from the Introduction by Chris Shiel
Enhancing the International Learning Experience is timely: preparing learners to work effectively across cultures in a context of global employability is something that cannot be ignored…
While some of the importance of internationalisation unavoidably has its roots in the financial imperative, substantial drivers have included the need to respond to the challenges posed by increased numbers of international students, the complexity of engaging with international partnerships and the fact that increased international competition, means that we have to up our game in terms of the student experience (Fielden, 2006). Add to this the public profile that student satisfaction (or lack of it) attracts, coupled with the rising importance of the employability agenda, and employers’ demands for graduates with a ‘broader world view’ who are ‘cross-culturally competent’ (Shiel et al, 2005; Gillingham, 2006), then internationalisation and all that goes with it becomes naturally a critical priority. …
A number of universities (including my own) have sought to develop a broader approach, attempting to locate internationalisation under the strategic umbrella of developing global perspectives and global citizenship across the institution (Shiel & McKenzie, 2008; Jones & Brown, 2007; Lunn, 2006). … The first case study by Elspeth Jones provides a cogent summary of one such approach, illustrating the breadth of what might be involved. This case sets the goalposts high, describing a strategic institutional approach to internationalisation, which extends beyond the recruitment of international students to permeate all aspects of campus life at Leeds Met University – an institution a long way down the road of internationalisation. This commitment to developing global perspectives begins with setting a vision and values that embrace the curriculum, the student experience (home and overseas) and the extra-curricular. The approach is resulting in culture change and contributing to enhancing the learning and experience of all students and staff.
Assessment
Jude Caroll’s case study puts the focus firmly onto one of the core components of what we do: assessment. Mention ‘assessment’ in a conversation which includes ‘international’ and very soon someone will be talking about plagiarism. It would not be uncommon for the conversation then to veer to the problems international students have with assessment. Before long the discussion has lapsed into a ‘deficit model’ of international students and how they do not seem to understand how to cite academic work. Caroll’s chapter makes an important contribution in the sense that it reminds us that perceptions of assessment and plagiarism are culturally situated: both students and teachers need to adjust and adapt (the former to secure success and the latter to establish more inclusive assessment practices and to help students manage transitions). The case study serves as a useful reminder of what we should be doing, irrespective of the nationality of learners, as part of what constitutes good educational practice. An aide-memoire on setting assessments and plagiarism, or more correctly, how to set them to reduce plagiarism, is provided.
International partnerships offer one vehicle for developing the cross-cultural capability of staff. In the third case study, Sandie Randall shares learning from Queen Margaret University, providing an account of the institution’s approach to international collaborative partnerships and in particular, the School of Business Enterprise and Management’s experience (gained over a 10-year period) with partners in India. The case study sets out the challenges, describes important learning points from their experience and usefully reminds us that shared commitment and mutual respect are essential (but too often forgotten) elements in the development of international partnership. I found this reminder refreshing: in the early days of internationalisation and forays abroad reciprocity in learning was often not high on the agenda – if it was considered at all.
Elspeth Jones, towards the end of her case, highlights the importance of ‘firing imaginations and offering life changing experiences’. If such heady stuff leaves the reader inspired but wondering how to take this forward, then the contribution from Nina Becket and Maureen Brookes offers a step back to firmer ground and practical suggestion. The authors, like Jones, outline various dimensions of internationalisation (curriculum, student experience, recruitment, partnerships, exchanges, research and alumni relations) then go on to demonstrate how these can function as a practical tool to evaluate the extent of internationalisation. They deploy their framework across a sample of UK hospitality management programmes. One suggestion they make is that more opportunities to extend the international experience of UK students (and staff) would contribute to enhance the internationalisation of hospitality undergraduate degrees. While visiting other countries is of value, given that resources (financial and time) often militate against study abroad, what seems important is that we explore other ways to develop cross-cultural understanding and capability.
Challenge and the student experience
An important aspect of developing a global perspective is the ability to challenge our own assumptions and a preparedness to engage with opportunities that enable us to look through an alternative cultural lens. The next case study from a French business school (but perhaps not a typical grande école) offers just that, providing insight into teaching and learning issues in a context where cultural diversity (of students and staff) is more extreme than many of us will experience and where the administrative system serves as a brake on innovation and change. What’s more Alan Darricote and Rod McColl, in a very honest and critical account, provide an illustration of a strategic approach to internationalisation. They highlight change-management issues in the development process of the school and the challenges encountered. Their chapter is proffered as a basis to engage others in discussion and debate. The multi-cultural context they describe offers an exciting milieu for research from a dual perspective: enhancing international education and also international education management and administration.
