Centre for Excellence in Preparing for Academic Practice

Centre for Excellence in Preparing for Academic Practice

Final Report of Network Research Project

Entering a community of practice: the acculturation of international postgraduates and academic staff

Researchers: Michaela Borg (University of Warwick), Rachel Maunder (University of Warwick), Xiaoli Jiang (University of Warwick), Roberto Di Napoli (Imperial College London), Heather Fry (Imperial College London), Elaine Walsh (Imperial College London)

Executive Summary

The increasing globalization of Higher Education in the UK has generated much research (Trahar, 2007) and theoretical debate (De Vita and Case, 2003; Lee, 2005). However, whilst some areas have received attention, there has to date been little research that examines international postgraduates’ learning experiences in the UK or the acculturation of international members of staff. This study investigated the experience of international postgraduate research students and academic staff from China and Central/South America in Science or Engineering disciplines as they became acculturated into UK academic practice.

The study not only confirmed that students’ relationship with their supervisors contributes significantly to students’ academic performance (Petersen 2007) but also revealed that relationships with their peers and significant others were central to their experience.

Interviews with academic staff revealed that they had a strong disciplinary identity which assisted with processes of acculturation. Also, the multi-cultural environment in their institution and department helped their sense of integration. Despite this, the academics were not substantially integrated into British culture. While most of the interviewees felt that their contribution was appreciated in their departments, there was perhaps a general feeling that their cultural affiliation and related educational beliefs did not have any impact on their working environments. However, this was not seen as being too problematic, as most interviewees appreciated the working environment of which they are a part.

Research Questions

As part of the research, the term ‘academic acculturation’ was operationalised, following Berry (2002) and others as:

The processes by which one became a part of a group (for example, institution, department etc.) and integrated with them, while possibly influencing the host group with one’s own life experience and academic expertise, with regard to academic practices such as teaching, research, administration, pastoral duties, supervision and management.

The research questions which underpinned the research project are as follows:

v  What motivations and conceptions of academic practice do international postgraduate research students bring to their study in the UK

v  How do they perceive the role of an academic both in their home country and in the UK?

v  How do they conceptualise the culture(s) in which they are currently studying and in which they may pursue an academic career

v  What can we learn by studying the experiences and perceptions of international academics about the degree to which international research students’ expectations and conceptions are borne out?

Methods

Phase One

In order to make the target population manageable we focused on research students from China or Central/South America who are studying in Science & Engineering at the University of Warwick and Imperial College London.

An initial questionnaire was used to gather background information and data on international postgraduate research students’ motivations for undertaking a doctorate and their attitudes to working as academics. A total of 250 postgraduate research students were contacted. The questionnaire was administered online and contained questions which generated both qualitative and quantitative data.

From this larger cohort of postgraduate students, a smaller group was selected for more in-depth investigation which took the form of individual semi-structured interviews. Informants’ perceptions and expectations of the process of acculturation and of an academic career were explored. In total 18 postgraduate research students were interviewed.

Phase Two

Following the analysis of findings from phase one, an interview schedule was developed for academic staff, again with a focus on academics from China or Central/South America who work in the UKas lecturersin Science and Engineering disciplines. An advertisement to recruit academicswas publicized at both University of Warwick and Imperial College London. Due to insufficient numbers volunteering for interview (only 1 volunteer from Imperial College London), the researcher used clustered sampling techniques (Cohen, et al., 2007) to contact potential interviewees at both institutions. This resulted in the participation of 8 academic staff, all from China (3 from Imperial College London, 5 from the University of Warwick).

After transcription, the data from each phase was analysed independently by the project team who used a thematic approach to the data whilst remaining open to emergent themes. Following independent analysis, the team met to agree key themes and topics. This analytical triangulation provided additional rigor in the process, rendering the interpretations more reliable.

Findings

From the student interviews it emerged that the relationships formed by doctoral students with a small number of individuals were significant in shaping their experience. The relationship formed with their supervisor was central to this, confirming Petersen’s (2007) argument that a student’s relationship with their supervisor has an important impact on academic performance. Our study showed that where this relationship was working well the students seemed to have a more positive experience overall. Their supervisor was often the main reason that the doctoral students had chosen to come to the UK and to that particular University to study and students looked to their supervisor for formal guidance and direction – often seeing them as their ‘boss’. Many of the students who were interviewed were surprised by the lack of formal direction they received from supervisors and the amount of independent work that was expected of them. The relationships students formed with their lab group, post-doctoral colleagues and fellow PhD students were also important to support their progress and sense of integration.

For the staff interviews a number of themes provided an interesting insight into this under-researched group. One theme focused on the cultural differences which participants felt existed between UK academic practice and their home country, in this case, China. Three main differences in academic practice were reported, relating to teaching, research and the administrative and pastoral roles taken. First, in teaching, the lecturers perceived that UK teaching practice emphasized students’ creativity and knowledge application, while Chinese practice focused on transmission of theory from the teacher to the student. According to these academics, the merits of both approaches could be harnessed to facilitate the academic acculturation process. Second, in research, the participants felt that the predominant UK practices encouraged long-term high quality research while the Chinese system seemed to advocate the quantity of research outcomes in the short term. Third, UK academic practice explicitly included an administrative and pastoral role for academic staff, while both of these roles were given to non-academic staff in China.

