Engaging with International Students
By conducting research in this area, we can gain insights into the academic, social, and cultural integration of international students. This knowledge can help CQU develop effective strategies and support systems to enhance the overall experience and success of international students. Additionally, research on engaging with international students contributes to the broader field of education and promotes inclusive and diverse learning environments.
Alleviating cross-cultural Challenges of Indian Subcontinent Students: University Staff Perspectives
The Alleviating cross-cultural Challenges of Indian Subcontinent Students: University Staff Perspectives project outlined the strategies that universities can execute to train academic and professional staff to support international students in addressing their cross-cultural issues. Thematic analysis of multiple focus group interviews established a range of simple initiatives that university staff and decision-makers could introduce to alleviate these challenges. The main findings are: Academic and professional staff should clearly and repeatedly articulate course, assessment and integrity expectations and make use of pre-arrival and orientation interactions. The pedagogic environment should be customised to subcontinent students in the classroom, and written teaching materials should be supplemented with engaging videos, ideally subtitled. The introduction of cross-cultural awareness training for academic and professional staff would improve the learning experience of subcontinent students. Adequate resourcing of academic skills and English language support and mental health support services also emerged as valuable initiatives. The cross-cultural awareness training for academic and professional staff should also be customised to their specific roles.
Project Team: Monika Kansal, Ritesh Chugh, Stephanie Macht, Anthony Weber, Mahsood Shah, Robert Grose.
Project Status: Complete
Why do Mongolian students choose to study in Australia?
The Why do Mongolian students choose to study in Australia project highlights a pilot study undertaken at an Australian university that has successfully recruited students from Mongolia. The study examined the factors that attracted Mongolian students to study in Australia and at the subject university, as well as students’ expectations before arrival, barriers to learning and the university’s key areas and services that support learning. The study also examined areas in which the learning experience could be improved, as well as personal, social and cultural gains apart from academic achievement, and the role of education agents in helping students to choose the subject university. Findings – The study found that Mongolian students were attracted to an English-speaking country and high-quality of education. Their expectation before arrival was a university campus as portrayed in marketing material, including expansive open spaces. The study also highlighted the need to diversify student profiles at metropolitan locations. It found Mongolian students made friends, and learnt a new culture but faced learning difficulties too.
Project Team: Monika Kansal, Ritesh Chugh, Mahsood Shah.
Project Status: Complete
Mapping the cultural characteristics of subcontinent students and the challenges to their academic success
The Mapping the cultural characteristics of subcontinent students and the challenges to their academic success project explored the cultural characteristics of subcontinent students and maps the characteristics to the challenges to their academic success. Interviews with fifty staff from an Australian university indicated that both teaching and professional staff held similar views on the characteristics of subcontinent students. Significant characteristics included respect for teachers, the need for continual guidance, a tendency to group, and a propensity to negotiate. The identified challenges to the academic success of subcontinent students were a lack of engagement with staff, inadequate critical thinking, poor communication skills, academic integrity issues and unrealistic expectations.
Project Team: Ritesh Chugh, Stephanie Macht, Monika Kansal, Robert Grose, Mahsood Shah, Anthony Weber.
Project Status: Complete
Transcript
International students coming to Australian universities are growing and a large cohort of international students are coming from the subcontinent. The subcontinent includes countries like India, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh. Hence it is important that we explore the cross-cultural challenges that the subcontinent students face in acclimatizing themselves to this new educational environment. It's important to understand the issues they face so that as Educators we are able to offer improved engagement and pedagogical outcomes for students. We interviewed 50 staff members in eight focus groups, four from academic staff and four from professional staff. The students from subcontinent background they have a lot of respect for people in authority. They are usually obedient and they are reluctant to ask questions because they think they might damage their relationship with the staff if they ask a lot of questions. They rely upon the teachers for all the information. Student from subcontinent background they usually don't want to mingle with students from other cultural backgrounds, they want to form groups from their own cultures. Academic staff in particular feel that they lack critical analysis skills and they have very less prior knowledge of academic integrity and misconduct issues. CQUniversity has a lot of different campuses and approaches will vary across campuses. The Academic Learning Center has a number of trained staff in English as a second language and as part of your training you do learn about the differing needs that International students have. I think a major focus for the Academic Learning Center across the university is the gap between students prior learning experiences in their own countries and the expectations that our university has for them. The Academic Learning Center seeks to support international students in their literacy skills, however a major challenge is to get students through the door in the first place. We do advertise in all kinds of ways, however even when students make appointments and come they will often hesitate at the door, at the open door. We have to say come in, come in, you know, you're very welcome. They are very hesitant and shy. The solution to that is for us to try and be as visible as possible. We go into classes, we conduct workshops in our embedded literacy program, we do try in our everyday walking into the lift, walking out of the lift, just a simple "good morning" connecting personally with students is very important so that we're not seen as different or that there is a foreignness, that we're all in this together. While I'm teaching managerial finance inside MBA class, I realized that the majority of subcontinent students they don't have financials background. So I realise on the other hand they have good skills in math, so my job was to redesign the materials to fit their background and enhance their learning day by day inside my classrooms. This project arising from a 2018 scholarship of learning and teaching grant specifically explores the cross-cultural challenges that subcontinent students face in becoming accustomed to educational environments in Australia. In doing so we are particularly exploring the challenges that academic staff face in dealing with subcontinent students and not just academic staff we are also exploring the perspectives of professional staff who play a very vital role in supporting subcontinent students.
IEAA Award for Best Practice in International Education for cross-cultural engagement with students from the sub-continent
This award recognises the work of an individual or team that has contributed to international education through a ground-breaking development in an area including, but not restricted to, international development, internationalisation of the curriculum, student recruitment, marketing and communication, support programs for international students, pathway initiatives, mobility programs or social inclusion activities. The development should have been implemented, measured, and tested and results demonstrable within the nomination.
Are you interesting in applying for an IEAA Award for Best Practice in International Education? Head over to the IEAA Awards webiste to find out more.
Project Team: Monika Kansal, Ritesh Chugh, Stephanie Macht, Anthony Weber, Mahsood Shah, Robert Grose.
IEAA Excellence Awards 2022
Transcript
The number of students from cross-cultural backgrounds in Australia is increasing, especially students from subcontinental Backgrounds. There is a need to identify what kind of challenges students face and how the professional and university staff are engaged in and equipped to deal with these cross-cultural challenges.
Unfortunately, the findings of our studies were not very optimistic or encouraging. We found that the students lacked interactions with staff. There were often unrealistic expectations from staff. Students often lacked critical thinking and had poor communication skills.
It's also interesting to note that university teaching staff and professional staff categorise all international students as one particular cohort. They do not distinguish between International students and students from subcontinent backgrounds.
The resulting framework from our research is.
E- Engaging students in meaningful discussions.
Q - Questioning their understanding.
U - Using customised examples in teaching.
I - Informing students about expectations, requirements, and policies.
P - Practicing what we all preach.
