Developing strategies and activities to improve interactions between home and international students and to enhance teaching and learning Gita Sedghi, University of Liverpool Aim of the project The purpose of this project was to identify and develop the necessary skills in interculturally competent graduates prepared for life as global professionals, by generating strategies to facilitate interaction between home and overseas students which is mutually beneficial to all students and staff. The need for a set of general guidelines and activities to improve interaction between students from culturally diverse backgrounds is increasing every year as a result of the growing number of international students in UK higher education institutions. The outcome of this project will be helpful in the curriculum review on internationalisation at the University of Liverpool. Institutional context and rational for the initiative Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU) is an international university run in partnership between the University of Liverpool and the Xi'an Jiaotong University (XJTU) in China. As part of its goal to offer a unique international educational experience, XJTLU students can transfer to Liverpool to complete part of their studies via a range of options. As the first experience of hosting XJTLU students at the Department of Chemistry in academic year 2012-13, we recognised that there would be many areas which should be carefully studied before the arrival of the new students. The XJTLU students who start their second year studies at the University of Liverpool may find it difficult to integrate into the cohort of existing students, as the home students have already had one year to create a network of peer support and friendship circles. Conversely, our home students may find it difficult to adjust to the arrival of additional students which as a result means some classic problems of overseas students not integrating with home students could be exacerbated. This process will begin in the Department of Chemistry in September 2012, and it will be the first time we are going to have a significant number of overseas students. The previous academic year was the only opportunity for us to prepare ourselves for their arrival. Every effort was made to produce a consistent programme for home students at the Department of Chemistry and the XJTLU students from China during 2012-13 academic year. Despite having XJTLU students in some departments at the University of Liverpool, there was no information about the process in other departments, the problems they faced, and the way they have been resolved. In this project, we aimed to propose a general framework to facilitate interaction between home and overseas students which is mutually beneficial to all students and staff. This was achieved by a review of the implementation of internationalisation within the University of Liverpool, such as the design of taught modules, induction processes and group activities. Management of the project We studied the experience of home and overseas students and interactions between them at the University of Liverpool during the past years. This included collecting information on existing internationalisation experiences within the University of Liverpool and the Guild of Students. We conducted semi-structured interviews with university staff who have experience with integrating home and XJTLU students. We recruited a research assistant from the Educational Development Division at the University of Liverpool, with the necessary experience, to conduct focus groups with home and international undergraduate students. The 1
initial data from the focus groups were collated. The existing documents on internationalisation at different departments within the Faculty of Science and Engineering and the Guild of Students were reviewed to establish the strategic context for the project. We consulted with the Centre for Lifelong Learning (CLL) Ethics Committee to establish the ethical approval required for this type of research and followed their guidelines of informed consent, anonymity, etc. The staff involved in the project, with help from CLL, designed the research tools and analysed the data to identify the main factors that prevented or facilitated successful internationalisation processes. The results were collated into a framework in order to provide a common perspective for staff and students. This includes both general internationalisation strategies and specific examples of good practice that could be applied in the University of Liverpool. We believe that this enhances the learning and teaching experience within the University of Liverpool. Timescales The project was started in March 2012 and completed in August 2012. After seeking ethic approval from the CLL in March 2012, the research assistant and academic staff started to run the student focus groups and staff interviews in April 2012. The results were analysed in May 2012 which identified the areas of work to be completed within the project timeline at the Department of Chemistry. The academic staff implemented the new activities and strategies to facilitate interaction between home and international students at the Department of Chemistry from June to August 2012. A couple of undergraduate students were recruited to provide informative videos for international students in July and August 2012. The informative videos and guidelines were placed in the internationalisation webpage at the Department of Chemistry website to be accessed by international students before their arrival to Liverpool. We are in the final stages of writing a report on the outcome of our research to be published in peer reviewed journals. Key outcomes The overall report on the outcome of this research will be published in peer reviewed journals which will be beneficial to all staff and students at the University of Liverpool and other academic institutions. The report includes the collected and analysed data from the focus groups and staff interviews within the Faculty of Science and Engineering, the Guild of Students and the International Student Services at the University of Liverpool, which provides a general framework to setup activities and guidelines to improve integration of home and overseas students. As a result of analysing the collected data from the student focus groups and staff interviews, a set of activities and strategies were identified and implemented at the Chemistry Department: peer mentoring and peer assisted learning has been set up for international students; the undergraduate students were employed to prepare the introductory videos for international students; five members of staffs are assigned to monitor and evaluate the performance of international students. They will supervise students, help them to adapt to the new educational environment and support them in case of any issues; the e-learning unit is setting up a University network, including introductory videos and guidelines provided, in order to be used as a communication tool for peer-assisted learning leaders and the international students;
