Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemInvestigating the student experience of internationalization at an Australian university( 2020)This thesis explores the student experience of an internationalized Australian university through the lens of Internationalization at Home (IaH) practices. Over the last quarter of a century, Australian universities have adapted to an increasingly globalized world by implementing comprehensive internationalization strategies that make the universities more desirable to and more applicable within a global society. A substantial portion of these strategies depend on student-centered actions and activities, such as students interacting with and learning from peers from diverse backgrounds. However, the implementation and effectiveness of these IaH strategies have faced consistent challenges, including negative responses among the student body: resentment towards peers, a lack of intercultural interaction, and consistent frustration with multicultural groupwork. As students’ responses pose some of the key challenges to IaH, understanding students’ experiences of IaH practices would offer helpful insight into how to move forward with IaH. However, research into how students experience an internationalized university is limited, despite the significant role students play in the implementation and success of IaH practices. There is a particular lack of understanding around domestic students’ conceptualizations and experiences of internationalized universities, even though they comprise the majority of the Australian university student population. This thesis aims to provide better understanding of the challenges facing IaH aims by investigating students’ experience of an internationalized university, incorporating both international and domestic students’ experiences. The research study presented in this thesis is guided by the main research question, “What influences students’ experience of an internationalized university?” The study adopts a single-institution case study methodology, and three different faculties within the institution are included to consider different teaching contexts and student populations. A mixed-methods approach is taken, and data are collected through an electronic student survey, one-on-one student interviews, interviews with the heads of each of the three bachelor’s programs, and analysis of university website messaging about the student experience. Findings suggest that students’ experience is influenced primarily by a misalignment between their conceptualizations and expectations of an internationalized university on one hand and their experiences of that internationalized university on the other. Students expect that an internationalized university will offer frequent, natural interaction, often in the form of intercultural interaction with peers or in-class discussion; yet, they do not often find this to be true. This thesis argues for a reframing of the role of interpersonal interaction in shaping students’ internationalized university experience, primarily because it predominates students’ conceptualizations and expectations of an internationalized university. The thesis further argues that such misalignment may partially explain students’ resistance to certain IaH practices. It is thereby proposed that incorporating more interpersonal and intercultural interaction into the formal curriculum and reducing structural barriers to interaction would improve students’ experience of internationalized universities and better support the aims of IaH.