Dear Helen and all,

Here are some journal articles relating to the experiences of international postgrads.  I’m not sure if they necessarily suggest coping strategies, but they do contain students’ comments.

Danov, M. (2011) ‘Teaching international commercial arbitration at postgraduate level – techniques for enhancing students’ learning’ The Law Teacher, 45(1) 101-113.

Guilfoyle, A. (2006) ‘Understanding key dimensions of international postgraduate student transition and learning experiences: a grounded theory approach’ International Journal of Learning, 13(6) 71-78.

Hall, Graham & Wai-Chung Sung, T. (2009) International Journal of Management Education, 8(1) 53-62.

Scheyvens, R., Wild, K. & Overton, J. (2003) ‘International students pursuing postgraduate study in Geography: impediments to their learning experiences’ Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 27(3) 309-323.

All the best

Claire

Claire MacTavish

Academic Guidance Tutor

Faculty of Art, Design and Humanities

De Montfort University

Leicester

From: learning development in higher education network [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Kim Shahabudin
Sent: 13 May 2013 08:57
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: International students' survival strategies

Dear Helen, Martin et al,

I wonder if you've seen this? http://www.cite.auckland.ac.nz/ It includes videos of students from various cultural backgrounds talking about reasons for referencing which are relevant to their culture. We've found it very useful in thinking about ways to help international students to develop their own appropriate methods of support.

Another strategy I heard about was student societies for students from a particular country inviting academics from the same country to talk to them about their experiences when they first came to study/work in the UK.

HTH

Kim

---

Dr Kim Shahabudin, FHEA, Study Adviser, Study Advice & Maths Support 

1st floor The Library, Whiteknights, University of Reading, RG6 6AE 

( 0118 378 4645 : www.reading.ac.uk/studyadvice twitter: @unirdg_study

Please note that I now work part-time and am not usually on campus on Mondays and Tuesdays

---

From: learning development in higher education network [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Martin Sedgley [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 10 May 2013 16:53
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: International students' survival strategies

Hi Helen

I was sitting here working on my doctoral lit review re international students when I saw your mail !  So bearing in mind John's recent encouragement re list use, I thought that for once I must reply ...

I'm currently reviewing two edited books that report on quite a few different qualitative case studies that I'm finding v.useful:

Internationalisation and the Student Voice (2010) edited by Elspeth Jones, and Teaching International Students: Improving Learning for All (2005) edited by Janette Ryan and Jude Carroll.  Along with Catherine Montgomery (2010) Understanding the International Student Experience, I have found these helpful for the students' perspective.  However, I do take your colleague's point that much of the lit tends to focus on the problems and practitioners' recommendations, rather than students' own reported coping strategies.  So I would concur with her that much of what I'm saying about that in my thesis is coming from the data collection and analysis, that I'm then connecting back where possible to the other lit.  

There are a number of recent study skills textbooks specifically aimed at international students, of course, e.g. Martin Davies (2011) and Martin Hyde (2012) - all male researchers in this field must be called Martin fortunately - but I guess that doesn't address your colleague's issue.  I'd be happy to liaise with her/him directly if that's of interest.

Best wishes

Martin

Senior Fellow Higher Education Academy

Effective Learning Advisor

Bradford School of Management

On 10 May 2013, at 15:59, Helen Bowstead <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Dear all,

I received this email from my colleague and wondered if anyone had any thoughts or had seen any relevant literature that might help?

I’ve located any number of journal articles about international students’ experiences and difficulties studying in western universities and what universities should be doing to support them. I’m finding it harder to locate literature about what learning/coping/survival strategies they actually use to get by when they are thrown in the deep end. I’ve done a couple of interviews and I’m getting things about strategies such as appealing to conationals for help, appealing to tutors/lecturers, reading core texts in L1 and making notes in L1, using google translate…..I suppose it’s good as maybe there’s not so much out there….from your learning development angle have you got some tips for me??

Thanks

Helen

Helen Bowstead

<image001.jpg>

Web pages www.plymouth.ac.uk/learn for further information, resources and study guides.

LDTalk student e-forum www.jiscmail.ac.uk/ldtalk

Email study questions [log in to unmask]

Online feedback on your writing email feedback form

One to one tutorials Learning Gateway, 011 Roland Levinsky Building: 01752 587676 (for info on what to expect, click here)

Drop-in-Zone (DiZ) Plymouth campus Library. 1400 to 1600 every day during term time. No need to book

Writing for Assignments E-library www.learningdevelopment.plymouth.ac.uk/wrasse