Induction and Skills - Case Study Example

Induction and Study Skills Introduction In many contemporary universities within the UK jurisdiction, it is the norm to have a proactive student induction programme instituted in place to provide support services and guidance to newly admitted students1, especially those with origins in backgrounds distinct from the UK society2. Many students now arrive in the UK for university studies from all over the world, and most are always surprised by the culture and social context they find3. It is therefore essential to provide an orientation and induction for such students prior to the start of their first term of studies with the aim of helping them fit, understand and adapt to the new environment in which their studies will be conducted hence4. This, as the paper has already established, is even more pronounced a need, in the emergent trend of internationalization of postgraduate students5. It is the mandate of this study to evaluate issues central to the international students in higher education contexts of the large urban UK institutions of higher education. For this section of the study, the objective is to collect and analyze the views of induction programmes as they relate to the study skills of international students in UK’s prime universities from the viewpoint both the international offices conducting the induction programmes and the staff within the departments whose mandate is to administrate and mange the induction process. For the international offices, the study will seek to establish the contemporary process of induction and the areas of improvement deemed necessarily to amend contemporary practices. For the staff of induction departments, the study will concentrate on their opinion on induction process as well as on the ways in which the process can be improved. Views from an International Office Conducting Induction In this section of the study, the researchers met with the staff of an international office handling the induction process to gather information about their practice, its planning, administration and implementation in relation to the nature of study skills they provided the international students with. The International office is in charge of conducting the induction process and the interest of the study was establishing the contemporary practice as well as ways in which the practice can be improved6. The study targeted to survey the views of the staff at the International Office Business School at Portsmouth as the primary respondents. As such, data collection and instrumentation was conducted among the staff of the University of Portsmouth’s International Office. The findings could then be used to generalize on the UK jurisdiction, and to a large extent a global population. According to the staff of the International Office, the term ‘international’ referred to all students coming from outside the EU countries, be it from any of the other four continents7. Portsmouth University’s international office serves the mandate of not only implementing but also managing the university's current internationalisation strategy8. The International Office today contributes highly to all the five strategic aims of the university namely, progressive research9, improved student experience, ongoing internationalisation, consolidating regional impact (EU’s) and finally, establishing sustainability. Following a total of 4 interviews conducted among the staff of the office, and document analysis of the documents and publications the researchers were provided with during the study, it is evident that the International Office is serving this mandate faithfully. One of the findings of the study is that the office mostly conducts its business online. Most of the enquiries and communications are conducted at their website (which is separate from the University’s website) at http://www.port.ac.uk/departments/studentsupport/international/. The website serves as a reference point for most prospective students from across the globe while at the same time serving as the communication platform between the office and the prospective or active international students10. The researchers noted that in the website, some webpages had restricted access to registered students or staff members at the University of Portsmouth. For these webpages, the access requires ITS usernames and passwords. According to the staff, such restriction was necessary in managing information flow and in ensuring that registered students or the prospective ones were given priority. This may be better understood from the perspective of constrained resources which means that the priority is in most cases given only to the activities the office expects to generate optimal returns from. Such return is measured not only in fee income terms but also in regards to other benefits. It was the finding of this study that in most transactions, the diplomacy protocols, currencies, languages and other such concerns are normally taken to be non-EU11. Another interesting finding was the fact that the International Office at Portsmouth, currently does not approach issues and their mandate from an international practice12. Rather their practices and objectives are based on the university’s perspectives where the agenda becomes helping the larger university community internationalise its culture and facilities. The office approaches all issues like student requirements, qualifications, assessment, schooling guidelines etc13, from the university’s conventions and introduces the international dimension instead of the other way round. According to the data so collected, the most frequent information that most international students require form the office revolves around making choices between universities in the UK, the university recruitment process, travel information from nations of Origin (which the staff confirmed to include a whopping 40% students from the USA)14, planning an introductory overseas trip to the university, arrangements