In contrast to the strategic consideration in the previous case, Jan Bamford shifts the focus reminding us of the centrality of the student. The case study shares empirical data, in the form of focus groups and interviews, to draw attention to how international students perceive their experience. The experience for some students, particularly those at the baseline of language ability, is stressful. This is matched by frustration on the part of those students who are more linguistically advanced – and yet language and study support provided is often generic in nature. The case outlines the range of support required to help students adjust to a different academic regime and new social/cultural setting. Building support for all students is a critical process. However, a recurrent theme for international students is their sense of isolation: socialisation does not happen by chance. This reinforces what ISB (International Student Barometer) data frequently reveals across many institutions: international students cite a lack of mixing with UK students. Practical solutions include the provision of a mentor, study-skills groups and conversation groups. The case makes the important reminder of the potential of cultural diversity to enrich learning – we need to develop staff and approaches to tap into this.
Mari Jo Pesch offers an American perspective on cultural diversity, describing how Marian College Wisconsin has adopted a global perspective as a framework for managing diversity, developing cultural sensitivity and enhancing the student learning experience. Although the faculty are in the early stages of this development, attention is drawn again to something that we all need to consider in taking this agenda forward – challenging our own assumptions is a first and essential step in developing an inclusive pedagogy. This is critically important to internationalisation: an Anglo-Saxon, or even a Eurocentric, perspective may not always lead to the best solution.
The needs of industry
An industry where a multi–cultural perspective would seem to be pre-requisite is hospitality leisure and tourism. The case study by Judie Gannon addresses the international nature of the industry and the extent to which the international skills that the industry espouses as necessary for recruitment are developed within educational programmes. This is an interesting study which highlights that, despite what we may intuitively feel should be the situation (inter-cultural competence is necessary for managers in this industry), evidence gathered relating to recruitment processes reveals that recruiters demonstrate a limited understanding of concepts such as cultural sensitivity and inter-cultural skills. On the other side of the coin, research into how these issues are covered in the curriculum reveals a patchy picture in terms of the attention paid to offering learners an international experience and developing intercultural competence within programmes.
A perspective into how a truly international programme might be developed is offered by Melanie Weaver, Angela Vickerstaff and Malcolm Sullivan in the next case. They describe the course-development process for a masters in marketing targeted specifically at an international audience. They outline the research that informed the development and validation of a programme that might more effectively meet the needs of a culturally diverse group. They describe the principles, highlight the needs of international students and offer insight into course development and evaluation. Important reminders include that it is too easy to see ‘overseas’ as a homogenous group and that an enhanced learning experience is more likely with a non-traditional form of delivery and higher student/staff ratios. Many of us would support the latter (we could all do more within a bigger resource envelope): the challenge is to explore non-traditional approaches within resource constraints.
Resource constraints have in part contributed to a rise in the use of group work as a form of assessment, giving rise to concerns (and complaints from students) about how to ensure that all members contribute (and if they don’t does it matter?) but more importantly, how to ensure fair assessment. The academic rationale for collaborative learning through group work is undoubted but how do we address students’ concerns, particularly where there are strong perceptions that marks will be ‘pulled down’ by weaker students. Rachel Wicaksono sheds light on these issues providing a summary of very detailed research focused specifically on group assessment at the undergraduate level. She explores the issues thoroughly, developing a conceptual framework from the literature and incorporating concepts of self-identity and self-categorisation theory. Her study is not conclusive in terms of the negative impact of group work on marks but does confirm the benefits of group work. The author provides a useful outline of considerations.
A student voice
The case study from Philip Warwick confirms the importance of listening to international students and ensuring that they are given a voice. Warwick describes the ‘annual listening survey’ and an action-research approach that involves seeking feedback from masters level students to inform change in a context of rapid growth of international student numbers and in particular, Chinese students. The case highlights the issues that many readers will be familiar with and usefully reminds us that a process of continual enhancement is important if we expect learners to recommend their experience to others.
Jacqueline Lynch’s case study outlines a post-graduate module undertaken by an internationally diverse student cohort, where learners are required to engage with reflective practice and consider learning styles. This chapter seems to highlight what Dewey (1933) suggested – reflection by its very nature involves a painful process which includes puzzlement and doubt. It is thus hardly surprising that reflective practice presents a challenge to most students although some (depending on where they undertook their first degree) will be influenced by prior expectations and thus, more likely to adopt a mechanistic approach. While the case does not provide conclusions on cross-cultural differences, it does highlight the benefits gained by participants of multi-cultural working and the insight gained from understanding learning styles.
The case study by Rong Huang offers an interesting slant on what I have already referred to as the rhetoric of the ‘deficit model’ where international students are berated for not matching our cultural expectations: ‘lack of critical thinking ability’ is part of the language of this negative view. Huang provides food for thought through an exploration of what lies behind this accusation. In a limited study of postgraduates she delves into Chinese students’ perceptions of critical thinking. This is nicely offset by an exploration of how UK academics define critical thinking – not surprisingly academics do not speak with one voice in defining what is meant by the term. If we do not share an understanding of what is a common term, is it any surprise that students are confused? Although Huang cautions that the sample is too limited to extrapolate (a small sample of Chinese students on a postgraduate hospitality management course), the reader is left thinking that these issues will be the same across the sector. The case study is an important reminder that we need to deconstruct our own practice. It reinforces for me personally what was suggested by De Vita and Case (2003) that internationalisation should be seen as the chance ‘to reflect on, and rethink, not only what we teach but also how we teach.’
