Indian Students at Swinburne School of Information Technology.
Report on part one of the project.
Preamble: There is a growing number of students from India enrolling in courses in the School of Information Technology, and a corresponding rise in anecdotal reports of difficulties experienced by these students both academically and socially. These students are a substantial cohort that appears to have a particular set of difficulties beyond those normally experienced by students making the transition to tertiary education in Australian universities. As the host university Swinburne has the responsibility to identify the problems, and to make best efforts to improve the situations Indian students are confronted with. As full fee paying students their retention is also an immediate financial issue for the university.
Project design: The project has two phases: a data collection phase during the second semester of 2001 in which arriving students will be asked to participate in a multiple case study structure. Students will be regularly interviewed by the Centre for LATTES' research assistant (a registered psychologist and experienced researcher) to elucidate the particular challenges they face personally and academically in adjusting to their Australian experience. Phase two will start in semester one 2002. In response to the data collected in phase one, interventions will be developed to counter the problems being experienced, while fresh cohorts of newly arriving students will be monitored to see what effect the interventions are having, and how they can be tuned to achieve maximum impact. This iterative approach will continue until at least the end of 2002, by which time it should become a normal part of the School of IT practice.
Data collection: The primary source of data collection will be interview. The intention is to recruit approximately 10 students each semester, and interview them weekly to maintain a record of their ongoing experience. Interviews will be conducted by the Centre for LATTES Research Assistant, who is a registered psychologist - but not a member of the teaching staff. In this way comments made by the students that could possibly harm their relationship with a teaching member of staff would be insulated from transfer. Only consolidated data will be reported.
Advantages to be gained from the research:
Individually: Participants will be more closely monitored in their transition to living and studying in Australia, with much less likelihood of problems developing into major crises. A weekly opportunity to "debrief" their experience we believe will be a great advantage to these students.
Generally: Future cohorts of students from India will be entering an environment that will be more sensitive to their particular problems and needs, and with (ideally) strategies in place to assist them. For Swinburne University the benefit is that there will be a higher retention and success rate for Indian students. This will have a two fold consequence of retaining more of the current body of full fee paying students, but possibly encouraging more students to come to the university on the recommendation of their peers.
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