Participants felt that a positive attitude to the new academic culture was needed in order to succeed. Various areas were mentioned: an effort to understand the new educational system, to improve the individual’s language proficiency, and to integrate oneself into the local culture. It is worth mentioning that even though these academic staff generally held a positive attitude towards academic practice in the UK, they attributed their current success partially to the educational training they had received from back home (participants with 6 -20 years outside China) and pointed out that certain traditional cultural values such as being disciplined, consistent, reliable and not giving up easily had had a significant impact on their own academic career and on their teaching practice in the UK context.

Interestingly, academic acculturation of international students and staff has its own characteristics which seem to differ from the acculturation process experienced by immigrants (Berry, 2002). For example, the students were extremely focussed on their research, often at the exclusion of other things such as social time and wider engagement in University life. Likewise, academic staff emphasised academic practice rather than social life and engagement with local culture. In view of both student and staff accounts of their experiences of academic acculturation, another striking point was that they universally held that they acculturated to UK practice but did not feel they had a significant impact on the culture in which they worked. This seems to contradict the standard definition of acculturation in the literature (including our own definition of academic acculturation) which views the process as a two way exchange.

Conclusions and Implications

The study found that the acculturation process for international postgraduate students and staff is complex and may differ in significant ways from the acculturation of other members of society such as immigrants. This may be due to differences in the characteristics of the group and in the multi-cultural contexts in which they work. Improving our understanding of the process is important however, and given the increasing focus on global education and the internationalisation of higher education, institutions may want to consider how international students and staff can best be supported, recognising the active role they play in the acculturation process. Berry (2002: 24) argues that integration is facilitated ‘when the dominant society has an open and inclusive orientation toward cultural diversity’. Supporting international students and academic staff requires the nurturing of a culture which values diversity. This support is likely to include being explicit about differences in academic practices for the international students, language support for international students and staff alike to facilitate their academic acculturation process, and incorporation of school/departmental knowledge in junior academic staff training programmes. However, it is also important to consider the two-way process of acculturation – with the (multi-cultural) host group changing as a result of the international student’s or staff member’s previous experiences and cultural background. Given that the staff and students interviewed for this study did not feel that they had made a significant impact on the culture in which they study and work, it might be desirable for institutions to think about how they can nurture the multi-cultural and inter-cultural environment which occurs and ensure that people feel that they are contributing to and enhancing this rather than simply learning to adapt. It is quite likely that a number of individuals in the study did in fact have an impact, but it is unfortunate that they were unaware of it.

Whilst reading the findings and considering implications of this study, the limitations must be borne in mind. The study gathered data from two research-intensive universities and focused on engineering and science disciplines. The students who were interviewed were from China and Central/South America whilst academic staff were solely from China. Further research is needed into other disciplines, types of institution and nationalities in order to further enrich our insights into the processes of academic acculturation. In addition, it would be useful to investigate the perceptions of other staff and students to examine the process of acculturation from the broader host group’s perspective, whilst recognising that this host group is likely to be multi- rather than mono-cultural and shaped by disciplinary culture.

References

Berry, J. W. (2002). Conceptual approaches to acculturation. In K. M. Chun, P. B. Organista, & G. Marín (Eds.), Acculturation: Advances in Theory, Measurement, and Applied Research (pp. 17-37). Washington DC: American Psychological Association.

Cohen, L., Manion, L, & Morrison, K. (2007). Research Methods in Education (6th ed.). London: RoutledgeFalmer.

De Vita, G & Case, P. (2003). Rethinking the internationalisation agenda in UK higher education. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 27(4), 383-398.

Lee, T. M. L. (2005). Intercultural teaching in higher education. Intercultural Education, 16 (3), 201-215.

Petersen, E. V. (2007). Negotiating academicity: Postgraduate research supervision as category boundary work. Studies in Higher Education, 32(4), 475-487.

Redfield, R., Linton, R., Herskovits, M. (1936). Memorandum on the study of acculturation. American Anthropologist, 38 (1), 149-152.

Trahar, S. (2007). Teaching and Learning: The International Higher Education Landscape. Bristol: Subject Centre for Education (ESCalate).

Work in progress

Borg, M., Maunder, R., Jiang, X., Walsh, E., Fry, H. & Di Napoli, R. (in press) International students and academic acculturation: the role of relationships in the doctoral process. In E. Jones (Ed.), Internationalisation; the student voice. Listening to Students on Internationalisation. London: Routledge.

A further article entitled ‘Becoming and being an academic: The perspectives of Chinese staff in two UK universities’ is currently being prepared by the team for submission to Studies in Higher Education.

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