2. Online Acculturatie: watwerkt nu wel? Dr Bart Rienties12, ¹Maastricht University, School of Business and Economics, Tongersestraat 53, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands. ²University of Surrey, Centre for Educational and Academic Development, Guildford, UK. b.rienties@surrey.ac.uk www.bartrienties.nl SURF Onderwijsdagen 2010, Utrecht, The Netherlands Tuesday, 9 November 2010, 12:30h - 13:15h Acknowledgements This research has been financed by SURF-foundation as part of NAP Acculturatie-project (http://www.acculturation.nl/). We found like to thank the following people who helped with the data collection and the overall implementation of the NAP project: Therese Grohnert, Simon Beausaert, Katerina Bohle-Carbonell, Paul Jacobs, Wim Swaan, IljaKogan and Albert Lamberix from UM, Bert Kamphuis and Marleen van der Laan from HZ, Mascha Lommertzen and Sylvia Hermans from NHTV, Toke Hoek, Sofia Dopper and Dagmar Stadler from TU Delft, Jan Brouwer from HHS, Brechtine Detmar and Peter Dekker from HvA, Carien Nelissen, Piet Kommers from UT, Susan Niemantsverdriet from HL, Henk Frencken and last but not least Ria Jacobi from Universiteit Leiden. In addition, we would like to thank the audience of EDINEB 2009/2010, S-ICT 2009/2010 for their helpful comments to improve this paper. www.acculturation.nl
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5. Agenda Introduction Background academic & social integration, research questions Methods measurement, setting, analysis Results Part I: First measurement: difference in social worlds (forthcoming in ABET) Part II: Acculturation pilots: what works? Discussion, Limitations, Suggestions for further Research Acknowledgements
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7. Institutes can actively influence academic adjustments of first-year students (Christie et al., 2004; Wilcox et al., 2005)
17. 4 resulting groups: Dutch, fully Western, mixed Western, non-WesternANOVA, Cohen‘s d, Chi Square, K-means cluster analysis, Hierarchical regression to compare nationality groups and institutes
18. To what extent do non-Western students differ from Western students with respect to academic integration?
19. To what extent is academic and social integration related to study performance?
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21. Part III So what about acculturation courses? See www.acculturation.nl
22. 9 Institutes 9 Pilots with/without developmental ingredients Language Economics Statistics Research Methods With different blend of pedagogy Project work Competence Based Education Problem Based Learning
23. ICT and support With different usage of ICT Wiki Blog Webvideoconference Youtube With different forms of support Lecturer Tutor E-buddy E-coach
30. Economics course: specific acculturation element + remedial course + group work Mathematics: no acculturation element + remedial course + individual
31. Qualitative results I Maastricht University Group Interview Online Summer Courses Economics & Mathematics Participants: Germany (1x), Belgium (2x), China (1x), mixed German/English/Iraque (1x) Gender: 2 Female, 3 male The value of the online acculturation course Increase of confidence and self-efficcay First experience with PBL Social integration 3 out of 5 students made friends with other summer course participants Expectations management Students chose for international reputation of Maastricht, but were not informed that the majority of students are from Germany.
32. Qualitative results II Leiden UAS Group interview minor International Law 3 students from Lithuania: 2 man, 1 female The value of preparation Holland Quiz was useful to get to know Dutch culture Use of buddy for HL was very useful. Experience with study culture Dutch students are rather informal and relaxed, which can cause stress Teachers actively supported international students Academic level substantially higher than in home country Lithuanian students not accustomed to address teacher
33. Main Findings I Social worlds of local and international students: largely segregated Western and mixed-Western students perform well on academic integration, social integration and study success (GPA, ECTS) Non-Western students perform lower on academic integration, social integration and study success (GPA, ECTS)
34. Main Findings II Academic adjustment primary vehicle to study success for all groups of students Social integration negatively related to study success Need to address academic adjustment
35. Main Findings III Acculturation courses can enhance academic adjustment Acculturation + developmental education + social interaction + social support (teacher/buddy) = academic adjustment
36. Online Acculturatie: watwerkt nu wel? Dr Bart Rienties12, ¹Maastricht University, School of Business and Economics, Tongersestraat 53, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands. ²University of Surrey, Centre for Educational and Academic Development, Guildford, UK. b.rienties@surrey.ac.uk www.bartrienties.nl SURF Onderwijsdagen 2010, Utrecht, The Netherlands Tuesday, 9 November 2010, 12:30h - 13:15h Acknowledgements This research has been financed by SURF-foundation as part of NAP Acculturatie-project (http://www.acculturation.nl/). We found like to thank the following people who helped with the data collection and the overall implementation of the NAP project: Therese Grohnert, Simon Beausaert, Katerina Bohle-Carbonell, Paul Jacobs, Wim Swaan, IljaKogan and Albert Lamberix from UM, Bert Kamphuis and Marleen van der Laan from HZ, Mascha Lommertzen and Sylvia Hermans from NHTV, Toke Hoek, Sofia Dopper and Dagmar Stadler from TU Delft, Jan Brouwer from HHS, Brechtine Detmar and Peter Dekker from HvA, Carien Nelissen, Piet Kommers from UT, Susan Niemantsverdriet from HL, Henk Frencken and last but not least Ria Jacobi from Universiteit Leiden. In addition, we would like to thank the audience of EDINEB 2009/2010, S-ICT 2009/2010 for their helpful comments to improve this paper. www.acculturation.nl
Hinweis der Redaktion
The topic of presentation is the influence of academic and social integration on the academic performance of local and international students. The reason for this study is the common belief that international students are not sufficiently academic and socially adjusted and therefore perform less well than local ones.
