Supporting Student Transition – How evasys partnered with Northumbria University’s School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation

The transition to higher education (HE) is a critical phase for students. Research consistently highlights that this period is marked by challenges in confidence, belonging and academic adaptation – factors that directly impact retention. Northumbria University recognised these issues, particularly among students in sport-related degrees, where retention rates often lag behind sector averages.

Northumbria logo sqr

Dr Angela Hibbs, Assistant Professor in Sports Performance Analysis, and Employability Lead for the School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation at Northumbria University, has spent years researching student transitions into HE. She observed that while some students adapt seamlessly, others struggle with the academic and social demands of university life, sometimes leading to withdrawal. Her team wanted a way to understand where students were at, both academically and emotionally, before they even arrived on campus.

The Challenge:

Northumbria’s sports programmes faced two interlinked challenges:

  • Understanding pre-arrival perceived confidence and expectations of newly arriving students
  • Reducing early withdrawals by identifying at-risk groups and providing targeted support

While the university uses another survey supplier institution-wide, Angela needed a solution that could be deployed quickly, provided clear actionable insights and aligned with her research agenda. The survey also needed to cover areas crucial to the student experience: learning, community, employability and health/wellbeing.

Why evasys?

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evasys Customers

LIPA case study featured B European University Cyprus case study featured 1 Napier university evasy customer University of Hull City University of London EvaSys customer Teesside university case study featured

Angela approached evasys after learning about its previous work on pre-arrival and student engagement surveys, through its work with Professor Harriet Dunbar-Morris on the UK Being, Belonging, Becoming survey, with Lia Lawson from Middlesex University on its pre-arrival surveys, and with Dr Nicola Watchman Smith of Teesside University on its pre-arrival survey. Noting the real value in what pre-arrival surveys can help to deliver, Angela contacted evasys for guidance and support on her own upcoming project.

Although Northumbria is not an evasys customer, the evasys team agreed to provide full technical support free of charge, given the opportunity to contribute to valuable research and sector-wide understanding.

The benefits that evasys brought to the project included:

  • Expertise in higher education survey design (including pre-arrival surveys)

  • Technology and resources to distribute, collate and report on data

  • Dedicated support from Joe Mahon and Bruce Johnson, who worked closely with Angela to ensure everything ran smoothly

evasys were brilliant. They took care of the technology, distribution and reporting, freeing us to focus on the students. Their support meant we could use the findings in real time to improve induction.”

Northumbria logo icon blkAngela Hibbs, Northumbria University

Implementation

The benefits that evasys brought to the project included:

  • Ethics-compliant data management and secure distribution of personalised survey links

  • Automated reporting, providing both interim data (for immediate induction responses) and final programme-level reports

  • Follow-up support, enabling the faculty to respond to individual concerns flagged in survey responses by students

The survey achieved an impressive 67% response rate.
Northumbria University’s School of Sport featured

Findings and Impact

Key findings, published in a paper titled ‘Self-confidence and perceived importance of pre-arrival sport students at an English higher education institution: Exploring gender and programme of study differences’ in the  Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport & Tourism Education (Hibbs et al., 2025), revealed:

  • Gender differences: female students reported higher confidence in community aspects than males

  • Programme differences: physiotherapy students exhibited greater confidence and perceived importance across domains, while sports coaching students rated lower on employability confidence

  • Predictive factors: low community importance was linked with higher risk of student dropout, while greater health and wellbeing confidence predicted stronger academic performance

The insights allowed programme leaders to tailor induction content to student needs, for example, emphasising community-building activities and provide essential early targeted support for at-risk groups.

Northumbria’s retention rates rose to 94%, with physiotherapy achieving 100%.

94%

Northumbria’s retention rates rose to 94%

100%

Physiotherapy achieving 100%

Beyond Northumbria

The success of the project inspired Angela to expand the initiative. For 2025, evasys is again providing technology and support at no cost to enable a UK-wide sport pre-arrival survey. This extended study includes students enrolled to study a sport and/or rehabilitation related undergraduate degree programme at Northumbria alongside the Universities of Hull, Manchester Metropolitan and Anglia Ruskin.

Bruce and Joe at evasys have been incredible partners. They went above and beyond, not because they had to, but because they believed in what we were trying to achieve. Their technology has been instrumental in capturing insights that will benefit students across the UK.”

Northumbria logo icon blkAngela Hibbs, Northumbria University

Conclusion

The Northumbria pre-arrival project demonstrates how technology, combined with collaborative expertise, can help universities better support students from the moment they accept their place. While Northumbria is not an evasys customer, this partnership highlights the evasys commitment to advancing research and improving student outcomes sector wide.

With the upcoming multi-institutional rollout, this initiative is set to deliver even greater insights into student transition and retention, shaping strategies that will benefit students far beyond a single university.

Get Involved

The project team are welcoming expressions of interest from colleagues within schools of sport, exercise and rehabilitation programmes who would like to be involved in future projects, as the team are currently working to secure external funding to facilitate an even larger UK sport pre-arrival survey in 2026/27

Involvement in this survey will help you to identify your own, institution specific first-year student needs and provide evidence-based research to influence policy and practice for the onboarding of your students.

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