Abstract*

The concept of pastoral care to effectively meet the personal, social and academic needs of students is a complex yet under-researched matter in higher education. Similarly, under-researched and institutionally undervalued is the pivotal role that the caring teacher fulfils in imbuing pastoral care in enabling courses. Using an enabling course in a regional Australian university as the context, this article outlines the concept of pastoral care and then discusses the characteristics of the caring teacher, so fundamental to enabling education. The article draws on Motta and Bennett’s (2018) pedagogies of care, namely care as recognition, care as dialogic relationality, and care as affective and embodied praxis to analyse how the students perceived and valued care in the enabling course in which they participated. Findings indicate that supportive learning environments in which caring teachers nurture their students can promote very positive interactions, and ultimately, high student satisfaction and retention.

Enabling courses are designed to assist with the upskilling of non-traditional students in order to make the transition to university more seamless. Enabling educators understand that the cohort who enter via the enabling pathway are unique and require holistic support as the students develop their academic skills and their self-efficacy. Class attendance has long been regarded as a vital component of a quality education, but with the accessibility of online material and the ever-increasing opportunities to study online, the viability and value of face-to-face classes is being challenged. This paper reports the findings of a research project that sought to better understand enabling students' conceptions of the benefits of attending face-to-face, on-campus classes and the factors that influence their choices to attend. The project investigated the link between attendance, academic achievement and retention and aimed to identify a more effective alignment between the conception of expectations and the provision of a quality learning experience.

The development of a student identity as it relates to the transition of commencing students to higher education has long been identified in the literature as essential to success. As importantly, the existence of a sense of belonging has been considered key to transition and success and the formation of a student identity. Less prominent in the literature, the newly articulated notion of mattering has evolved from and is currently challenging the concept of student belonging. Mattering offers a broader understanding of what it means to have students in transition believe they are important, that they matter to the institution of study. The notion of mattering resonates strongly with the authors as transition educators. This paper draws on the work of Lizzio (2006) and MacFarlane (2018) to consider the essential ingredients any preparatory course should include to successfully transition underrepresented groups of students to study at the award level. A comparison of the STEPS course in the Australian context to LEAPS in the Scottish context provided avenue to propose a five-tenet framework as a possible recipe for success to best support the transition of an increasingly diverse group of students aspiring to university study. The paper explores the ways in which the courses effectively assist preparatory students develop a foundational student identity which is crucial to successful study in higher education, particularly in the initial stages of engagement. In doing so, it positions the philosophical underpinnings and the pedagogical practices currently adopted by both the STEPS and LEAPS courses as successfully embracing the tenets proposed within the framework.