Study abroad: Cultural Differences of Students - Research Paper Example

INTRODUCTION The United Kingdom's advanced education system was well known for years, however, it becomes exceptionally acclaimed during the past decade. Thousands of international students all around the globe come to study in the UK, particularly postgraduate students get a chance to light up their future. Consistently, numerous well known UK colleges and universities are offering scholarship programs for international students to provide them a chance to study in a portion of the world's best institutes. It gives a reasonable chance to a huge number of competent young men and women to proceed with their education in the world's best and prestigious colleges/universities. Students who choose to study abroad have various expectations and goals in their mind regarding their student life as well as their career. Common reasons for which postgraduates prefer to study abroad include the quality of the education system, technology advancement, diverse culture in institutes and a stable political environment. A considerable lot of the issues that international students encounter in changing in accordance with college life are increased for students from abroad. There is an expanding number of worldwide students' studying in the UK, international students are confronted by a scope of issues and these can bring about diverse results. Additional to issues, the experience of the postgraduates who are studying abroad could be positive due to several factors. In this report, a qualitative research is conducted to understand the various degrees of experiences of the students who are studying abroad. PURPOSE OF THE STUDY The purpose of this research is to secure an understanding of culture, learning and the overall experience of students in studying abroad. The study tries to see that how culture and other elements of a society such as language, norms, values and subcultures affect the students who are studying abroad. This will also investigate the perception of students about living in a different culture and what it means to them to learn the norms and values of another culture. In this regard, the study investigates what students say in regards to society in the full setting of their experience. Thus this allows us to understand the significance of the studying abroad from the real world experience of the students. The study will also see that how people from different cultures contribute to the experience of postgraduates while studying abroad. The study will also explore the satisfaction level of the students abroad about their decision in contrast to their expectations. RESEARCH QUESTIONS 1. Why you chose this institute for studies? How was your overall experience in contrast to your expectations? 2. Describe a situation that you have experienced during your studies abroad where you seriously felt that you are not part of this culture? 3. How much the culture of the UK and of this institute contributed to your learning? 4. How did you adjust yourself in this culture because a culture has great impact on a person’s personal life? 5. As a student, how would you define the meaning of your study abroad experience? DATA PRODUCTION AND METHOD The research work is structured on the basis of involvement theory. This theory introduces a straightforward and an essential methodology to understudy learning that can include different theories of student learning. The vital principle of this theory is that "students learn by getting to be involved" (Astin, p.135). The theory helps in observing the behavioral aspects of students learning additional to mental and motivational aspects. This study shows that in students' studying abroad encounters it, particularly the exercises that fall outside of the strictly scholastic bits of the experience that get to be noteworthy to students learning. Further, students are involved in the studying abroad experience in such a way, that the lines between sorts of learning get to be smudged. This study demonstrates that the more students got to be involved in their experience abroad the more they gained from the experience also the additional significance the experience had for them in the setting of their lives (Carlson, p.111). The methodology used to gather relative data for this research report is an interpretative qualitative study (Silverman, p. 122). In this study, because the objective is to find students' viewpoints on society adapting in study abroad, the interpretive qualitative examination outline was generally suitable. Through an interpretive qualitative methodology the analyst is looking for " to find and comprehend a phenomenon, a process, the viewpoints and perspectives of the individuals involved, or a blend of these" (Merriam, p. 7). In interpretative research the center of interest is on the people, or participants, as they attempt to comprehend their own experiences. This study is gone from finding the importance of the study abroad experience from the point of view of the students who contemplated abroad. The interpretive methodology is best gone for getting an understanding of what implications the members themselves build on their experiences or how they "make the feeling of their experience" (Saunders, p. 317). Standard method for information gathering in the fundamental interpretive qualitative methodology is one-to-one interviews, observation, and data analysis. Such information is then inductively investigated to distinguish the repeating examples or regular topics that cut over the information (Gummesson, p. 73). The center of interest of the information in this exploration venture originates from semi- organized/structured interviews. To supplement the interview data a limited document/secondary data has been used. For almost all the participants of this research written documents about students studying abroad are also used. These documents were created for different reasons and were not requested as a major aspect of this exploration venture, yet they do offer an optional type of information for this study. Semi-organized meetings were picked as the primary source of information gathering because this sort of information can best address the research objectives and questions that try to comprehend points of view and to comprehend the importance of an experience for the participants (Silverman, p, 