Transforming STEM Student Outcomes Through Relationship-Rich, Student-Informed Academic Support

Abstract

Widening participation in Australian higher education has produced increasingly diverse STEM cohorts whose success is shaped by belonging, identity, and access to support. Online, regional, mature-age, and first-generation students often face barriers to participation in traditional campus-centric support models. This study evaluates the Science Learning Hub (SciLHub), an equity-minded, relationship-rich tutoring initiative designed to foster academic success, belonging, and student partnership within a digitally dominant regional university.

Widening participation in Australian higher education has produced increasingly diverse STEM cohorts whose success is shaped by belonging, identity, and access to support as much as academic preparation. Online, regional, mature-age, and first-generation students often face barriers to participation in traditional campus-centric support models. This study evaluates the Science Learning Hub (SciLHub), an equity-minded, relationship-rich tutoring initiative designed to foster academic success, belonging, and student partnership within a digitally dominant regional university.

SciLHub provides free, personalised one-on-one and small-group STEM tutoring through flexible online delivery. Discipline-trained near-peer tutors are aligned within teaching programs and coached in dialogic pedagogy, scaffolding, and feedback literacy. Student voice is embedded through ongoing feedback, service evaluation, and tutor-student partnerships that inform continuous improvement and responsive service design.

Using a mixed-methods approach across nine trimesters, booking, academic outcome, and retention data were analysed for 621 students across 3,492 tutoring sessions in more than 75 subjects. Attendees demonstrated significantly higher pass rates (84% versus 54%), achieved mean marks 8.3‚Äì10.5 percentage points higher, and were 45‚ Äì93% more likely to re-enrol. Students identified personalised support, tutor approachability, flexible access, and enhanced science identity as key outcomes. SciLHub demonstrates how student-informed, relationship-rich tutoring can improve achievement, persistence, belonging, and equitable participation in contemporary STEM higher education.
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