The Experiences of Postgraduate Scholars Who Study Abroad - Essay Example

Abstract Research on postgraduate students studying abroad adds to the understanding of the process of internationalization of higher education. This research dissertation investigates the experiences of international students on postgraduate studies through various methods with semi-structured interviews taking the lion’s share as well as research design. This discourse centres on academic experience, reasons identified by students for studying abroad, as well as the socio-cultural experience. Seventeen international postgraduate students from across various countries took part in the study. In the process, the study found out that adjustment constitutes complicated experiences besides having many more factors that influence the same. Among many other factors that motivate students to undertake their postgraduate studies abroad, respondents identified inadequate opportunities at home, the value of getting doctoral education overseas, relationship with families and associated factors, and financial reasons. Type of Research: Dissertation Draft Keywords: Postgraduate students, experiences, International students, study abroad, reason, adjustment, socio-cultural, academic, mixed method, and semi-structured interviews. Background Educating people to the doctoral level remains an integral and essential way of developing the knowledge capacity across the globe. The world does not have enough postgraduate scholars and neither does the same world have adequate doctoral graduates. Most countries do not have enough of such opportunities especially in parts of Africa, South America, and Parts of Asia forcing students to seek these services overseas. The United Kingdom is an important provider of postgraduate education for postgraduate students. Nonetheless, there is little information available concerning certain elements in sectors such as learning experiences of learning among doctoral nursing students and overall experiences of students pursuing their postgraduate studies. This research dissertation sought to investigate the learning experiences and expectations of overseas postgraduate students in the United Kingdom. Aim The investigation aimed at exploring the experiences of postgraduate international students. Specifically, the study investigated experiences in the learning journey through various points and stages in their pursuit of PhDs and other postgraduate certificates. This was to highlight the best practices in enhancing efficient learning in the selected student group of postgraduate students. Study Methodology and Design The researcher conducted semi-structured interviews involving seventeen international students pursuing postgraduate studies in various fields among them the international doctoral nursing students from nine different countries across the continents from six universities in the United Kingdom. This discourse evaluated data through themes. All the students who took part in the research were students in the usual three-year doctoral programmes. Furthermore, fourteen of the interviewees out of the seventeen totals planned to travels back to their native countries, work in higher institutions, and referee hospitals for nurses and doctors. The researcher took up the descriptive qualitative approach. Scholars consider this form of approach at times when they do not comprehend particular features of the topic under research. The semi-structured interview allowed students primacy in their own perspectives as well as the exclusivity of their individual familiarity. The study adopted a cross-sectional design involving every participant went through the interview once at specific stages through their postgraduate studies. The method took up the constructivist methodological approach. The methodology gave room to the researcher to recognize and embrace the accounts of students regarding their individual experiences constructed socially, reflected through their exceptional backgrounds and lives, and reinterpreted for the purposes of academic research when the research carried out the interviews. Data collection and Recruitment The research team collected data in the academic semester preceding the immediate recess. The researcher and his assistants sent letters to identified postgraduate learning institutions (n = 44).In the letters, the researcher requested permission to meet doctoral students among other postgraduate students in their respective institutions of higher learning. Out of the identified forty-four institutions offering postgraduate education, only twenty-one acknowledged having international students. Three of the institutions declined to take part in the research while five did not respond to the request by the researcher at all. The researcher requested the deans of students of the other thirteen to submit one preliminary as well as one follow up research data via email to the postgraduate students and proceed to set up research enrolment posters across all the student offices. In the end, seventeen students from six different universities across the continents in the United Kingdom agreed to participate in the interview. The researcher could not explain why students from only six universities volunteered to take part in the study. The researcher did not make a follow up to ascertain whether the other deans of students from the thirteen institutions of higher learning developed the posters as requested by the researcher. The researcher arranged the interviews and assigned research assistants to carry bout the interviews at designated venues and times. The researcher allowed the interviewees to choose times and locations they considered appropriate to them. The research assistants took between one-to-three hours with each interviewee. The researcher sought the services of two research assistants whose academic qualification was international doctoral graduates. The University Of Nottingham School Of Marketing granted the ethical approval for the researcher to proceed. It was a requirement for all the participants to sign consent forms and received a book voucher from the research assistant as tokens of appreciation when the interview concluded. Participants With seventeen participants, the researcher was sure he captured fourteen percent of the most likely postgraduate student population (n=124). In every university, the