Mature Non-Traditional Undergraduates' Transition to University: A Complex Realist Study of the Barriers

This PhD research is a quantitative (survey) and qualitative (interview) comparative case study of mature non-traditional students' transitional barriers to the first year of UG study in pre-and a post-1992 UK universities. The aim is to investigate how these students access learning within the framework of the Welsh Government Higher Education (HE) policies. The study seeks to identify the transitional barriers by analysing the probabilities of the antecedent conditions in mature non-traditional students' social and academic experiences. Subsequent aims are to generate a model of transition and interrogate the value of Reaching Wider (RW) partnerships promoting Widening Access (WA) to Higher Education (HE) in Wales for mature non-traditional students. Recommendations will be offered on how these partnerships can contribute to students' transition to the first year of UG study in Wales. Ethical issues are understood to be minimal, but the research will be subject to clearance by SOCSI's ethics committee.