The case study from Mike Lowe highlights something that needs further reinforcement: international students are a valuable resource in terms of the knowledge, cultural richness and diversity of experience that they bring to the learning environment. The potential to exploit this is largely untapped. The case provides an honest account of the early experiences with Hong Kong students and the ‘critical incidents’ on the BA (Hons) Leisure Management extension degree with the steps that were taken to address the problems encountered. The experience of evaluators over a timeline is presented and a conceptual link is made with relationship marketing: we are reminded how relationships are nurtured over time.
Broadening the horizons of UK students
The final case study reminds us that an important aspect of the ‘internationalisation at home’ agenda is to find ways to broaden the horizons of UK students through international exchange and experiencing diversity ‘outside the nation state’ (Stier, 2002; Caruana and Hanstock, 2005). However, getting UK students to leave their comfort zones is something that presents a very real challenge, as any ERASMUS coordinator will confirm – perhaps a partial explanation to why there is a paucity of literature on UK students abroad (Caruana and Hanstock, 2008). Sandra King’s study therefore is most welcome, describing something that is both unusual and innovative – an evaluation of a study visit to China, setting out the problems experienced and the benefits gained. This case will hopefully serve to inspire others to consider what might be possible: how do we build in opportunities to increase exposure to a very different culture with the potential to enhance learning from (and indeed empathy with) a radically different perspective. At a time when fewer UK students study languages, and unfortunately fewer programmes support language learning, building study visits into course development becomes a greater challenge.
I would like to thank all of the contributors for sharing their insight and experience. Collectively these very different contributions reinforce the importance of developing this agenda. The publication provides substantial evidence of the genuine efforts of educators across the sectors in getting to grips with internationalisation in all its various guises. Through highlighting the variety of avenues to be followed (from the top-level strategic approach down to issues at the coal face and particular learning and teaching practices), the outcome is a useful resource, which lends itself to suggestions for future developments and research.
…As others have suggested, internationalisation is complex and involves a long journey; at its heart is the process of learning and enhancement. This publication provides a basis for both. What seems critically important is that we strive to ensure that when we say our programmes, our faculties and our business schools are international, they are truly international. Only when an international outlook pervades everything that we do, can we say that we make an effective contribution to global education. Let’s prepare our students to work in a world that we want to inhabit – we may need to deconstruct our own practice first but we stand to gain in the process.
References and URLS
- Caruana, V. and Hanstock, J. (2005) Internationalising the Curriculum – Initial Forays. Graduates as Global Citizens: Education for Sustainable Development, 1st International Conference, Bournemouth University, September
- Caruana, V. and Hanstock, J. (2008) Internationalising the curriculum at the University of Salford: from rhetoric to reality. In The Global University the role of senior managers. BU/DEA: www.dea.org.uk/publications pp 31–5
- De Vita, G. and Case, P. (2003) Rethinking the internationalisation agenda in UK higher education. Journal of Further and Higher Education 27 (4) pp 383–98
- Dewey, J. (1933) How We Think: A restatement of the relation of reflective thinking to the educative process
- Fielden, J. (2006) Internationalisation and Leadership: What are the issues? Leadership Summit 2006: The Leadership Challenges of Globalisation and Internationalisation. Available at www.lfhe.ac.uk/international/summit2006/
- Gillingham, D. (2006) Business schools in the global marketplace. academy exchange 5 Winter pp 26–7. Available at http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/
- International Student Barometer available at http://www.i-graduate.org/services/student_barometer.html
- Jones, E. and Brown, S. (eds) (2007) Internationalising Higher Education. London: Routledge
- Lunn, J. (2006) Global Perspectives in higher education. The Royal Geographical Society with IBG
- Shiel, C. and McKenzie, A. (eds) (2008) The Global University: the role of Senior Managers. BU/DEA: www.dea.org.uk/publications
- Shiel, C., Williams, A. and Mann, S. (2005) Global Perspectives and Sustainable Development in the Curriculum: Enhanced Employability, More Thoughtful Society? in Enhancing Graduate Employability: The roles of learning, teaching, research and knowledge transfer, Proceedings of the Bournemouth University Learning and Teaching Conference, Bournemouth University
- Stier, J. (2002) Internationalisation in higher education: unexplored possibilities and unavoidable challenges. European Conference on Educational Research, 11–14 September, Lisbon, available at http:// www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/00002342.htm
