International education and meaningful contributions to society: Exploration of postgraduate international students’ perspectives studying in a Malaysian research university

2021 ◽  
Vol 81 ◽  
pp. 102331
Author(s):  
Jasvir Kaur Nachatar Singh ◽  
Hazri Jamil
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (17) ◽  
pp. 6831
Author(s):  
Mei Tian ◽  
Genshu Lu ◽  
Hongbiao Yin ◽  
Lijie Li

Student engagement has been attracting attention in the discussion of higher education (HE) quality. Despite the rapid increase of international students in China, little understanding has been gained for quality management on these students’ engagement in learning. This paper focuses on international undergraduate students in Chinese higher education institutions, exploring the nature and characteristics of their academic engagement and the environmental factors influencing the engagement. The discussion was based on a synthesis of the findings of two studies, i.e., an exploratory qualitative study following a small group of international students at a research university and a large-scale survey involving 1428 international students at 34 Chinese universities. The analyses revealed less than satisfactory levels of international students’ engagement, with a high proportion of the participants being passively or ineffectively involved in learning. The qualitative findings highlighted pedagogical and attitudinal factors that affected international students’ engagement. The survey results indicated six environmental factors, categorized into three groups, having significant effects on the respondents’ engagement. Although located in China, the analyses bear implications for practitioners striving for the sustainable development of international education in a broader range of contexts.


Author(s):  
Philip Altbach ◽  
Anthony Welch

International higher education has become a major income producer for Australia for more than two decades. The prime goal of internationalization was moneymaking, which resulted in creating problems in ethics, quality, and academic integrity. The recent policy change in reducing international students has affected institutions that had been too dependent upon high proportions of international enrollments. All of this is a predictable outcome of commercialism shaping international education.


Author(s):  
Alan John Olsen ◽  
Zena Burgess ◽  
Rajeev Sharma

International students do just as well as Australian students. This is the key finding from a study of the academic performance of 338,000 full-time students at 22 Australian uni- versities in 2003. The results of the study are important to international education professionals globally at a time when there have been allegations that Australian universities were dropping stan- dards to favor foreign students. The Sydney Morning Herald claimed in June 2005 to have found evidence of quality falling at universities to cater to international students with poor English seeking degrees so as to be accepted for migration. The research proved these allegations to be untrue. Australian students passed 89.4 percent of courses attempted, international students 88.8 percent. The results suggest that in their recruitment of international students Australian universities set their standards at about the right level.


Author(s):  
María del Carmen Azpiroz

Since the beginning of the 21st century, international education has grown at an extraordinary rate, and even countries like Uruguay, which has not been a recipient country of a significant flow of international students, has experienced an important increase of students from other countries and cultures. L2 Spanish learners from several Chinese universities travel to a Spanish-speaking country in the third year of their major to attend Spanish and culture lessons during two academic semesters. The aim of increasing the knowledge of Chinese approaches to learning is part of the interest of researchers and teachers in expanding their understanding of individual differences in learning. This chapter summarizes the research carried out at Universidad ORT Uruguay that focuses on identifying and understanding L2 (Spanish) strategies to learning.


2016 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 19-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyra Garson

Canadian higher education has long been involved in international education, partnerships, and research and development projects; however, recent framing of international education as an industry generating revenues to prop up underfunded institutions is troubling. This approach is endorsed by provincial government strategies and bolstered by the federal government’s recent International Education Strategy, which promotes doubling the recruitment of international students by 2022 (Canada, 2014). While it is true that international students bring economic benefits to the institutions and communities that host them, we should also consider the challenges that this numbers game potentially presents for education. Many institutions now strive to internationalize; although this can encompass a broad range of activities, for many, the focus has been on increasing international student enrolment. This paper argues that there is a need to reframe internationalization in Canada in a way that would acknowledge the economic rationales, yet balance them with the social and academic outcomes necessary for all students to develop the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary for effective participation as professionals and citizens in increasingly multicultural and global contexts. For internationalization to fully reach its potential, a reframing of internationalization at home, informed by critical global citizenship education, may offer a way to realize the social and academic outcomes that would support an ethical, inclusive, and equitable approach moving forward.  


Author(s):  
Agnes Bodis

Abstract International education constitutes a key industry in Australia and international students represent a third of university students at Australian universities. This paper examines the media representation of international students in terms of their English language proficiency. The study applies Critical Discourse Analysis to the multimodal data of an episode of a current affairs TV program, Four Corners, and social media comments made to the episode. Using Social Actor Analysis, the study finds that the responsibility for declining standards at universities is assigned to international students through representations of their language use as problematic. This is supported by the visual representation of international students as different. By systematically mapping out the English-as-a-problem discourse, the paper finds that the media representation of language proficiency and language learning is simplistic and naïve and the social media discussion reinforces this. This further contributes to the discursive exclusion of international students.


2020 ◽  
Vol 65 (7) ◽  
pp. 961-965
Author(s):  
Hassan Y AbuNurah ◽  
Ralph D Zimmerman ◽  
Robert B Murray ◽  
Douglas S Gardenhire

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 845-863
Author(s):  
Eunjung Lee ◽  
Bradyn Ko ◽  
Marjorie Johnstone

The phenomenon of the internationalization of education has been prevalent in developed western countries, with varied and at times contested discourses about international education and students. We wonder how these discourses are constructed and contested in the media and further shape public opinions. Using the critical theories of language, power, and media, we analyzed 44 articles relevant to international education/students and their commentaries in the widely circulated Canadian newspapers. Our findings illustrate three dominant themes as the rhetoric of international education/students in Canada and how they are discursively constructed: (1) international education as a commodity; (2) international students as recipients of the generosity of Canada; and (3) international students as burden/harms to Canadian education/students as well as having moral deficits and being lawfully wrongdoers. This analysis highlights how international students are otherized, essentialized, and silenced as the voiceless despite their strong presence as the fastest growing migrant group in Canada with diverse identities and needs. We close with a discussion of the media analysis on international students as one such example of how dominance such as neoliberalism is taking up e-space like other public domains in social environments, which social workers deeply care about.


2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-195
Author(s):  
Sarah McClanahan

The United States is currently enrolling more international students than any other country in the world. In 2011, approximately 764,000 international students were enrolled in higher education in the U.S., comprising 19% of the world’s total students studying internationally (Institute of International Education, 2012). This rise, as well as the rapid globalization occurring within the United States, has brought about a need for students and staff in higher education to be equipped to communicate cross-culturally and have an understanding of global issues. International living-learning communities (I-LLCs) are a way for universities to provide opportunities for domestic students and international students to live together and gain global knowledge through first-hand experiences and programs directed at international issues. While I-LLCs are not necessarily common across the U.S., many institutions are in the process of creating such programs in order to expand the global focus of their institutions. 


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