named owner, and a follow-up point. Make clear which results shape cohort-level provision, which may lead to individual contact, and what consent applies before the next survey opens.

Q: What is the timeline and scope of this development?

A: Advance HE published the article on 21 August 2026. It is a sector practice argument, not a mandatory survey change. The national PAQ pilot is running in England for undergraduate and postgraduate taught entrants, with wave two fieldwork planned for September to November 2026 and the funded project continuing until June 2027.

Q: What is the broader implication for student voice?

A: Early student voice should be used to start dialogue, not to fix a label to an incoming student. When institutions connect pre-arrival responses with in-term feedback, they can test assumptions, recognise protective factors, and improve support while students can still experience the benefit.

References

[Advance HE]: "Student continuation starts before Welcome Week: rethinking pre-arrival support through an asset-based lens" Published: 2026-08-21

[Advance HE]: "Pre-arrival questionnaire (PAQ) national pilot wave 1 initial results" Date note: page header 2026-04-15; body states publication on 2026-04-16.

[Liverpool John Moores University Research Online]: "Redemption and retention: considering the experiences of the 'saved students', those who have chosen to remain in university despite seriously considering leaving" Accepted: 2026-06-04; deposited and first openly available: 2026-07-01. DOI: 10.24377/LJMU.t.00028752

[Jisc]: "Understanding students before they arrive: early insights from the pre-arrival questionnaire pilot" Published: 2026-04-17; pilot scope and planned timetable.