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1 – 10 of over 3000Differences between UK countries in HE policy and provision concerning the accessibility of HE study for students, and the costs of that study, have implications for cross-border…
Abstract
Differences between UK countries in HE policy and provision concerning the accessibility of HE study for students, and the costs of that study, have implications for cross-border study mobility. Those qualified for and wishing to enter HE are affected both by financial support for students and the provision of the HE service in terms of the number of places and the shape and history of the sector within their home country, and in comparison to other countries of the UK. In addition, funding policies for mobile students do not recognise social diversity and so have an unequal impact on students in relation to their socio-economic resources, a consequence of the territorial frame of reference and unequal devolution arrangements which work against a UK-wide social citizenship. Drawing on a quantitative analysis of student data, this chapter discusses the unequal conditions of access, opportunity and financial support for HE across the UK and how this may have a negative impact on the role of cross-border mobility in widening participation.
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Vasanthrie Naidoo and Maureen Nokuthula Sibiya
The purpose of this paper is to share insights, research findings and discuss key issues relating to quality practices and quality assurance in cross-border nursing education…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to share insights, research findings and discuss key issues relating to quality practices and quality assurance in cross-border nursing education program development and implementation.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors used a qualitative, multiple case-study approach, by sampling local, national and international nursing education institutions, academia and nurse graduates to identify challenges and best operating practices in implementing and facilitating cross-border education.
Findings
The authors reveal that quality assurance affects cross-border nursing education program design, delivery and implementation.
Research limitations/implications
Quality assurance plays an important role in cross-border nursing education, by enhancing the reputation and recognizing the effectiveness and capacity of the educational institution. These findings of this study can offer valuable insight to forthcoming as well as existing nursing education curriculum developers who plan to engage in national or international educational partnerships.
Practical implications
Quality assurance plays an important role in cross-border nursing education, by enhancing the reputation and recognizing the educational institution’s effectiveness and capacity. The findings offer valuable insight into forthcoming and existing nursing education for curriculum developers who plan to engage in national or international educational partnerships.
Originality/value
This paper explores inherent challenges in cross-border nursing education and maximized data collection opportunities by sampling participants from both national and international settings.
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Vasanthrie Naidoo and Maureen Nokuthula Sibiya
The purpose of this paper is to share insights, research findings and discuss key issues related to graduate experiences with transnational nursing education (TNE).
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to share insights, research findings and discuss key issues related to graduate experiences with transnational nursing education (TNE).
Design/methodology/approach
The authors used a qualitative approach and sampled national and international nurse graduates to identify challenges and best operating practices in cross-border nursing program facilitation.
Findings
This research paper has provided a platform for graduates to lend their voices to the promotion of effective cross-border nursing education delivery and suggests that although international collaborations endeavor to maintain high academic standards in TNE, there is still a need to re-engineer, revise and adapt curricular content, learning, teaching and assessment practices to aid the nursing student.
Research limitations/implications
Identified challenges affecting the facilitation and delivery of cross-border nursing education programs can act as levers to improving service quality of present and future cross-border programs to the nursing student. This will assist future nursing students to recognize culture shock and embrace their decision to pursue nursing.
Practical implications
The experience of being involved in TNE for nursing students may not be that much different than students of other disciplines. While not able to be generalized to the entire population, the reports by the nursing students in this sample appear to be valuable and worthwhile to continue supporting and encouraging other TNE opportunities.
Originality/value
This paper explores cross-border nursing education experiences from national and international perspectives. The authors were able to explore inherent TNE challenges from diverse population and cultural backgrounds.
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Anita Kit-Wa Chan, Lucille Lok-Sun Ngan, Anthony K.W. Wong and W.S. Chan
Cross-border students – children who are permanent residents of Hong Kong but live on the mainland and travel across the border to school every day – have been an important…
Abstract
Purpose
Cross-border students – children who are permanent residents of Hong Kong but live on the mainland and travel across the border to school every day – have been an important social, educational and political issue in Hong Kong. Nevertheless, current discussions regarding this issue focus mainly on the group of students whose parents are Chinese residents and seldom examine the wider contribution of social, geo-political, global-economic and policy changes to the phenomenon. These shortcomings have limited the understanding of the role of the state and the varied needs of these child migrants from diverse family backgrounds. This paper aims to address these gaps.
