A Probability Matching Approach to Further Education/Higher Education Transition in Scotland.

As part of the impetus to increase and widen participation in the UK, and in Scotland in particular, there has been considerable effort put into creating links between Further Education Colleges (FECs) and Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). However, because no unique identifier is used to track students between the two sectors, little is known in quantitative terms of the nature of this progression. In this article using substantial datasets, and an approach known as Probability Matching, we are able to provide novel data on the proportions of Scottish domiciled former FEC students within Scottish HEIs, and are able to compare the characteristics of this subset of all students with the whole cohort within HE in a given year, 1999–2000. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]