team interviewed between one and five students. Nine countries were represented in the interview. The interview team considered most of the students’ mid-way through their postgraduate studies. It covered both position and age. Some of the students (n= 7) considered that the courses they were taking marked the end of their academic career. Most of those left (n=15) felt that their future career lied in education. Government scholarships supported most of the students (n=13) for their postgraduate education with those married given the opportunity to come with their families. Six of the learners who took part in the study were male out of them four had their families in the United Kingdom. The other two without their families were not married. Six of the eleven female participants brought their husbands to the United Kingdom the other five came alone because they were not married. Majority of the students enrolled in the three-year PhD programmes that included among others taking apart in original empirical research apart from presenting a thesis in English. Viva would examine the thesis carried out in English language. Discussion The study discovered five features associated with postgraduate studies in the United Kingdom that influences the personality of learning experiences for international students. The gap between expectations of postgraduate students and the factual life encountered came out as the first factor. Although postgraduate programmes differ from one institution of learning to another, most of the participants expected their postgraduate courses to incorporate hitherto professional course focus besides the emphasis on research materials as in PhD study (Evans & Stevenson, 2010, p. 242). The findings also demonstrate that interviewees struggled to comprehend and create important postgraduate level skills initially within the context of the United Kingdom academic practice. The practices are directed personally, specifically essential, and writing in English. It is decisive to point out at this point that the decision to have postgraduate students, thinking is a transition required to all students at that level, and it is not a restriction to the overseas students only. The interviewees also expected the structure within their postgraduate programmes to become more inclusive. Transcript Results The element considered adjusting to the advanced learning in Britain as an overseas student. Undertaking a postgraduate course in the United Kingdom entailed numerous important transitions that required a process of learning, adaptation, and adjustment. At the top of transitions was the need for the learners to adjust their prospects of the postgraduate programme framework as well as content to the authenticity they encountered. Many interviewees initially expected an extremely controlled academic programme with hitherto emphasis on coursework and research that focuses on professional doctorate. It was surprising for them when asked to develop personal programmes of work based on their learning needs. ‘When I came and started undertaking my PhD, I by no means thought it would go round to be only dependent on the learner, and the superior will give you headings, or instructions, I thought it was like, just a total programme... I did not think it would be pure research, just by learning by you (S.16).’ Similarly, a good number of students (n=13) their expectations were on squarely focusing on professional issues within their respective postgraduate courses. However, they were amazed at the almost limited on attentiveness on doing research. A little percentage of the students expected to study course-oriented specialist courses besides their specific practice, a common occurrence from their native countries. While others expected additional specialist courses, the other portion expected that a single postgraduate course such as a PhD would encompass more input in comprehending the entire course situation in the United Kingdom. Only two of the PhD nursing students identified to have visited clinical settings throughout their stay in the United Kingdom. Other students pointed that failure of engagement with the United Kingdom interfered with their capacity to reflect significantly upon issues in their home countries and especially those in the medical profession. It also hindered their capacity to become change agents upon return from their studies. Student fourteen on the interview list taking a PhD in nursing for instance claimed, ‘This is the crisis I have now. If I went back, someone will say 'what is UK healthcare system'? I do not know, because I do not have a possibility to go into the meadow I did not have a chance to scrutinize. I just do my research, in my field only, in office, face the computer. How can I know nursing here?’ (s. 14).Those pursuing their PhDs in various courses highlighted that back in their respective countries, they never heard of professional doctorates therefore, only took to study PhDs. The few who heard of the professional doctorate programme thought it require specific and mandatory practice in the meticulous profession. This is not the standard in the United Kingdom structure for the professional doctorate. A further excuse was that most of them felt their countries would not recognise the professional doctorate degree certificate. Adapting to personal-directed autonomous nature of education framework was the second biggest transition challenge for international students undertaking postgraduate studies. From most participants, this was an extremely strenuous engagement. They point the first year as the most difficult. It happens because they attempt to find the focus and research questions. Some of the participants described the need to define and show direction after drafting their personal projects that created in-depth anxiety as well as the urge for additional guidance. According to other students independent learning provides them with an exciting endeavour although, it is challenging. Mentioning the need to comprehend and adjust to the qualities of reality regarding originality was because most of the participants identified it as the third transition challenge. This was very significant to the doctoral cases of postgraduate studies. Most of the educational backgrounds around the globe with the exception of the west, prepare students to replicate through description of