Better understanding the gaps in performance of young people in practice interviews

OxFizz conducts hundreds of practice interviews every year for young people applying to Oxbridge.

Because of our model, we are in a unique position where we interview young people who can afford to pay for our services and those who cannot. We therefore have unique insight into the different experiences those young people have and how they perform in their practice interviews. We wanted to harness this position to identify gaps in performance and recommendations for how to better support young people from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds.

With the help of Benjamin Wood, undertaking a Professional Internship for PhD students (PIPS), it has been possible to analyse the feedback from our volunteer interviewers. Through analysis of feedback from 222 practice interviews Ben has identified trends relating to student performance and recommendations for how to better support young people with interview preparation.

We are excited to share the research that Ben has completed entitled Oxbridge Interview Performance: Better Understanding the Gaps Between Access and Non-Access Groups. Thank you to Ben for the great work he has done on the report. We also want to share our appreciation to our volunteers who conducted practice interviews and provided feedback that has been used in the report.

The research highlights:

·         Gaps in interview performance between young people on our Access programme and paying clients in both interview technique and academic performance.

·         Young people in the non-Access group demonstrate stronger technique in key areas: thoughtfulness/enthusiasm, thinking out loud, well-structured and thought out responses.

·         Access groups demonstrate key deficits in Interview Technique compared to Non-Access groups in a few key areas: thinking out loud, well-structured and thought-out responses, confidence and thoughtfulness/enthusiasm.

·         Young people in the non-Access group give stronger academic performance in a few key areas: super-curricular knowledge, versatility of examples and perspectives and ability to form an argument.

·         Young people in the Access groups demonstrate key deficits in academic performance in a few key areas: foundation and application of A-Level knowledge, super-curricular knowledge, problem solving skills and engagement with interview materials.

·         Significant opportunities exist to better support young people in the Access group going forward to better develop interview technique and academic performance.

We hope you find this report useful to better understand the specific gaps young people face in the interview process and to identify how they can be better supported going forward.