192). To see how postgraduate students who have experienced study abroad perceived learning from culture differences an interview was administered with postgraduate student at the University of Lincoln. For the purpose, we searched for students from different programs and with a different cultural background in order to find one willing to share his/her views with us. The reason for choosing a student with a different cultural and religious background was to understand his/her different viewpoints about the people and culture of the UK as well as to see. The selected interviewee was enrolled in the MBA program at the University of Lincoln and was from Japan. The endeavor to incorporate a student from different sort of project emulated the technique for deliberate determination (Patton, p. 232). Prior to the interview, preparatory interpretation was shared with the student, and after that a second interview was administered. Such an approach gave an opportunity to the student to react to the preparatory understandings and was permitted to offer clarifications or to reconsider his initial statements. Information from the second interview was then broken down and consolidated into amending translations. The interview was conducted in a one-to-one setting in an informal tone for the comfort of interviewee. Our participant shared a copy of a document that was composed for a class discussion on the same topic. The statements are all generally short, yet they do offer an alternate wellspring of data and serve eventually to verify the information gathered through interviews. The analysis of data was finished via an inductive methodology (Merriam, p. 9). Since "information, interpretation and analysis are a synchronous activity in qualitative exploration" (Maeschan & Welch, p. 119), data analysis started even over the span of the first question asked in the interview. The study makes a vital commitment to study abroad, research because the center of the focus of this study is the experience of postgraduate students and how they comprehend the importance of their experience. The students act as a foundation in interpretive research, therefore, the study provides all the crucial data to the interpretive methodology and that takes into account a presentation of the experiences of students studying abroad in a complete and noteworthy manner. The analysis demonstrates how from various perspectives the experience of studying abroad is positively an individualized experience. This is especially the case concerning how students comprehend the experience and how they assimilate that significance into their everyday lives. Study abroad has a number of experiences and impacts over the lives of postgraduate students such as cultural learning, self-development and discipline based learning. It is vital to note numerous sorts of experiences that students report with a specific end goal to better comprehend the general connection of their experience and to better understand how different types of learning are arranged in the setting of the study abroad experiences. This research report has certain limitation that I have frequently experienced during interviews. There was only one interviewee, therefore, it is hard to understand the issues and experiences of each postgraduate student studying abroad. The interviewee answered briefly about the questions. Due to the lack of time only a small group of questions was asked in the interview therefore, it cannot be assumed that every person from a similar cultural background has the same viewpoints and experiences regarding English culture, society, language and norms of his/her self-development and learning (Inglis, Rolls and Kristy, p.247). TRANSCRIPTION 1. Why you chose this institute for studies? How was your overall experience in contrast to your expectations? The participant chosen for the interview was from Japan, which mean he has a totally different background which greatly helped in understanding the experiences a student study abroad. The interview was recorded using an audio recorder and before converting it to written form it was listened several times to avoid errors. English was used as a key language for conducting interviews because the participant was good at speaking English. The interviewee answered “I have chosen the University of Lincoln for its strong reputation, superior education quality, access to advanced technology with an aim to a bright and successful future. Almost all of the international students join international institutes for the same reasons.” He showed great respect and satisfaction regarding the education system and courses offered by the university. “Before coming to the UK I was very excited and I had some very high expectations of the university and my fellows, however, after starting my study program here, I felt that the Univerity is just according to my expectations in terms of environment, education quality and teacher’s support. The expectations regarding university fellows and general culture of the UK were not met at all.” 2. Describe a situation that you have experienced during your studies abroad where you seriously felt that you are not part of this culture? “I seriously experienced such type of situations many times for one reason, my accent and lack of proficiency in speaking English. Well, this is a fact that an individual cannot speak another language as fluently as native language, but it really hurt when people laugh at you for your accent. If you ask a native English speaker to learn and speak Arabic or Japanese, he/she would never speak it in a way a native speaker speaks therefore, they don’t have right to criticize a non-native English speaker for his style and proficiency.” 3. How much the culture of the UK and of this institute contributed to your learning? “The overall culture of the university is very productive and has widely contributed in my learnig. Specially, I learnt how females have the potential to learn new things and how they can contribute effectively in a country’s economy. I learned that the UK is the host for million of cultures therefore, it is important to avoid discussing topics like poverty, labor rights, religious views and cultural aspects with the nationals of the UK as well as with foreigners to avoid conflicts. There are great concerns about the comfort of neighbors for which people never hear loud music and are avoiding other disturbing activities, which is a really positive aspect of this culture. The staff is very kind and cooperative, especially at the beginning of my course when I was unable to speak English effectively, my teachers really helped me through proper assistance.” 