International student exchange experience: formal and informal support services in the host university
- Autores: Adriana Pérez Encinas
- Directores de la Tesis: Jesús Rodríguez Pomeda (dir. tes.), Johannes De Wit (codir. tes.)
- Lectura: En la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid ( España ) en 2017
- Idioma: español
- Tribunal Calificador de la Tesis: Elías Sanz Casado (presid.), Soledad Celemín Pedroche (secret.), Elspeth Jones (voc.)
- Materias:
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- Resumen
The internationalisation of higher education is a worldwide phenomenon that has been deeply studied for the past few decades in the context of the globalisation of the societies and the role of higher education in that process.
The focus of this Doctoral Thesis is on the internationalisation of higher education on the European Union countries and specifically on the formal and informal support services provided for international students by universities, with a view to studying the needs that international students might have when they go abroad. Thus, the main research objective of the dissertation is to identify international students’ needs when they go abroad in relation to service provision, to identify the stakeholders involved in this process and to analyse students’ satisfaction with their stay abroad.
Universities offer a wide range of support services to satisfy the needs of students. However, the provision of services to international students in particular has not been deeply analysed in relation to the points of view of all implied stakeholders. This dissertation comprises a reflection on support services that universities provide for international students by dividing them into three types and by offering an inventory of these services.
As such, this Doctoral Thesis fills a gap in the knowledge by providing integrated findings through (1) international students’ needs from the point of view of staff members, international students and student volunteers; (2) the role of student associations in providing integration on campus; and (3) the provision of services and their relation to international students’ satisfaction. It is relevant to understand how services work internally in European universities and compare them with other international contexts.
A mixed-method design was used for the analysis of the data by using an inductive approach. Three research methodologies and sets of data were used. First of all, probabilistic topic modelling algorithms were used, with data coming from a large database from the platform STeXX owned by the company Studyportals (containing more than 73,000 reviews) on which international students expressed their opinion of their stay abroad in relation to a series of services. Secondly, statistical analyses were conducted in order to analyse quantitative data from international students who have been abroad and replied to the ESNsurvey 2016 questionnaire on The International-friendliness of universities. The survey team selected a set of variables in relation to which international students disclosed the major problem areas with host university support services. Thirdly, focus groups were assembled to collect the perceptions of the three main stakeholder groups identified within two higher education institutions, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Madrid, Spain) and Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Milan, Italy) in relation to service provision and international students’ experiences: staff members, student associations’ volunteers and international students.
The results are presented over two chapters, together with an explanation of the data used and a short introduction to the method used in each case. The first one covers International Students’ Experience, in particular the services required and needs that international students have when they go abroad, while simultaneously comparing them for different levels of study (bachelor and master), and type of mobility (credit and degree mobility). The second one comprises the results relating to Perceptions of service provision and satisfaction with stay abroad, in particular the role of student associations in the provision of services for international students and general findings on international students’ satisfaction with the most needed services.
This study concludes with a set of recommendations on formal and informal support services that universities can offer and a new model of the International Student Lifecycle. Finally, the results are presented in a condensed format together with limitations and recommendations for further research.
