adjusting academic expectations: improving self-confidence and independence in international...

Adjusting academic expectations:Improving self-confidence and independence in international postgraduate students

John Hynes (Teaching and Learning Librarian)Dr. Lee Webster (Lecturer: Manchester Enterprise Centre)

OUTLINE

MSc in International Fashion Retailing

Academic expectations

Library input & new approaches

The collaboration

Did it work?

http://www.manchester.ac.uk/collaborate/support/priorities/


2015/16 intake – 72

ALL international students.

All Asian (predominantly from China).

All under 30 (predominantly female).

Most are visiting the UK for the first time.

All the students have an interest in fashion, ranging from a casual interest through to having their own

(family) businesses.


ACADEMIC EXPECTATIONS

“A common theme (anecdotally and from conversation with International office) is that Chinese students are

used to ‘obeying orders’ for want of a better term… They are also very

deferential to older men…”

“Most of the researchers seem to share the view that Chinese students are governed by the fundamental rule of ‘respect for superiors’ and ‘loyalty and filial piety’, with Confucianism as the central element of

Chinese identity (Chan; Woodrow & Sham)” (cited in Liu, J. 2009).


“So much of the first semester just gets wasted…. Some of them don’t

even know why they are in Manchester! It’s a lot to deal with in

less than a year…”

“Using agents saved lots of hassles, but you did not know much about the courses you were studying. Agents normally tell you which one is good, I did very little research about my course before I came (University B/Student R)”

(cited in Quan et al. 2016).

They know more than they think they do… It’s up to us to help them realise

and articulate that…”

“My own experiences in China had been that while some students struggled with making the learning transition to UK-style study, others had generally been active,

engaged and had achieved academic results above the normal distribution of cohorts of their UK counterparts” (Turner, 2006).



Course unit aims

o Explain the tools and techniques of research investigation suitable for postgraduate masters dissertation preparation.

o Develop skills to search for and locate appropriate academic and commercially relevant information, critically analyse and reference it appropriately.

o Evaluate various methods of primary research investigation including research design,

quantitative and qualitative data gathering and results analysis.

Referencing

Evaluating informationFinding information

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refractive_index /www.flickr.com/photos/53326337@N00/4106670906 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:US_Army_52864_


https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Campagnolo_Tool_Kit_Super_Record_Wooden_Box_Nr._16.jpg

Academic literature

Industry news

Company information

Market research


LIBRARY INPUT & NEW APPROACHES

Working in partnership with

academic staff the curriculum-linked programme will provide taught

students with the opportunity to

develop transferable skills

within their programme.Statement of scope for the

CLP

Programme aims

Align all support delivered to

assessments or specific learning objectives within

the module or programme of

study

Deliver at leastone embedded session in the1st year of all

UG& PGT programmes

Have a positive impact

on students’ study practices and their

academic performance

Work in partnership with academic staff

to design, develop and deliver

a blended programme of academic skills

LIBRARY INPUT & NEW APPROACHES

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighter_pilot#/media/File:Defense.gov_News_Photo_060803-F-2907C-107.jpg

Flipped classroom

Problem based learning

New approaches to face-face were piloted

Incorporate academic skills

Approach Benefits RisksAssign students an individual piece of work to do with relevant online support before a face-to-face session. Elements of the session are then built on discussion around the piece of work.

Ability to address more learning objectives if using a blended approach.

Online support targeted to specific outcomes.

Ability to implement active learning techniques in the face-to-face session.

Students may not do the work if it isn’t assessed.

Support from teaching staff required.

Assign students a group task to do with relevant online support before a face-to-face session. The groups then present, discuss or debate their findings in the session.




Students may not do the work if it isn’t assessed.

Students may find scheduling time for group work difficult.

Students may be reluctant to speak out in large cohorts.

Support from teaching staff required.

Assign students a piece of work that they need to submit before a face-to-face session. The session is then tailored in response to the work submitted.

Session is directly relevant to the students’ needs.




More preparation time required from those delivering sessions.

May be impractical for large cohorts

Students may not submit the work if it isn’t assessed.

Buy-in from teaching staff required.

Agenda-setting at the beginning of sessions to inform what areas are covered.

Session is directly relevant to the students’ needs, needs rather than relying on what the academic tells us they need.

Useful in circumstances where we’ve not had enough information from the member of teaching staff involved.

Students’ self-identified needs may be misaligned with what we’ve been asked to deliver

Using a variety of interactive activities in large-group settings.

Increased engagement for larger groups.

Ability to implement active learning techniques.

Potential challenges in room layouts not being ideally suited.

Students may be reluctant to speak out in large cohorts (though there are a number of pedagogical techniques that can help to address this).

Agenda-setting at the close of sessions to establish what students need further help with. Output to inform what other support to signpost students to via Blackboard.

Ability to point students to support relevant to their specific needs rather than relying on what the academic tells us they need.

Helps to emphasise the idea that they need to continue learning beyond the session.

More administrative load on the e-learning team.

Online Q&A (synchronous or asynchronous) as a follow-up to face-to-face session

Potentially reduced staff resource required in comparison to face-to-face Q&A.

Can be used for distance learners and other courses with limited time to schedule face-to-face sessions.

Could re-use Q&As to generate a list of FAQs to use more broadly

Potentially increased staff resource if demand is high (particularly in large cohorts).

Post-session follow-up activities Helps to emphasise the idea that they need to continue learning beyond the session.