when the international students are or are proposing to host international visitors, the launch of new programmes in the university, management of student exchange programmes, the management of the students in Exchange programmes and or Erasmus programmes15. Finally, the study also sought to establish the objectives of the Portsmouth University International Office in its contemporary practice, 10 of which are presented here below. First, to contribute to the university’s overall strategy towards internationalisation, to hasten deliberations with international partners, to promoting the concept of internationalisation internally and to build lasting relationships that support the overall university’s core objective of establishing and demonstrating significant international excellence in research16. Secondly, to manage generic promotion of the University’s courses as well as research opportunities until it can attract more international postgraduate students via outreach work17, liaison visits to sponsors, exhibitions and producing and distributing printed and electronic publicity. Other objectives of the office included: 3. To support the university departments in their promotional activities that target international students by providing advice on how best to attract the international students. This role extends even to the wider university community in regards to all international student matters18. 4. To provide an efficient and optimally welcoming initial point of contact for the international students and their families who make enquiries, thus recommending to university selectors for international applicants the best way to get an opportunity19 5. To appointing, liaise with and monitor the academic and social performance of the international students and where necessary facilitate corrective measures20 6. To provide specialised immigration counselling and advice services for the international students. 7. To providing high-quality introductory environment for newly admitted international students to ensure that their studies consummate in a timely and effective manner21 8. To manage the University’s participation and performance in rankings of international students research22, to help disseminate the findings that accrue thereof and to seek positive change around and within the University in regards to enhancing the student experience of international students23 9. To manage the University’s current student exchange programmes while also planning for new ones, for both the outgoers and incomers, with respect to their quality assurance, support, admissions, academic departments practices and policies etc. 10. To coordinate all the arrangements the university is involved in to provide warm hospitality and welcoming to all international visitors such that the University’s broad objective of internationalisation is attained24. Having interacted with the staff of the International Office at the University of Portsmouth, conducted 4 interviews and analysed the documents the office provided, the researchers were able to consolidate several ways in which they can improve their practice. To begin with, it is paramount that university introduces multi-language communication25 channels both online and offline. Although most of the students seeking help from the office were English speakers, and the fact that their target audience must necessarily speak English given that they are hoping to join a UK university, it would be good to provide the global audience with translated information to improve understanding26. Even the English-speaking prospective and active students would appreciate the information provided in the languages they are most competent in. Furthermore, even those students from non-English speaking nations could better prepare for an education in the UK if they learn of the information such as by registering for English classes. The most recommended languages to be adopted, especially in their website includes French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. Secondly, the international office needs to create links and establish arrangements with foreign universities who train students at undergraduate level, such that such students can find easier and more straightforward access to the UK. Instead of advertising to prospective individual students in their millions, it would be cheaper, more convenient, more productive and ultimately more beneficial to deal with the universities in advertising their opportunities. This would go a long way in fulfilling the objective of increasing the demand for UK university education that conducting mass publicity ever can27. Further instead of employing more and more staff to facilitate the international students, the office should think of recruiting the UK postgraduate students themselves to host and guide the international students themselves. If an international student is assigned a local student for guidance and orientation, the office will have the capacity to deal with more students more easily and more effectively that having to assign their staff for a bulk of students at a go. Views from a University Induction Staff Just in the same way as the researchers interacted with international office in the quest of establishing the contemporary practice in student induction, the researchers also interacted with, interviewed and studied the staff of a major UK university to sample their opinion about their duties, their role and the induction process in general. The study opted to interact with the staff of the Portsmouth University so as to collect the relevant data for analysis. At the forefront of the researcher’s findings was the fact that the staff members of the induction office were very happy of their job. They felt that their job was important and very instrumental to a host of international students. Without them, as most of the staff members noted, many of the international students would never have known where to start and how to effectively settle down for