The Global Student Experience

An International and Comparative Analysis

Camille Kandiko, Mark Weyers, Camille Kandiko, Mark Weyers

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780415809283
• eBook ISBN: 9781135069537
• Topic: Bildung
• Subtopic: Vergleichende Erziehungswissenschaft

There are 100 million students in higher education throughout the world today. This collection provides some indication of what are they are learning and of their wider experiences. It also outlines the changing global context of provision for undergraduate students as countries and universities respond to what they anticipate will be new demands f

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Introduction

The Global Student Experience

CAMILLE B. KANDIKO

This book investigates the national and international strategies, agendas and trends in global higher education to understand how these factors directly impact the student experience. This book has a solid empirical scope and is organised around national agendas and themes that are prominent in global higher education. However, what internationalisation and globalisation mean around the world vary immensely. Perspectives from the West are not universally shared throughout the world, and there are multiple regional spheres and networks of globalisation in higher education, such as growing education hubs in the Middle East and South East Asia. Furthermore, countries’ participation in the global exchange of students varies, such as India being a low importer of students but a high exporter, China educating large number of students from the East Asian region, and the UK sending relatively few students abroad, whilst being known as a global hub of internationalisation.

Following a global trend, what is termed ‘home’ and ‘international’ student differs across countries, and in many ways does not reflect the real experience of higher education for large numbers of students. Across various countries differences in class, ethnic origin, religion, first language or gender play a much larger role. Many of the challenges of educational epistemological backgrounds and frameworks that traditionally arise in the context of international students are significant issues for many home students as well. While taking a broad perspective, we acknowledge that discourses that homogenise student experiences are not useful, and in the book each chapter explores aspects of ‘the global student experience’ in individual and unique ways.

There are 177 million students in higher education throughout the world today (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization [UNESCO] 2012). This collection provides some indication of what are they are learning and of their wider experiences. It also outlines the changing global context of provision for undergraduate students as countries and universities respond to what they anticipate will be new demands for virtual and more traditional learning in and across subjects of study. It brings together contributions from a range of authors to focus on common themes internationally, combined with descriptions of the student experience in national higher education systems. This affords insight into what students can expect from emerging patterns of provision worldwide. It also informs institutional decision makers as they attempt to meet changing international student demand within their own national circumstances of retrenchment or expansion in competition with private, public and for-profit rivals at home and abroad.

This panorama of provision is designed for a worldwide readership through a team of expert contributors who relate their experience and knowledge to shared global concerns. Thus, the big picture of economic and political globalisation is combined with examination of its various aspects, such as cultural differences in learning, the role of academic literacy, its distance provision and quality in the context of competition, what a globally connected undergraduate curriculum can offer, and the shift of the role of higher education in the assessment and employability of graduates. At the same time, in an increasingly open market there are also restrictions upon student travel and residence in many polities, and increasingly variable fees for home and international students. These pan-global themes are combined with perspectives from Western higher education, including several chapters by authors who are themselves international academics, contrasted with systems in different cultural contexts, such as Southeast Asia, Africa and South America, as well as the new giants China and India. This international and comparative approach works to move beyond the ‘false dichotomies’ (Ryan and Louie 2007), such as those between Western and Confucian thought, that can polarise the study of internationalisation of higher education.

This book aims to explore themes that affect mobile students around the world, and the experiences of students in different countries – students in their home countries, students that leave to study abroad and incoming international students. This approach, although acknowledging a Western-influenced point of departure, is designed to take a wider, more global perspective. Hopefully this will instigate more international, comparative and global research into the study of students in higher education.

The Higher Education Context

Recent policy developments are putting even more power and control of higher education in the hands of students, raising issues about the quality, diversity and outcomes of the student experience. The global shift towards mass higher education coincided with the economic period of neoliberal expansion, now entering a new period of austerity. During this economic period, the US student experience has been generalised to many parts of the world where it has largely superseded previous dual track academic and vocational systems, although European exceptions remain. In the period of consolidation that can be anticipated there may be some return to these systems, while some countries – notably India and China – are developing their own national higher education systems but with reliance upon either importing teaching and accreditation expertise – in some cases whole ‘offshore campuses’, like England’s University of Nottingham in Ningbo, China – or upon exporting students.

