Owing to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the rapid increase in the number of international higher education students, online academic programmes have become more centralised and became the ...main, sometimes only, form of education. Although the online environment offers flexible access to education, it can cause concerns and difficulties for both international students and the host universities as they may not be well informed of each other's expectations. This can make transition extremely challenging and a major cause of anxiety for international students. Thus, this study conceptually discusses the gaps between the expectations held by lecturers in host universities and their international students about the extent of self-navigated online learning. In the current forms of course coordination, international students may have both frustration and cognitive overloads due to the many challenges associated with studying in a foreign university. It is recommended, therefore, for universities to provide better support for newly arrived international students in terms of helping them navigate online learning requirements in the initial stages, while encouraging the students to take greater responsibility for self-navigating their own online learning.
Participants were 443 (52.6% male, 47.4% female) ethnically diverse, 1st-grade, lower achieving readers attending 1 of 3 school districts in Texas. Using latent variable structural equation modeling, ...the authors tested a theoretical model positing that (a) the quality of teachers' relationships with students and their parents mediates the associations between children's background characteristics and teacher-rated classroom engagement and that (b) child classroom engagement, in turn, mediates the associations between student-teacher and parent-teacher relatedness and child achievement the following year. The hypothesized model provided a good fit to the data. African American children and their parents, relative to Hispanic and Caucasian children and their parents, had less supportive relationships with teachers. These differences in relatedness may be implicated in African American children's lower achievement trajectories in the early grades. Implications of these findings for teacher preparation are discussed.
"A Dream Defaulted" explores how the student loan crisis disproportionately affects Black borrowers and why rising student debt is both a cause and consequence of social inequality in the United ...States. Authors Jason N. Houle and Fenaba R. Addo offer a deft analysis of the growing financial crisis in education, examining its sources and its impacts. Based on more than five years of ongoing qualitative and quantitative research, this incisive work illustrates how the student loan system has not benefited all students equally. The authors tell the story of how first-generation college students, low-income students, and students of color are disadvantaged in two opposing phases of the process: debt accumulation and debt repayment. They further demonstrate that policies intended to mitigate financial burden and prevent default have failed to assist the people who most need help. Houle and Addo present these social and racial disparities within a broader context, tracing how centuries of institutionalized racism have contributed to social and economic inequities, perpetuating the racial wealth gap and leading to intergenerational inequality. Through interviews with borrowers, the authors illuminate the ways in which racial disparities affect who has college access, how and why people take on debt, and who has the ability to repay student loan debt after leaving college. Recognizing that the affordability crisis cannot be solved by higher education reform alone, the authors consider solutions. They argue that policy must extend beyond debt reduction and financial aid to address entrenched patterns of racial inequality and racial discrimination, both inside and outside institutions of higher education. Foreword written by Ayanna Pressley.
Background: Mentorship has been identified as an important factor that can optimize the learning environment and play a critical role in the professional growth and development of students. During ...clerkship, surgical rotations are primarily based on clinical teaching units where the learners work as a team. Occasionally, students are a part of 1-1 preceptorship model. The structure of the surgical rotation can affect the ability to cultivate a mentor relationship. The purpose of this study is to compare these mentorship models, including the preferences, experiences and learning needs of students for each type of model. Methods: An online survey was distributed to all third- and fourth-year University of Toronto medical students. Sudents are assigned to different teaching hospital sites, where some use the clinical teaching unit model and others use the 1-1 preceptorship model. Participants are currently being recruited. We predict that students in the preceptorship model are more likely to identify a mentor, have a positive operating room learning experience, demonstrate improved perceptions of surgeons and their career, and receive meaningful feedback - important factors in encouraging an interest in surgery. Students in the clinical teaching unit model may have an advantage of receiving guidance from multiple residents. Results: Pending. Conclusion: This study will allow us to identify the key elements of both mentorship models and learn how to enhance the experience of clerkship students to promote high-functioning surgical teaching environments and encourage a greater number of students to pursue a career in surgery.
In recent years, China has grown from an insignificant player to a major destination in the global market for international students. Based on a questionnaire survey and in-depth interviews conducted ...in 2013, this study uses Shanghai as an example to examine international students' experiences in China. It is found that China has become a niche market for international students due to the distinctiveness of the Chinese language and the country's continuous economic growth. However, the considerably and consistently low levels of international students' satisfaction with their study and living experiences show that China has not paid sufficient attention to improving its supply of higher education and other support services, which may threaten its sustainable growth in the international student market. (HoF/text adopted).
Student success and retention continue to be of concern for higher education institutions. Wider participation, combined with lower completion rates for non-traditional students, highlights the need ...for new ways of understanding the student experience to ground policy and practice. This article provides this insight by drawing together a number of key constructs to refine a recent framework of student engagement. We argue that the transition metaphor, focusing on the first year, is limited because it depicts differences between students and institutions as both transient and temporal. Instead, we use a cultural lens to introduce the educational interface as a metaphor for the individual psychosocial space within which institutional and student factors combine and student engagement in learning occurs. Incorporating the interface into the existing framework of student engagement makes three contributions to our understanding of the student experience. First, the educational interface is a tangible way of representing the complex interactions between students and institutions, and how those interactions influence engagement. Second, the refined framework highlights four specific psychosocial constructs: self-efficacy, emotions, belonging and well-being, which, we contend, are critical mechanisms for mediating the interactions between student and institutional characteristics and student engagement and success. Finally, the refined framework helps to explain why some students with demographic characteristics associated with lower completion rates are retained and do go on to successfully complete their studies, while similar others do not. These three contributions, the interface, the key constructs within it being mediating mechanisms and their explanatory utility, provide focus for the design and implementation of curricula and co-curricular initiatives aimed at enhancing student success and retention, and importantly to evaluate the impact of these interventions.
Australia has been very successful in recruiting international students. The Australian government regularly reports students' high levels of satisfaction with their educational experiences; however, ...there is also evidence of some dissatisfaction with regard to social and educational experiences. This paper explores the extent to which universities are meeting the social and educational needs of international students by analysing their experiences through the two dominate rationales in international education, namely neoliberal and cosmopolitan rationales. It discusses findings from a project examining the perceptions and experiences of international students at a large metropolitan Australian university. The study was conducted in two phases: an online questionnaire, followed by focus group interviews. The findings indicate that while international students might rate their overall satisfaction as high on questionnaires, deeper analysis through focus groups highlights the lack of social integration and belongingness that international students perceive. These results challenge universities to innovate their practices in order to develop and integrate cosmopolitan experiences that not only may benefit students but also assist in sustaining the neoliberal rationale of the sector.
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