Transcript ESCalate – Education Subject Centre: advancing learning

Listening to staff and students talk about the
internationalisation of higher education: highlights
from a focus group study
Dr Fiona Hyland
ESCalate,
Subject Centre for Education
The Higher Education Academy
New perspectives of Internationalisation
12 June 2009
A Changing World: the internationalisation
experiences of staff and students (home and
international) in UK Higher Education
Dr Fiona Hyland, Dr Sheila Trahar,
Dr Julie Anderson & Alison Dickens
Funded by The Higher Education Academy
www.escalate.ac.uk
Aims
To explore the perspectives of students and staff on:
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what the terms 'internationalisation' etc, mean to them,
the extent of internationalisation within their institution,
the effects on teaching and learning,
their challenges & successes,
Methods
• 15 Focus groups in February to May 2008
• 5 locations with participants from across UK
• A range of disciplines e.g. Business, Engineering,
Education, Sociology, Arts, English, Mathematics
• Separate groups of international & home students
• Topic guide
Key Challenges as perceived by staff & students in the study
HEI Strategy &
Staff Buy-in
Entry Requirements
for Students
Student Interaction
Internationalisation
Teaching &
Learning Issues
Curriculum
HEI strategy & staff buy-in
• “internationalisation means recruitment; it means reaching out
and pulling students in". Staff
• “probably in a lot of cases the people who decide how many
students (as many as possible) are not the people who then
have to deal with them... So I think the problem is basically that
the system has become too financially driven without, you know,
care for the quality” Staff
Entry requirements
• Concerns about how English language tests (IELTS, TOEFL)
are used, what scores are required
• “one person I lived with actually … it’s a sad story, because she
was doing a music course, and she actually had to quit her
course because she couldn’t cope. I was like ‘Well why did the
University let her in?’ – I, kind of, got a bit angry… they really
shouldn’t have let in if her English was so bad that she couldn’t
cope with the course.”
(Home Student, edited)
The Curriculum
• For the international marketplace
• Embedding internationalisation vs tagging on extra
modules / case studies
• Different disciplines, different approaches
• Accreditation restrictions
• Graduate attributes
Teaching & Learning
• “Yeah, when I came to the lecture room it seems like
white people sit at the back, white people, and then in
the middle some like me, yellow coloured people, and
then at the front, black people. And when they divide
groups, just like Malaysia students will go with
Malaysia students. Muslim students would like to go
with Muslim students. White people will get white
people together.. people are still sitting (like this) for a
whole year” International Student
Teaching & Learning
• Staff suggestions: what worked for them
• Group work was seen as challenging, but
effective when encouraged
Student Interactions
• Cultural cliques
• Language
• HEI and degree
course barriers
• Cultural differences
in socialising
Student:
Student
Moderator
Student
I guess we didn’t mention it (alcohol),
because it’s so obvious, it’s just there.
… my interpretation of the word sociable is:
helpful, supportive, friendly, maybe patient,
things like that. It turned out to be different
here.
what is it here, your perception?
As experienced in my hallway, it means being
able to drink more than 10 pints of beer an
hour. If you can do that, you’re very sociable.
Otherwise, you may be intermediate.
Internationalisation at Home
• We don’t do it actually (make the effort to get to know
international students). I mean that’s the problem.
It’s also our responsibility to find out and we don’t
actually do it, we find so many excuses, like ‘I have to
do this, and this, and this’. (Home Student)
Conclusions
HEI Strategy &
Staff Buy-in
Entry Requirements
for Students
Student Interaction
Internationalisation
Teaching &
Learning Issues
Curriculum
Generally, this is a positive report:
internationalisation enriches lives
• So no matter how much I might have tried it’s only by having
students from Ghana, from Nigeria, from Taiwan and from India
who when they talk about (their contexts) you can begin to
understand the parallels and the contrasts and comparisons and
it brings a dynamic to the learning that is so real, so alive, so
energised, that no textbook, no amount of me preparing to
remember to say ‘oh and in Singapore it might be different, oh
and in Canada they do this'. There’s no way that I could have
created that. That is a very dynamic and creative element of the
learning for students and for me. (Staff)
Developing intercultural competencies in
international higher education communities:
initiating European conversations
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A BAICE / ESCalate event
Tues 22nd September 2009
University of Bristol
Speakers:
 Dr Hanneke Teekens
 Dr Matthias Otten
 Professor Martin Haigh
• ‘A Changing World…’ Report
http://escalate.ac.uk/4967
• ‘Developing intercultural competencies…’
event, 22nd September 2009, Bristol
http://escalate.ac.uk/5749
• [email protected]