This paper is concerned with identifying how the early student experience can be enhanced in order to improve levels of student retention and achievement. The early student experience is the focus of this project as the literature has consistently declared the first year to be the most critical in shaping persistence decisions. Programme managers on courses with good and poor retention rates have been interviewed to identify activities that correlate with good retention rates. The results show that there are similarities in the way programmes with good retention are run, with these features not being prevalent on programmes with poor retention. Recommendations of activities that will enhance the early student experience are provided. Issues that Impact on Retention Pre-entry InformationKealy and Rockel (1987) investigated student perceptions of college quality and found that first impressions measured through the campus visit were a very strong influence across all dimensions of college quality. Students with a positive first impression of a university may be extrinsically motivated to persist and vice versa (Allen, 1999).We tell them right from the beginning how important it is……I chase them up and colleagues chase them up as well, yes we are quite rigorous (A6) Teaching and Learning Activities Group A utilised more active teaching and learning techniques, while Group B tended to favour a more didactic model.

A system dynamics model of HIV/AIDS epidemiology is employed to simulate the effects of triple combination antiretroviral therapy in the treatment of HIV/AIDS. The epidemic data on homosexual men in the UK (1981‐‐1998) have been used to fit the baseline model. The new combination therapies, which supplanted antiviral mono and dual therapy in 1996, are proving to be the most effective prophylaxis yet for halting viral replication in vivo, but many uncertainties still surround their use. A range of model‐generated scenarios are created as a means of considering these uncertainties. Possible futures for the HIV/AIDS epidemic are constructed. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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The identi®cation of the AIDS incubation period distribution, together with its parameters, is a vital component of any epidemiological model designed to portray scenarios concerning future trends in reported AIDS cases or to evaluate intervention strategies. The Transfusion-Associated dataset of AIDS cases in the U.S.A. can be utilised in this identi®cation process. By employing an appropriate system dynamics software tool an optimisation approach to the ®tting process has been conducted. However, although the task of interpreting a best ®t using parametric methods is hampered because, in particular, the data are right-censored, the results do provide a template against which to judge the eects of recent treatment advances in delaying progression to AIDS. As a case study in system dynamics optimisation, this demonstrates the need to use a powerful tool with care: considerations other than the best objective function, together with its resultant parameter set, have to be taken into account. The results show that a three-stage distribution, with unequal phases at each stage, is an appropriate incubation time model to employ in situations where projections of future AIDS incidence are being attempted. The work is also an armation of the utility of the system dynamics approach insofar as real-world complications can be easily handled in model formulation.