Abstract: The difficulty of an institutional survey of a student population is that previously observed
negativity concerning the relationship of establishment and subject – power differential, mistrust,
guilt –taint the results of surveys that are undertaken by an identified university official or an
individual that is known to be in the employ of the university, such as residential assistants, tutors
and students under departmental employ.
Since 2005 OSHC Worldcare has undertaken a series of student/customer surveys concerning
the OSHC product, experiences of Australia and additional questioning about their studies.
These surveys were conducted in such a manner as to be anonymous and thus gather as much
unbiased information as possible. A more recent use of the focus groups has been to use the
focus group to ask questions supplied by the university so as to gather unbiased, or at least, least
biased information.
The students are free to ask questions in the focus group forum, and so the information gathered
from the students is not just reaction but also proactive.
This presentation will explore, within the bounds of customer/client confidentiality, the results from
our focus group participant’s answers and comments and the indicators they provide for
international student recruitment and retention based on community communication both in
Australia and their country of origin.
Abstract:
Many universities in western countries attest with eloquence that international students are now an important
learning community in their campuses. In the case of New Zealand, international education is synonymous with
educating Asian students because of the numerical domination of fee-paying students from Asia. Often referred
to as non-traditional, these students bring with them different academic learning styles. Addressing their
learning needs has often been a challenge for the lecturers as well as for the students. This paper suggests that
an academic-centred approach which links learning advising to the university’s mission on teaching and
learning has the potential of enhancing the students’ readiness to be integrated into the host intellectual
community. Accordingly, academic learning advisers can play a critical role in creating significant learning
experiences for the international students. However, the road to achieving this goal is not a straight-forward one.
Keywords: International students, academic learning support and advising
The workshop addresses the interests and needs of those working with international students at
the secondary school level. It has three main emphases: how to enable both the international and
the local students to gain the most from the presence of international students in the school,
academic and classroom management issues and the support and welfare issues associated with
the education of younger international students.
Abstract: The number of international students coming to Australia or New Zealand to obtain higher degrees is
on the increase. Few of them, however, had their research published in scholarly journals during their
study. Evidence from research into professional academic writing has indicated that many non-native
speaking researchers have difficulty getting their work published in English. One of the problematic
areas, as pointed out by Flowerdew (2001), is the structure of the article. Although there have been a
considerable number of studies on academic writing in general and this research genre in particular,
previous research tended to focus on the structure of only one or two sections of the article, especially
the introduction section. Yet, it is important to understand the complete rhetorical structure of the
research article. It is therefore the aim of the present study to investigate the rhetorical structure of
research articles as a whole, from the abstract through to the conclusion of the article. The data comes
from a corpus of 40 published articles in applied linguistics and educational technology. The findings
show some interesting differences in the structure of different sections and also differences between the
two disciplines. Such knowledge of the structure of research articles will empower international
students and help them integrate better into the academic world.
Keywords: rhetorical structure, research articles, academic writing, international students
Abstract: This research study investigated approaches by international students from vastly
different educational, cultural and linguistic backgrounds to learning and their academic
performance in Foundation Studies (FS) at RMIT University. This paper explores the
effect of the interactions between various demographic variables and learning traits on
students’ performance under Traditional method of Teaching and Learning (TTL) and
Problem Based method of Learning (PBL). Most universities around the world run
Foundation Programs (FPs) as a bridging course between high/secondary schools and
undergraduate studies with the aim of improving the quality of international student
intakes for university undergraduate studies. Discipline-based and lecture dominated TTL
is gradually giving way to PBL in many universities. This research study addresses the
question ‘Are there different teaching and learning techniques more appropriate to
international students studying in an English dominated study environment?’. The effects
of the magnitude of interactions between demographic variables and learning traits on
students’ performance have been discussed at length. The magnitude of the effect of the
treatment was calculated by using effect size calculations. Effect sizes were calculated by
using Cohen’s d with Hedges g correction. Interesting effects were observed on students’
performance due to the interaction between demographic variables and learning traits.
This research study raises interesting and challenging questions about the provision of
teaching and learning practices, which may enhance international students’ learning.
