Despite the large and diverse cohorts annually recruited to Higher Education sport programmes in the UK, research exploring sport students’ experiences of transitioning into university is very limited. This study was conducted in response to several years of low retention and progression rates across first year sport degree programmes at a post-92 university in the UK. Through focus groups, the study explored the role played by the personal tutor in supporting effective transition of recently enrolled first year sport students from widening participation backgrounds. Most noticeably, the main contributory factors were found to be the nurturing of social integration and use of student-centred personal tutoring approaches to do so. The study further outlined how many widening participation sport students enter university with negative previous personal tutoring experiences and have limited understanding and misguided expectations of the role. The collective findings provide academic colleagues and university management with evidence of one model of effective support for a successful transition into university. Practical implications for widening participation students studying both sport and other degree subjects are presented, as are future research avenues and study limitations.

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Personal tutoring is renowned for the positive role it can play in supporting student satisfaction, engagement and attainment outcomes in higher education. Surprisingly though, few studies have specifically investigated the demands of this role from the perspective of the personal tutor. Through the theoretical lens of Role Theory (Biddle, 1986), this study explored university tutors' experiences of their personal tutoring role within a sport educational setting at a United Kingdom university. All data was collected through face-toface semi structured qualitative interviews and analysed using thematic analysis. Key findings were the negative impact of personal tutoring on participants role multiplicity, intrarole accumulation and role identity. Most participants viewed the role as being time consuming, emotionally challenging and one they would prefer not to undertake (role multiplicity), feeling under qualified and ill-equipped in assisting their tutees because of the increasingly serious and complex nature of non-academic related issues presented (intra-role accumulation). Several lacked confidence and interest in the role, finding it to be stressful and instead favouring greater research responsibilities within their workloads (role identity). The collective findings provide academic colleagues and senior university management teams with evidence to inform future institutional policies and practices. This will help ensure personal tutors working across multiple disciplines and academic levels fully understand what the role is, the demands they are likely to encounter, the continued professional development required to facilitate and support the role and how the role should be better recognised in academic promotion criteria. Study limitations and future research avenues are discussed.

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