Nevertheless, there are over 4.1 million tertiary students studying outside their countries of citizenship, representing a fivefold increase in the last thirty-six years and a 99 per cent increase since 2000 (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 2012). This widening participation in higher education has had both convergent and divergent effects within higher education systems. Therefore, there is even more need for students to consider their choices of institutions in which to study, and for many students this includes regional, national and international options. Also, it is important for institutions to consider their investments in distance and overseas’ provision, as providers of international student services and as gateways for student and staff exchange. This widening of participation, growth in locations, shifts in provision and the increasing diversity of students is moving the traditional binary of ‘domestic’ and ‘international’ into a much more fluid, dynamic and complex world. We use the term ‘global student experience’ to capture the diversity within the experiences of students in higher education around the world. Rather than acting as a homogenising force, we adopt a ‘global’ view to signify the mutual trends of convergence and divergence within globalisation theory, and to explore what that means in specific aspects of the student experience and across different countries and regions in the world.

As higher education shifts from being considered a public good to a private good, the future of the student market is extremely uncertain. Changes in national higher education funding, tightening immigration laws and supranational collaborations are likely to significantly alter the global movement of students. The degree to and directions in which it may develop are the subject of intense speculation. This book informs these discussions with the authoritative chapters of its contributors who examine various aspects of the global student experience without losing sight of the very basic questions of what the 177 million students are learning and how or whether their qualifications contribute to their future employment and other prospects as well as to the cultures and economies of their home countries.

Like the growth in trade during the recent expansive phase of globalised capitalism, there have been winners and losers in the international exchange of students and the global knowledge economy. Over half of all international students study in five countries: the US, the UK, Germany, France and Australia (OECD 2012). Over half of all internationally mobile students are from Asia (OECD 2012). There are varied flows of higher level knowledge communicated via new information and communications technology. This has posed questions of validity that have both undermined and reinforced the positions of the dominant authorities and their quality regimes across governments and institutions. What developments can be anticipated and how will these present themselves in a recessionary economic climate or in the conditions of a new recovery? In either case, the uninterrupted growth of educational goods and services is unlikely to be maintained at its previous levels. What forms of consolidation of markets and institutions can be anticipated internationally and how will these be experienced by students and staff of the new global higher education scene?

The Student Experience

There is no universal ‘student experience’ or ‘international student experience’; there is great diversity in what is even meant by such terms. In diversified mass higher education systems, students often lack common experiences, teaching practices or assessments, and there is a resulting challenge to measure or evaluate the range of outcomes from higher education (Chatman 2007). However, ‘the student experience’ has been adopted around the world as an umbrella term for student-related aspects of higher education. For example, the UK Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA)’s (2012) research into the student learning experience focused on the following areas: teaching of courses; feedback and assessment; student engagement; student representation; public information and informing student choice; complaints and appeals; academic support; and other aspects that help form a high quality experience. The UK Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) report (Bekhradnia 2012) on various aspects of the student experience included the amount of contact students have with their staff, the size of teaching groups, the overall number of hours they devote to their studies and perceptions of value for money. The US Student Experience in the Research University project at University of California Berkeley explores:

how students of diverse backgrounds and with varying economic pressures and competing obligations organize their time, define their academic purposes, respond to the curriculum and the extra-curricular opportunities for intellectual development, and make use of the resources of the institution.

(Center for Studies in Higher Education 2011: 1)

Two dominant aspects of research on the student experience are collecting feedback from students themselves on their experience and the institutional commitment to enhancing the student experience.

The US Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities commissioned the Kellogg Report on the student experience, which reported:

We can invent quite different institutions if we reaffirm three broad ideals and adhere to them tenaciously, following their implications faithfully wherever they lead: (1) Our institutions must become genuine learning communities, supporting and inspiring faculty, staff, and learners of all kinds. (2) Our learning communities should be student centered, committed to excellence in teaching and to meeting the legitimate needs of learners, wherever they are, whatever they need, whenever they need it. (3) Our learning communities should emphasize the importance of a healthy learning environment that provides students, faculty, and staff with the facilities, support, and resources they need to make this vision a reality.