knowledge as opposed to creation of the same. The initial outline of the postgraduate course stated the descriptive approach as part of the technique but acknowledged that developing the creativity aspect entailed a long and slow process. Reflection Analysis of Data The interviewer recorded all the interviews digitally. Then, he proceeded to transcribe and ascertain the information for accuracy. Following a research interview, the research assistants took filed notes on each interviewee to offer personal case summaries and context developed for the purposes of facilitating the evaluation of individual postgraduate experience. In the interview guide, the students explained specific reasons why they chose the United Kingdom as well as their specific institutions of higher learning for their postgraduate studies. Following on the same, the postgraduate scholars talked freely concerning their experiences in the United Kingdom and their postgraduate studies so far. The research assistants considered analysis as an integral and on-going exercise during the interview. Various evaluation strategies suggested by scholars among them Lincoln and Guba helped enhance the trustworthiness of the research process. Joint analysis of data by the research team and the NVIVO facilitated the maximization of the credibility of the entire process of research. The two researchers and the researcher himself read the scripts several times and in the process assigned particular codes to important elements of the text. As much as the researcher team assigned inter-code agreement, the varied experience by the researcher and his two assistants influenced the process of coding to a certain degree. It was essential for the researcher with aid of his assistants to take part in several reflexive exercises to illuminate on preconceptions and own positions. The team discussed to greater lengths the variations noted in coding by repeatedly revisiting the transcripts to a level that they came to a framework revised overtime with further fine-tuning. The researcher then took the initiative to cluster the codes into a range of developing themes and topics further grouped into three main categories. The team paid attention to uncharacteristic cases as well as particular examples identified among the findings. The International Postgraduate Student Experience The Case of a Doctoral Nursing Student A literature review carried out by the researcher synchronised a broad range of materials related to international postgraduate students. During the review, the researcher outlined the transitional form of overseas doctoral and other postgraduate experience by students in the process proposing that the learners face a wide variety of pedagogic, cultural, social modifications, and linguistic challenges. Precisely, the biggest challenge was adapting to the self-centred and student-directed learning practices common across the western higher institutions of learning. It appears the opposite of the more, instructive technique often applied in most sections of the globe in particular in Africa, certain parts of Asia, and parts of America. Perusing through literature, it is evident that traditions, ethics, and disciplinary affiliations influence the nature of experience faced international postgraduate students. In turn, the nature of experience relates closely to the type of supervisory associations developed during the academic journey. In the faculties of science for instance, postgraduate students such as those studying doctoral nursing courses show a pattern of participating in research programmes as constituents of research teams where they get an opportunity to learn through a form of apprenticeship gaining experience and knowledge from supervisors and their colleague on regular times. However, those pursuing course in the discipline of science take part in a more isolated process of delivering judgment that leads to the complicating the process of adjustment. The researcher discovered limited availability of research materials in certain fields including nursing related studies where the team only managed to find three of such materials. Recommendations From the research, the institutions that offer postgraduate courses in the United Kingdom ought to develop an infrastructure and an all-system methodology to gibbet the learning of overseas students within the programme. The technique should aspire to provide support the process of transition to the study of postgraduate courses. It will also increase confidence in the level of direction for international students. Limitations The cross-sectional design undertaken by this research is its most important limitation because it gives a snapshot of participant views through specific times in research. The drawback is that in the end, we get a limited conceptualization of the long-term experience through their learning process. Conclusion Factors emanate as core reasons motivating postgraduate scholars to seek higher education services overseas. However, for this group of students, they lay more emphasis on academic as opposed to socio-cultural alterations and hold that the identity of culture and personal agency work out in a more explicit way within the socio-cultural context compared to adjustments in the field of academics. Results further show that hybridization and acculturation take care of process used by postgraduate students to understand socio-cultural alterations. Drawing on theories to comprehend the experiences of postgraduate students studying abroad, it comes out that the push-up model is much more applicable compared to the Theory of Planned Behaviour. The Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory does not get any chance to explain any of the issues experienced by the international students on postgraduate studies. The motive at the back of such a situation is that students of postgraduate studies seeking higher education services overseas show patterns of special characteristics. The special features differ from those held by students in the host nation. Different cultural factors influence the satisfaction of the foreign students in terms of a range of requirements. Bibliography Evans C&Stevenson K: The learning experiences of international doctoral students with particular reference to nursing students: A literature review.International Journal of Nursing Studies 2010, 47:239-250. Read More