studies. The remarkable success of international students in studies, as most staff members opined, was owed to the fact that these students are given an adequate introduction and orientation into the new environments before their studies consummate28. According to the staff we interviewed, the induction process includes sessions in which international students are helped through basic orientation issues such as safety in the UK as presented by the police department. Further, the process involves learning how to best live and study in the UK29, how to travel to and in London, how to get and retain immigration documents and visas, the available food, its availability and general shopping skills etc30. A priority part of the induction process was banking skills and requirements where students are taught how to bank their money, how to open and run accounts and what they need for effective banking31. The staff at the university though that the single most important part of the induction process, and which had most impact on the successful studies of international students included an introduction to the academic requirements that the students will have to cope with in regards to writing papers, reading and skills for academic seminar32. Closely following this was the induction to healthcare basics during their stay in the UK, how to handle the resultant culture shock, student welfare avenues, student insurance needs and processes and an introduction to the student virtual learning experience and environment33. The researchers established that the induction programmes they conduct help to expose the newly admitted students to a wide range of learning experiences, each of these experiences providing relevant and current information that is important to the lives of these students34. In most cases according to the staff, induction programmes are tailor-made with particular reference to the course for which they have registered. This they said, helps provide a smooth transition for these students in their university education. Consequently therefore, the induction programmes necessarily require precise organization, implementation, monitoring and evaluation if they are to benefit the students35. In focus here, and in this section of the report, is the people who manage these induction programmes and not the students themselves. It thus became apparent to the researchers, these departments and their staff are charged with the mandate of organizing, implementing and evaluating induction programmes are central to the effectiveness, suitability and success of the programmes36. They not only happy with their jobs, satisfied with their achievements, proud of their role and hopeful of succeeding even more in their objectives, but that they are apt in facing the challenges that they will face in future. Nonetheless, there are two things that the staff members felt were necessary in making their work more fruitful. These two things represent how the induction process they are in charge of can be improved. First, there needs to be a greater level of involvement of the local postgraduate students in the process so that they can become mentors of the new international students. This, the staff members unanimously agreed, would help them help more students and to be more effective in their services than when the international students are left on their own after going through their office. Secondly, the staff expressed the need to be involved more in the management, administration and policy developing processes of the university so that they can have a greater impact in internationalizing most of the university’s practices37. They recommended that they be involved more in the management of the universities in which they induct the international students. Recommendations and Suggestions Towards improving the induction process, as is the aim of this study, it is thus recommended consequent to the analysis above that: 1. There be a greater level of involvement of the local postgraduate students in the process so that they can become mentors of the new international students. The staff of induction offices should be complemented by the local undergraduate and postgraduate students in facilitating the induction process of international students 2. The International Office and the staff in the university induction departments should be involved more in the management of the universities in which they induct the international students so that they influence positively the internationalisation of their policies and practices 3. The International Office reduce its efforts in advertising to prospective individual students and initiate liaisons and relations with the universities and colleges when advertising their opportunities so that they can reach bulk number of students at a cheaper and more convenient manner 4. That the International and induction departments adopt French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese interpretations in their publications and websites instead of solely relying on English. It is paramount that university introduces multi-language communication channels both online and offline so as to provide the global audience with translated information that improves both understanding and reception. Bibliography Forsyth, R, Supporting e-learning: an overview of the needs of users, The New Review of Academic Librarianship, 2003, Vol. 9 (1), pp. 131-140 (10). Foskett, N and Foskett, R, Postgraduate study in the UK: the international student's guide, 2006, London, Sage Publications. Robbins, P and Alvy, H, The Principal's Companion: Strategies for Making the Job Easier, Third Edition, 2009, London, Sage Publications, pp. 17 Scheer, B and Lockee, B, Addressing the Wellness Needs of Online Distance Learners. Learning, 2003, Vol. 18 (2), pp. 177-196. Thorpe, M, Rethinking Learner Support: the challenge of collaborative online learning, Open Learning, Vol. 17 (2), pp. 105-119. 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