4. How did you adjust yourself in this culture because a culture has great impact on a person’s personal life? “It took a long time in convincing people that there is a difference between Japan, China and Africa, because people usually assume that we are from different parts of a same culture. The culture of the UK and of this institute caused me to change my political and social views as well as it helped me to explore different cultures under a single roof.” 5. As a student, how would you define the meaning of your study abroad experience? “A period of time, which allowed me to learn things to develop my professional life to take on things from society to create my personal life. Studying abroad experience allow a student to get benefit from an international institute based on international standards and to learn what is his/her identity abroad.” REFLECTION The results of this study showed that how people from different cultures and backgrounds, experiences lots of positive and negative things in a new question. The study also showed that how postgraduate students from different cultures, studying abroad have the same purposes for choosing institutes to study abroad. In this regard, it becomes clear that students study abroad has almost same perception about international institutes. As there was no specific comparison about programs or cultures for this study, therefore, its findings have a diverse impact on its results. The participant has responded positively to the interview questions and have helped in keeping the environment friendly. The impact of culture and its elements on the learning of the postgraduate students was measured easily, however, after completing the interview and analysis of the interview data it is seriously felt that the interviewer paid little attention to collect data about the expectations of the interviewee’s prior to study abroad (Anderson et al., 466). Choosing only one student for the interview also affected the results and has limited the results of the study because in this regard, we have only interviewed a single student which gave us an insight to a single culture. For example, during this study it is felt that there was a need to interview people from different cultural backgrounds because there is a great difference between each culture, therefore, the study abroad experience of each student even students from a same country and culture could be different. In this regard, it could be assumed that the postgraduate students study abroad experience is highly influenced by the student’s perception, personality and views in contrast with their background. Due to the variation in the study abroad experiences of students from even same cultural backgrounds limited the effectiveness of the study because it is hard to conclude the study abroad experiences of all the postgraduate students after interviewing only one student. Every year UK host millions of students across the world and it is hard to assess the exact figure of international students who are enrolling at the University of Lincoln. It is important to know that the most important things learned by the participant of the study are language, cultural values of different countries, course related knowledge, norms that are presumed necessary for living in this society, patience and the difference between the cultures of home country and the host country. The most relevant thing explored during this study was that the student study abroad is also aware of the fact that culture is the basic thing that differentiate one person from another. For example, our interviewee expressed that "people are the same all over the world, but culture makes the difference". Another thing that is explored during this study was the difference between perception and cultural learning among those attending multiyear programs and those who have joined a short term diploma courses. Our Interviewee discussed his different experiences where he cleared that his views become different after joining a multiyear study program. In this regard we can assume that multiyear postgraduate students have a more positive and mature attitude regarding learning experiences from study abroad compared to short term students (Dwyer, 151-163). The study demonstrated that every person needs to have some time to fully understand the norms and values of a society, to get used to a different climate, atmosphere and culture. During the interview, our interviewee used words like “At the beginning”, “Initially”, and “First two, three months” I have faced different problems and was almost homesick. The study also showed a very sensitive atmosphere between the people from different cultures and the teachers in institutes that are offering scholarships and equal opportunities to international students, they should try to communicate with students to avoid discussing cultural values, norms and politics (Anderson et al., 462). The overall study was very interesting and effective and this allowed us to learn how cultural differences can contribute in self-development or in self-destruction. This was a small scale research project on postgraduate students studying abroad experience therefore; we used a mixed sort of approach in collecting data and analyzing data to come to an end. The research has increased my quest for conducting a large scale research project on the same topic because this time we missed the views of students from different cultures and from other parts of the world. One of the strengths of this research is its high contribution to my learning in the subject of qualitative data analysis. But the weakness of this study is its limited time and small scale. The study also provided us a base to more critically evaluate the meaning of study abroad experience to postgraduate students. REFERENCES Anderson, P., Lawton, L., Rexeisen, R. and Hubbard, A. (2006). Short-term study abroad and intercultural sensitivity: A pilot study. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 30(4), pp.457--469. Astin, A. W. (1985). Achieving educational excellence. 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