Researching the experience of international students

Teacher in a classroom listening to her student

Teacher and students

Introduction

It seems clear that HE in the UK provides a different experience for international students than for their UK counterparts. In order to provide appropriate levels of support and understanding, research and evaluation are necessary. This reflects the fifth and sixth areas of activity in the UK Professional Standards Framework which are:
• ‘Integration of scholarship, research and professional activities with teaching and supporting learning’.
• ‘Evaluation of practice and continuing professional development’.

These activities will look at two ways of carrying out research with students in order to be able to use the findings to inform reflective practice. It will also look at the resources available in the different Subject Centre websites of the Higher Education Academy.

The article How we should research our students - part two (Sander 2004) can be used as a complement to these activities.

Note in particular the ITDEM model of action research that Sander refers to.

Each activity contains an optional Portfolio Task which can be downloaded and completed to form part of an assessed portfolio of work. A Linking Activity which synthesises the 3 activities is also available.

Objectives

• To look at the use of Critical incidents as a method of researching the experience of international students
• To look at the use of Focus Groups as a method of researching the experience of international students
• To explore methods of using the resources of the Higher Education Academy to continue professional development in this area



Activity 1: Higher Education Academy and internationalisation

Instruction

Look at this list of internationalisation case study abstracts (Word document 74.5KB) and identify at least one that represents an area of interest for you and/or your students. This could relate to any aspect of the student experience (teaching methods, assessment and feedback, pastoral care, induction). Select which area(s) it covers and the outcomes (actual or intended).

Select which areas of the (international) student experience are covered by your selected abstract







Read your selected case study in full and make notes on the expected and actual outcomes reported. To save your notes copy and paste them into a text document.

Chocolate Cookies: the Route to Critical Analysis
Integrating skills into the curriculum
The International experience at home: managed intercultural interactions
Experiential Intercultural Learning for International Students through ‘Tandem’ Teams
Supporting the transition to studying at a UK HE institution for first year international students at the Leeds University Business School
Addressing the Support Needs and Expectations of International Students for Teaching and Learning within an Innovative Medical Education Curriculum
EAP: Not just English for Academic Purposes but also Epistemologically Appropriate Practice
An Implementation of Genre-based Pedagogy in Academic English Provision for International Students.
Supporting International Students’ Integration into the Learning and Wider Communities
Language Support for International Students and the Internationalisation of the Student Body

Further Case Studies on the international student experience and a literature review on Internationalisation can be found on the Higher Education Academy's Internationalisation pages.

Download Portfolio Activity Word document (29.5KB)

Activity 2: Critical incidents

In order to research the experiences of international students in your institution you could use the critical incidents approach to discover what their experiences are. A definition of critical incidents research is:
‘Originally, a means of gathering data but can also stand as a research method. More recently, it has been applied to teaching and the development of reflective teachers as a trigger for learning. Teachers are asked to recall a specific incident or moment from their recent teaching experience, to write it down and to critique it, with the focus on the critique, rather than the incident (which could be a negative one).’ (HEA Glossary of Terms)

Instruction

Look at the following extracts from an interview with an international student. Choose which category best describes the student's experiences. Then make notes on possible explanations for the experiences described for your Portfolio Task (Word document 27.5KB)

Download Critical Incident (Word document 28KB)

‘They’re quite friendly, but you know they, they don’t talk too much to you, because you’re not British I think.’

‘Well, after the lecture I feel very confused, and er, but you know, the tutor just go away, and just disappear … I just go home and get on the [VLE] and see the, see all the notes the teacher put on the [VLE].’

‘...at the beginning the teachers, um just speak more, an… and they, they ask questions but always the British students answered, and now I can answer properly, because I am not bad at that subject, at chemical, or geography, and biology, I think I’m not bad, so because my English good, I could understand them well, so I can answer these questions well.’

Q: Tell me about your dark November.
A: Um, maybe it, it’s because of the weather, it’s very cold.
Q: Yes.
A: That’s why, and do, I had to do the … um assignments and two exams, […]
Q: And you labelled it dark November?
A: Yeah, I had to work till very late, and it made me feel very tired.

Further information on critical incidents can be found in the article 'Critical incidents across cultures' by Jane Jackson.

Download the Portfolio Task (Word document 27.5KB)

Activity 3: Focus group research

In order to research your chosen aspect of the environment for international students in your institution, you might organise a focus group in order to discover what the students’ experiences are. A definition of a focus group is:
"a group of individuals selected and assembled by researchers to discuss and comment on, from personal experience, the topic that is the subject of the research." (Powell et al 1996 cited in Gibbs 1997)
View Gibbs (1997)

Instruction

Consider the following questions to help you consider if a focus group is the right approach for you.









Additional notes: Focus groups are not structured interviews following a set of fixed questions, however the moderator needs to have topics which they want the participants to discuss. In this case you could look through the survey questions which were used in a UKCOSA 'Broadening Our Horizons': international student survey (see appendix B) not in order to repeat those questions but to gather ideas of topics you might want the participants to discuss.


The following case study might also be helpful
The role of the moderators in focus group interviews: Practical considerations

You then need to set up your meeting; you will need to make decisions concerning which students to invite, where to hold the meeting, how you will record the discussion. You will need to follow the ethical considerations of this form of research, for example concerning getting the informed consent of the participants, ensuring their anonymity in your report, and you may need to supply a research proposal to an institutional ethics committee.

Download the Portfolio Task (Word document 24KB)

Would you like to review the main points?

Show review

References:

Sander, P. (2004). Researching our students - part two. Higher Education Academy: York. Available at http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/detail/id497_research_our_students_part2_sander [accessed 22 February 2008]

Gibbs, A (1997). Focus Groups. Social Research Update:19 . Available at http://sru.soc.surrey.ac.uk/SRU19.html [accessed 22 February 2008].

© Dave Burnapp, University of Northampton / Alison Dickens, Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies, University of Southampton