Bioscience students’ first year perspectives through video diaries: Home, family and student transitions

The first year experiences of students are viewed as important in contributing to retention, overall academic success and student satisfaction. As such there is an increased focus on students’ experiences of their first weeks at university. In this paper we describe some findings from a video-diary project through which bioscience students commented on any aspects of their experiences that were significant during their first year. This paper provides the first reflection specifically on the social transitions experienced by bioscience students, showing that their transition to university is not a step change, or even necessarily a linear process but, as noted by Holdsworth (The Sociological Review, 53, 495–519, 2006) should be considered as a series of fragmented transitions. In their diaries, the bioscience students commented upon the process of becoming integrated as part of the university community including the establishment of friendship groups and their changing relationships with their families. There is also exploration of their changing perspectives as the end of term is approached and some of the difficulties of re-adapting to home life. For the bioscience students there are perceived issues around the scheduling and amount of contact hours compared with their peers from other subjects and also the timing of the first semester examinations. However, the modes of delivery also facilitate integration through the levels of peer-to-peer contact and student–staff contact that typify biological sciences programmes.