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Coping strategies of Vietnamese overseas-trained returnees to do research in home university contexts

Bao Trang Thi Nguyen (University of Foreign Languages, Hue University, Hue City, Vietnam)
Stephen H. Moore (Macquarie University, North Ryde, Australia)
Vu Quynh Nhu Nguyen (University of Foreign Languages, Hue University, Hue City, Vietnam)

International Journal of Comparative Education and Development

ISSN: 2396-7404

Article publication date: 15 July 2021

Issue publication date: 6 August 2021

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Abstract

Purpose

This study focuses on Vietnamese international students who returned from their overseas doctoral education to home universities in Vietnam (henceforth Vietnamese overseas-trained returnees). The purpose is to explore the experience of these returnees “doing research” (i.e. being research active) when resuming a lecturing role at a Vietnamese regional university. In the context of research now receiving heightened attention in both the wider global higher education (HE) discourse and the Vietnamese HE sector, this study is timely and provides valuable insights.

Design/methodology/approach

In total, 76 Vietnamese overseas-trained returnees from varied disciplinary backgrounds completed a questionnaire on their research motivation and their perceived constraints doing research. Eighteen subsequently took part in semi-structured interviews. The study draws on the notion of human agency from the sociocultural perspective to understand the coping strategies of the Vietnamese overseas-educated returnees in response to the challenges they encountered.

Findings

The results show that the returnees' motivations to conduct research varied, fuelled by passion, but constrained by multiple factors. Time constraints, heavy teaching loads, familial roles and lack of specialized equipment are key inhibiting factors in re-engaging in research for these returnees. Addressing them necessitated a great deal of readaptation, renegotiation and agentive resilience on the part of the returnees in employing different coping strategies to pursue research.

Practical implications

The paper argues for a subtle understanding of the returnees' experience of re-engaging in research that is both complex and contextual. Implications are drawn for research development in the regional Vietnamese HE context and perhaps in other similar settings.

Originality/value

There is little empirical knowledge about how Vietnamese returned graduates – university lecturers – continue doing research after their return. Also underexplored in global discourse is research on foreign-educated returnees doing research, while they are an important source of human resources. The present study, therefore, fills these research gaps.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the Vietnamese returnees who took part in this research, and the Australian‐APEC Women in Research Fellowship for granting the first author a two‐month post‐doc fellowship in Australia which had made this research possible. Thanks additionally go to the Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University, Sydney for providing access to databases and other resources during the fellowship.

Citation

Thi Nguyen, B.T., Moore, S.H. and Nguyen, V.Q.N. (2021), "Coping strategies of Vietnamese overseas-trained returnees to do research in home university contexts", International Journal of Comparative Education and Development, Vol. 23 No. 3, pp. 242-259. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCED-10-2020-0072

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited

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