Design/methodology/approach
It proposes to bring changing border and immigration policies in Hong Kong back into the current analysis and offers a case study of border history. It revisits publications on Hong Kong’s immigration and migration policies, official statistics and government policy papers and (re)constructs the border changes that took place during the period from 1950 to 2013, which led to the rise and complexity of cross-border students.
Findings
This critical historical review offers two important findings: First, it reveals how the government, through its restrictive and liberalized border regulations, has constrained and produced different types of cross-border families. Second, it shows that cross-border students come from diverse family configurations, which have adopted cross-border schooling as a family strategy.
Originality/value
These findings underscore the importance of historical perspective, the wider context in migration studies, the centrality of the state in migrant families and a differentiated understanding of child migrants.
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Two of the most important trends in higher education have been the emergence of online learning and efforts to internationalise the curriculum and student body. While most…
Abstract
Two of the most important trends in higher education have been the emergence of online learning and efforts to internationalise the curriculum and student body. While most universities embraced both these trends, insufficient attention has been paid to how the two approaches might be mutually supportive. Online education offers the opportunity to bring together students living in different countries in common courses and programmes, but cross-border enrolments remain low and new models and approaches are needed to build educational offerings that bring students and faculty from different countries together in sustained educational engagement online. This paper highlights a case study of an innovative blended double degree business masters’ program between Royal Roads University (RRU) in Canada and the Management Center Innsbruck (MCI) in Austria that allows mid-career, blended learning students to build international competencies and networks while continuing to work full-time. Through this double degree program, students can complete a Master of Global Management (MGM) at RRU and an MBA at MCI in approximately 24 months. Mid-career students have traditionally had limited opportunities to participate in an international education due to work and family constraints, but the pairing of two blended programmes creates an opportunity for these students to engage in a rich cross-cultural learning community. The paper highlights the challenges of integrating online learning into internationalisation strategies and explains how double degree programmes such as the RRU-MCI collaboration provide advantages that help overcome the challenges associated with online programmes that enrol students from different countries.
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The goal to stimulate perspective taking and inference making on social phenomena, such as gender roles in society, has proven to be difficult to achieve in general and in…
Abstract
Purpose
The goal to stimulate perspective taking and inference making on social phenomena, such as gender roles in society, has proven to be difficult to achieve in general and in particular for primary school students. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to develop creative models and concepts for learning that provide guidance addressing these challenges.
Design/methodology/approach
A case study methodology, including classroom observations, teacher interviews and analysis of videos created by students, was applied within a large-scale action research project related to cross-border collaboration for educational purposes supported by information and communication technologies among Danish, Norwegian and Swedish schools.
Findings
This study reports on how teachers organized group work for their sixth grades students to reimagine and videoing fairy tales endings of Cinderella in order to explore and learn about gender roles in society in a cross-border setting. The personal, emotional and social negotiations of working with peers and giving feedback to students in other schools from other countries enhanced their learning. Results suggest that adding the framework of boundary object-driven design helps to improve the process by its focus on a shared understanding, common practice and sense-making.
Originality/value
The study incorporates the framework on boundary objects as a “mental design device” into a story-driven digital production project, suggesting that creativity in combination with a specific yet open task for student group work enhances learning in social science.
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In response to the emergence of a strong cross-border student flow of postgraduate students from mainland China to the Macau Special Administrative Region (Macau), this study…
Abstract
Purpose
In response to the emergence of a strong cross-border student flow of postgraduate students from mainland China to the Macau Special Administrative Region (Macau), this study examines the motivations and experience of a special group of doctoral students: college teachers working in Guangdong Province and simultaneously pursuing PhD degrees at private universities in Macau.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a qualitative research method, thirteen college teachers were interviewed.
Findings
The research findings reveal their motivations for pursuing doctoral studies in Macau, and the difficulties they faced and gains they obtained from this experience.
Originality/value
All the findings indicate a potential expansion of the role of Macau’s higher education system. Once merely a stepping-stone, it is now an acceleration site for brain circulation between Macau and Guangdong as part of a regionalization strategy for China’s Greater Bay Area.
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The purpose of this paper is to explore the action learning experience of business students in cross‐cultural teams in the role of international business information gatekeepers…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the action learning experience of business students in cross‐cultural teams in the role of international business information gatekeepers for small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SME) focused on international business opportunities.
