Conley Readiness Index
Helping you equip your students with the self-awareness to support their transition into university and beyond
The Conley Readiness Index (CRI) is a 30 minute online analysis tool that assesses students’ strengths and weaknesses and identifies gaps between their aspirations and skills.
It generates outputs that actively encourages students to adopt behaviours or seek out resources to remediate skills gaps. It can provide guidance to students both at the start of their university journey and, when the diagnostic is repeated, throughout their studies and into their career.
Complementing the interventions you already have in place, educators can use individual reports generated on completion of the CRI to offer personalised feedback at scale.
How does it work?
The CRI can be taken at any time but is best used initially as an early diagnostic within the first few months of starting their higher education studies, and then taken again later in the course to measure progress. Accessing and using CRI is straightforward:
1. Students access the CRI tool via a unique url embedded into your VLE
2. Students are asked a series of questions which take around 30 minutes to complete
3. A personalised report is provided for each student that focuses on the skills they need to develop further, which they can then share with a tutor, academic adviser or study skills tutor.
You can use the data and reports to offer students individual, personalised feedback that better supports their need, regardless of whether they are studying online, part-time or on campus. It also provides insight that enables you to adapt existing courses or your approach to university transition.
Sample extract from a CRI report
Improving chances of student success
Research has consistently shone a spotlight over the years on how many students feel inadequelty prepared for university life when they start their degree course and its impact on their confdence, engagement, and ultimately, dropout rates. Add the disruption of Covid to the mix, and the ongoing problems of creating a sense of belonging, reducing student stress levels and managing their expectations are further amplified.
The HEPI Student Academic Experience Survey 20191 reports that around 40% of students did not feel prepared when they began university. Research also indicates that these students feel unprepared for the transition from university to the start of their careers. Students who feel unprepared for university may also lack academic confidence or experience "imposter sydrome", leading to a feeling of not belonging. Pearson and Wonkhe2 surveyed students during a year-long study in 2021 on belonging and inclusion. They found that 72% of students who agree they belong feel confident in their academic skills, whereas only 34% of respondents who disagree they belong feel confident in their academic skills.
1 https://www.hepi.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Student-Academic-Experience-Survey-2019.pdf
2 https://wonkhe.com/blogs/belonging-inclusion-and-mental-health-are-all-connected/
Help students assess their key skills and competencies
The CRI shows students how they think, act, learn and transition into university. The Conley Model is based on 42 ‘actionable’ skills and competencies that students and educators can focus on in order to improve readiness for higher education and career success.
These skills and competencies are organised into 4 broad areas called the Four Keys:
- Key Cognitive Strategies
- Key Content Knowledge
- Key Learning Skills & Techniques
- Key Transition Knowledge & Skills
The CRI is built on over a decade of research in the US and has been tailored to UK universities. Over 100,000 students have used CRI, and their feedback shows that they value the role of CRI in helping them to identify areas beyond basic content knowledge in need of improvement and better understand their readiness to learn and succeed.
Learn more
Please get in touch using the form below to find out more about the Conley Readiness Index.