Potential lack of engagement with activities if they aren’t assessed.

OUTLINE

Week 2: Referencing in writing

Week 3: Finding information (introducing group task)

Week 4: Group presentation

Week 5: Submit reflective piece

https://play.kahoot.it/#/k/61920bc3-cbd1-4d87-9811-b0cede3b2a8b

Referencing scenarios 1

https://play.kahoot.it/#/k/61920bc3-cbd1-4d87-9811-b0cede3b2a8b

FINDING INFORMATION / GROUP TASK

THE COLLABORATION

To learn about a new resource

To work collaboratively

To gain experience of presenting to

colleagues

To be criticalTo relate new

knowledge to prior experiences

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem-based_learning#/media/File:Awesome_PBL_group.jpg

THE COLLABORATION

Library search / Google

scholar

Business Source

PremierMintel

Factiva Thomson One

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem-based_learning#/media/File:Awesome_PBL_group.jpg

THE COLLABORATION

Go to your group’s area on

Blackboard

Use online training

material for your resource

Search for information

Find 2-3 useful information

sources

Use the evaluation checklist

INSTRUCTIONS

Easy to use?

Would you recommend to students?

What did you find?

What can you tell us? And…

PRESENTATIONS

DIFFERENCES

DID IT WORK?

catalogs you can choose

Easy to find information!

Reports found about Fashion Online

Mintel estimates that online sales of clothing and footwear will increase by 14.5% to reach £10.7 billion in 2014 as the overall sector has continued to see robust growth and as consumers become more accustomed to shopping online.

The growth rate in online fashion sales has, however, slowed from a high of 19% in 2012 and we expect a gradual slowing of the dramatic increases we have seen over the last few years as a natural consequence of a maturing market. We forecast the market will grow to reach £19 billion by 2019.

http://academic.mintel.com/display/713413/• the Market Value

Best- and worst-case forecast of online sales of clothing and footwear, 2009-19

Features• Variety of information

(research reports, data statistics and analysis, professional articles, etc.)

• In-depth market study, more relevant and authoritative.

• Filter information can be targeted, easy to to find!

• Recommend it to others!

Compared to other search tools used before (such as baidu, wikipedia, google),

It is quite technical and helpful to find information about market research reports.

“I used to use Baidu to collect information.

After this trying i will change my regular ways and turn into some new

tools like Thomson ONE and Mintel.

Personally, i think this kind of trying is

worthwhile because it help us know much

more about information collection, which will be definitely helpful in my

future research”On: Resources

“I downloaded all the slides of the presentation present by my

classmates about group research, which introduced clearly usage methods and experiences about some main recommended search

tools and databases .The experiences from classmates are really practical in using

these tools.

On: Resources

“When we gathered together discussing

about our presentation content and work

division, I felt a little embarrassed because our group seemed to lack unity, everyone

was not active in talking and they just

wanted to confirm their own tasks and finished the discussion then left

as early as possible”.On: Collaborative working

“However, we always keep silence during classes because we

afraid of our answer is wrong and lack of

confidence about our spoken English.I think this is a

common problem among Chinese

student and we need to

overcome it”.On: Collaborative working

“I still do not enjoy creating and presenting

PowerPoint’s in front of a class, it is certainly not my

preferred method of class-based learning

and puts the seemingly unnecessary pressure of

performance on academic study”.

On: Presenting

“The whole processing was very impressive because I think it

made us work very hard on our task

which improved our ability of team

cooperation and communication

skills”.

On: Presenting

“Generally speaking, I would use the Library Search more in

the future and I highly recommend it to others. From a

postgraduate student’s perspective, it should be one of our frequent-used search tool to guarantee the quality of our used resources. It is convenient for University students and we may save a fortune by using

it”.

On: Being critical

“First challenge is the complexity of Factiva. As a

professional business acadamic database, Factiva is extremelly

different from the search engies we used before. The interface of Factiva is not

user-friendly or smart. It is more like a professional accounting software in

1990s. There are too many filters you need to choose, or

the useful information would be concealed”.

On: Being critical

“I felt that in some instances we were being lectured on a

very basic level as to our academic practices, so it did

take some time before meaningful instruction

began…. typical topics like the dangers of plagiarism and the importance of references were

repeated to us… these are topics that I have been obligated to memorise

since high school”.

On: Being critical

“At the same time, we compared the Google Scholar

with the Baiduwhich we have used in the past

and found that Google Scholar is more professional and

authorative”.

On: Previous experiences

“Finally, our group remembered reflective model that teacher

mentioned and taken reflective conclusion into consideration.

After talking about almost three hours, reflective conclusion was that

combination of all search tools, including MINTEL,

BAIDU and GEOGLE, should be fully utilized in the

future”.

On: Previous experiences

REFLECTIONS

Eyes were opened; new skills acquired.

Tendency to focus on functional benefits

Technical issues de-railed focus in some cases

More work needed to cement links between skills and academic competencies

Liu, J., 2009. From learner passive to learner active? The case of Chinese postgraduate students studying marketing in the UK. International Journal of Management Education, 7(2), pp.33-40.

Quan, R., He, X. and Sloan, D., 2016. Examining Chinese postgraduate students’ academic adjustment in the UK higher education sector: a process-based stage model. Teaching in Higher Education, pp.1-18.

Turner, Y., 2006. Chinese students in a UK business school: Hearing the student voice in reflective teaching and learning practice. Higher Education Quarterly, 60(1), pp.27-51.

REFERENCES