This picture nicely visualizes the path international students have to take when they begin studying in a foreign country. At the beginning everything is fine and easy, but the route is getting more difficult. Further down the path, they will encounter different obstacles and it goes uphill again.
The topic of adjustment in international students and their performance has increasingly been in the eye of the Dutch media, but also in other ones. Q: DO YOU HAVE THE SAME EXPERIENCE IN YOUR HOME UNIVERSITY?
So this is how the presentation will be structured: I’ll present the background on which the study is based and then will mention the methods and describe the results.
So what do we know about study success of international students?Academic integration, the degree to which students adjust to the academic way of life is believed to not well adjusted to the demands of the university. So international students are not able to meet these demands and therefore do not succeed. However, also local students have to adjust to the academic life. As recent research has found mixed result regarding the performance of international students wrt academic integration and performance. To be able to establish a clear picture regarding the integration and performance of international students, that group is compared to the performance and integration of local students.We know that academic integration can be increasing by offering staff support or small scale education. Research has also shown that social support, so contact with fellow student and support of families, has a positive impact on study success. Social integration, the degree to which students are able to adjust to the social way of life is therefore included in studies regarding study performance in order to get a better picture of what explains the difference between local and international student performance.
The way local and international student behave in their social live is nicely shown by this picture: Each group is sticking to their own kind. Only a few students mingle with the other group.Therefore, we looked at social integration in this study, assuming that local students experience greater social integration than international ones, as they are in their home environment and therefore do not need to adjust to a different culture.
So what is social integration? It is the degree to which students adapt to the social way of life (living alone, living in a different town…)Research has shown that the support 1st year students experience influences their study success. Students who get emotional and personal support from friends and family in times of difficulties have better chances to overcome them and to (re) focus their energies on studying. Academic performance is also influenced by membership in study fraternities, part time jobs or other social activities related to the university setting. Normally, when two groups of nationalities meet and work together, they adapt to each other, with the smaller one, making the biggest changes. This is understood under acculturation. Nevertheless, recent research has also shown that students of different nationalities do not interact a lot in their social life, every group is sticking to their kind.This led us to consider what impact the social environment has on the performance of students. Q:WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Based on the prior research regarding academic integration and social integration both aspects were analysed in this study. So we wanted to see the extent to which academic and social integration differs between local and international students. Next to this, we also wanted to see if academic and social integration do have a difference on study success and how this differs between local and international students.
To visualize our research questions: Why are some students able to reach land, whereas other drawn in the sea of academic demand?
Two scales were used in the study. The first, developed by Backer &Siryk, measures academic adjustment. It uses 4 subscales measuring academic, social, personal emotional adjustment and attachment to the institute. However, as this scale was developed for students in USA, a 2nd more specific instruments was used to measures social adjustment. SACQ: does not consider heterogeneous groupsDoes not take into account diverse national backgrounds of studentsDoes not consider the dimension of financial support
The study was conducted in 5 business schools. The dominant group of international students at 4 of those institutes were Germans.
These were the analytical steps conducted in the study. Instead of using the nationality of students, we focused on their degree of westerness. In this way, we can take differentiate between, for example, Asian students born and raised in the Netherlands and those who come to the Netherlands to study. Those two groups will experience different difficulties regarding adjusting to the academic way of live, as the latter one also has to deal with the different culture, while the first ine is already acquainted with it.
Here we see the results of the academic adjustment of our four groups. Interesting to see is that mixed western students have the highest scores of academic adjustment. It can also been seen that non-western students experience issues regarding social & personal emotional adjustment. These categories lower their SACQ scores.
To answer the last two research question, we looked at the correlation between variables. There is no relation between social integration and study performance, represented by GPA and ECTS. Study success is only correlated with academic adjustment and attachment.
So, this study concludes with the following points: students of different groups do not interact with each other in their social life. They life segregated lives. Western and mixed-western students perform well on academic and social integration and study success Non-western students perform low on academic integration, social integration and study success.
The second analysis shows that academic adjustment is the main predictor of academic success social integration does not predict study success the analysed model predicts academic performance for Dutch, western and mixed-western students, but not for non-western ones.
The second analysis shows that academic adjustment is the main predictor of academic success social integration does not predict study success the analysed model predicts academic performance for Dutch, western and mixed-western students, but not for non-western ones.
The topic of presentation is the influence of academic and social integration on the academic performance of local and international students. The reason for this study is the common belief that international students are not sufficiently academic and socially adjusted and therefore perform less well than local ones.