(Kellogg Commission 1997: vii–viii)

A recent study into the student experience in world-class universities in China, following on from Projects 211 and 985, affirmed this notion of the nexus of the institutional approach and the experiences of students, finding that the ‘college environment (academic, campus, and interpersonal) affect students’ learning and living experience, and b) students’ learning and living experience impact the development of creating world-class research institutions in China’ (Chan 2012: 1).

Across research into the student experience, there is a noted danger of ‘quantity underwriting quality’ (Hellstén and Prescott 2004: 351), with more attention paid to marketing and recruiting than learning and teaching. Ainley (2008) calls for research into the student experience of both what is taught and what is learnt, across diverse groups of students. For example, foreign language speakers may be learning multiple new languages, in terms of an ‘everyday’ new language, but also the language of the discipline and of the host higher education context.

Ryan (2011) describes three phases, beginning in the early 1990s, of approaches to teaching and learning for international students across UK and Australian higher education. The first was to ‘fix’ students, and to get them to adapt to the Western educational context. This was followed by a shift to ‘fix’ teachers and institutions, and for them to accommodate international students, and augment their learning experiences. The current phase adopts a broader perspective on integration of international students into the teaching and learning experience. This is seen through calls for social and academic integration of students (Montgomery 2010), greater intercultural fluency across the curriculum (Ramsden 2008) and the promotion of global citizenship (Gacel-Ávila 2005). The phases Ryan (2011) describes highlight the tension in educational responsibility for students and their learning experiences. The chapters in the first part explore themes that raise common educational challenges across countries. Some of these use case studies from Western institutions, others highlight issues from a distinct perspective, such as academic literacy and language in the South African context, and some move to new stances, such as the global consequences of virtual education.

This book aims to show the similarities and diversity of experiences, policies, challenges and systems around the world. There are perspectives from Western contexts, looking within the complexity and diversity of such systems, and wider perspectives from regions around the world. This is mirrored by the chapters which highlight the global flow of international students, which goes beyond a Western-intake model. There is also acknowledgement that the US-style student experience is not universal, nor is the funding model; globalisation has led to both a convergence and divergence in policies and realities on the ground. Many countries have maintained dual track systems, particularly in European countries such as Germany and The Netherlands. Many have not adopted neoliberal funding models, for example Finland, Iceland and Norway (and until 2012, Sweden) have not charged international students tuition fees and many countries operate largely insular higher education systems, as seen in Chile (UNESCO 2012). However, the global flow of students is increasing, and in dynamic ways, with large swings in enrolments across countries from year to year based on political and economic shifts; regulatory policies, particularly those around student visas; and high profile incidents involving student safety.

From the International to the Global Student

In much of Western higher education, the dominant discourse on internationalisation is founded on a globalised economic agenda that positions higher education as an export sector. In the policy sphere internationalisation is often considered for economic reasons, and within higher education institutions as a necessary challenge in terms of structures and governance (de Wit 2002) and its financial implications (Larsen, Morris and Martin 2001).

Although globally there is focus on competition within the internationalisation agenda, (Marginson 2006), there are critiques of the marketisation of internationalisation (De Vita and Case 2003; Kehm and Teichler 2007; Mok 2003). Alternative perspectives on internationalisation identify how it can be used as a vehicle to support diversity, access and equity for all learners (Montgomery 2010). To this end, the lenses of interculturalism and inclusion help to identify a precise tension between internationalisation being part of a global capitalist agenda, or being a means to move towards ‘global understanding’ (Teichler 2004).

Within the dynamic landscape of higher education, internationalisation is often used to gesture to calls for increased diversity. However, this diversity is itself maintained within strict discursive limits. As the ‘international student’ emerges as an increasingly fam...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• List of Contributors
• Preface
• Series Editors’ Introduction
• 1 Introduction: The Global Student Experience
• Part 1 Emerging Issues of the Global Student Experience
• Part 2 Exploring the Student Experience: International Perspectives
• Index