departmental induction plans for international students are introduced; the Internationalisation webpage at the Department website is created including all the introductory videos and guidelines provided; mixed group activities are planned specifically for second-year modules in order to increase the interaction between home and international students. The project has already had a high impact on staff and students at the Department of Chemistry in terms of informing them of new international students arrival, the activities in place and the internationalisation webpage. It has opened more communication between the staff at the Department of Chemistry and XJTLU to make sure everything runs smoothly before and after the international students arrival. Also, recruiting and involving undergraduate home students to produce informative videos for the internationalisation webpage showed their important role in the internationalisation process. Despite having XJTLU students at some departments, there was no information available to describe the processes followed at other departments. Presenting the outcome of this project in the Teaching and Learning conference in the University of Liverpool informed staff in other departments at the University about the activities in place to integrate home and international students, and how successful they have been. Challenges that have been overcome Considering how busy the key staff in charge of internationalisation at each department are, it was very difficult to interview all of them within the Faculty of Science and Engineering in a limited time. However, we could successfully bring staff on board and collect interesting data from interviews. The other challenge was encouraging undergraduate students to attend focus groups. Despite every effort to convince students to take part in our research, only a few home students volunteered to participate in the focus groups. However, more international students responded to our invitations to focus groups. The lack of students response could be due to the time of the interviews which was at the end of semester when students were busy with exam revisions, but we did not have a choice because of the timing of the project. Regardless of the number of students, we could collect useful data in the focus groups by attracting enough students from different departments. The other difficulty encountered was producing videos by undergraduate students. We decided to engage students with the internationalisation process by sharing responsibilities from the early stages of the project. Students showed a great interest to work on this project. However, they had no experience of producing and editing videos. As a result, producing videos was a challenging and time-consuming task for students. Although the videos are not made in a professional style and took a long time to complete, we were successful in engaging and involving our home students in the internationalisation project. We believe the informative documents made by students would be more interesting and attractive to international students rather than those made by professionals. Sustainability Certain members of academic staff at the Department of Chemistry have been chosen to monitor the progress of international students throughout the year. Also, the international students have been informed of the staff members contact details and their specific role on supporting students. The staff will monitor the students performance by arranging focus groups, individual interviews, assessment marks, and survey
questionnaires. Internationalisation has been added to the agenda of the Staff Student Liaison Committee and international student representatives will be selected to attend in the meetings. Peer-assisted learning and peer mentoring for international students has been set up to support them before their arrival and during their studies in Liverpool. The academic staff in charge will monitor the international students performance by regular feedback given via mentors. Furthermore, on-going research activities on internationalisation between the staff at the Department of Chemistry and the Educational Development Division will help the sustainability of the project. Reflection on learning Analysing the data collected from student focus groups and staff interviews highlighted the following important themes in our research: activities in place to enhance integration between home and international students such as group work; special provisions for international students such as specific induction plans; identifying the areas of strength and weakness of international students; alterations in teaching and learning; integration of home and international students; the impact on home students. Each theme is fully discussed in order to introduce a set of strategies to enhance interactions between home and international students. The outcome of the project has introduced a set of guidelines which would be helpful to all staff and students at the University of Liverpool. In fact, we have used a bottom-up approach to look at internationalisation at the institutional level and extend it to national level in order to be used by other academic institutions. Recommendations One the important aspects of the project was engaging home undergraduate students to produce informative videos for international students. Although their lack of expertise made the task time-consumingand challenging it helped to enhance their knowledge of internationalisation and their motivation to interact with international students. We highly recommend students involvement in the project. Many undergraduate students have volunteered to give pastoral and subject support to overseas students before their arrival and during their studies in Liverpool. The high number of volunteers was the result of informing and involving them on the project. The other vital element of our success in the project was disseminating the outcome from the early stages of the project which helped us to attract some experienced colleagues at the conferences to collaborate with us. Also, the discussion after each presentation at conferences was helpful in order to benefit from others experience and knowledge, and to identify useful resources related to our research. Further information The following is the link to the internationalisation webpage at the Department of Chemistry website including the introductory videos produced by undergraduate students. http://www.liv.ac.uk/chemistry/undergraduate/international/