Design/methodology/approach
Action research is applied by combining a questionnaire survey, analysis of mid‐term and final project reports, reflective team discussions and feedback from representatives of enterprises.
Findings
The cross‐cultural alignment of teamwork habits – offering leads for business contacts when presenting broader innovative ideas to SMEs, demonstrating the competence of the team when specifying the preliminary task and sharing knowledge with other teams – are essential challenges for project teams. Reflections of the teamwork process reveal the impact of some of the dimensions of cultural diversity introduced by Hofstede and Trompenaars.
Research limitations/implications
Student teams and enterprises did not represent all key Estonian export destinations. Southern European countries and China are overrepresented in comparison with northern European countries that are culturally closer to Estonia. Further research could link action research, follow‐up surveys of SMEs involved in the projects and comparisons of SME samples from different business sectors.
Practical implications
Entrepreneurs in Baltic countries and in other new EU member states can benefit from gatekeepers that help entrepreneurs understand more advanced markets and to develop cross‐border networking with partners in other regions of Europe. A virtual community that can match students from different cultures, before and after their Erasmus exchange, in a co‐operation network for a cross‐border market study and search for contacts within enterprises is needed to facilitate more advanced cross‐border networking in the entrepreneurship‐education process.
Originality/value
The paper highlights factors supporting and inhibiting cross‐cultural synergies between action learning and e‐learning, cross‐border student exchange and knowledge sharing between SMEs and international student teams.
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Wai Ching Choy and Pui Yan Flora Lau
This study aims to find out why some students from Hong Kong (HK) consider higher education in Taiwan, rather than in China or elsewhere. It also attempts to build a…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to find out why some students from Hong Kong (HK) consider higher education in Taiwan, rather than in China or elsewhere. It also attempts to build a decision-making model to advance the conventional push-pull logic associated with this particular issue.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors interviewed 11 undergraduate students from HK via an in-depth interview. Interviewees were recruited by snowball sampling. To protect the privacy of the interviewees, all names of the informants in this paper are pseudonyms.
Findings
A dynamic decision-making mechanism, which includes three major layers, namely, the macro, meso and micro levels, has been developed to demonstrate that HK students made their decision based on a recursive fashion with bounded rationality, rather than on a linear fashion with complete rationality.
Research limitations/implications
Although the relatively small number of interviewees has limited the representativeness of the research, the authors suggest that rather than claiming representativeness, the study attempts to tease out the diversity of the decision-making process and mechanisms.
Originality/value
The drastic increase in the number of HK students in Taiwan proves the current research study, which is the first qualitative research on the phenomenon, as a timely one. In addition, the present study is one of the few examples of studying students’ international mobility from a more economically advanced region (HK) to a less economically advanced one (Taiwan).
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Mary K. Swanson and Brian A. Swanson
This paper aims to focus on enhancing the learning experience for both expatriate academics and students in international higher education institutions (HEIs) through…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to focus on enhancing the learning experience for both expatriate academics and students in international higher education institutions (HEIs) through understanding students’ cultural perspectives, analyzing student feedback and evaluating faculty placement strategies. The analysis can be used to aid international educational programs in understanding student values and increasing the quality of instructor–student interaction.
Design/methodology/approach
This research surveyed over 1,300 undergraduate students enrolled in a US and Chinese dual-degree program located in China. A voluntary survey with open and closed questions assessed the cultural values of students, and the cultural values and behavior they believe are important for their instructors to observe in the classroom.
Findings
The results of this case study suggest that students’ perceived importance of Western cultural values demonstrated only one significant change during their time of enrollment in a US degree program. However, the research indicates that the importance of Chinese cultural values decreased from the students’ first year to their fourth year. Some notable propositions include the importance of culturally competent and experienced faculty in the students’ early US courses and data-driven recommendations for placement, training and development of new foreign faculty to increase the likelihood of a satisfactory experience for both the faculty and students in the cross-border classroom.
Originality/value
Ultimately, this research can aid international HEI’s by enabling enhanced student and instructor experiences and superior HR practices in the less observed area of faculty placement. These improved practices can contribute to the quality and sustainability of such international programs. In addition, this research provides perspective on the impact of international education on student cultural values and presents student feedback to increase understanding of student expectations and desires in the international classroom.
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