In 2020 London Met introduced the Value-Added (VA) score as our principal metric to monitor and address the awarding gaps for our Black and minoritised students, and those from the highest Indices of Multiple Deprivation.
VA scores take into account a student’s prior entry qualifications and subject of study when assessing their degree outcomes.
By using benchmark data from all graduates across HE for the last five years, broken down by entry qualifications and subject of study, we can arrive at the probability for a student to be awarded a first/2:1 degree. By aggregating these probabilities, we can produce an expected percentage of our cohorts for whom, all things being equal, should be awarded a first/2:1 degree. If the cohort achieves this percentage their VA score is 1.0. For first/2:1 degree awards above or below this expected percentage the VA score is proportionately higher or lower than 1.0.
What are London Met’s VA scores?
For London Met as a whole in 2018/19, given their entry qualifications and benchmarked against the previous five years results in the same subjects across HE, 68.9% of Black and minoritised students would have been expected to be awarded a first/2:1 degree. However only 56.3% of these students achieved this, giving a VA score of 0.82. In contrast, while 70.7% of White students were expected to be awarded a first/2:1 degree, 76.9% did, giving a VA score of 1.10.
This data highlights the vastly different outcomes of Black and minoritised students compared with their White counterparts. A VA score of 0.82 indicates that they were not awarded the expected outcomes of students with the same entry qualifications studying the same subjects across the sector, while the White cohort outperformed their sector average.
The data also points to the differentials in expected versus actual awarding gaps. Given the entry qualifications of both cohorts we would expect to see an awarding gap of 1.8 percentage points (68.9% expectation for Black and minoritised and 70.7% for White). However, the actual awarding gap is 20.6 percentage points (56.3% for Black and minoritised and 76.9% for White), leaving an unexplained gap of 18.8 percentage points.
What VA data is available?
VA data for the last five years at London Met at institution, school, department and course levels is now available. Intersectional VA scores for ethnicity, social class, gender, age, declared disability and entry qualifications are also available on the VA dashboard which staff can access via the Course Enhancement Process (CEP) MS Teams page, or from the PowerBI dashboard here [login required].
Please contact Owen Beacock, Associate Director of the Centre for Equity and Inclusion for support and guidance on the VA score.
