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This paper reports on findings from an ethnographic study of international student adjustment. The paper recommends the use of ethnography as a way to research the experiences of tourists and migrants to build up a body of knowledge on the outcome of cross-cultural contact for these two groups. The aim of my ethnographic study was to capture the adjustment journey of a group of international postgraduate students at a university in the South of England. The ethnographic approach involved regular in-depth individual interviews with 13 students of different nationalities and overt participant observation of the entire postgraduate cohort of 150 students. Research began on the first day of induction in September 2003 and ended upon completion and submission of the Masters dissertation in October 2004. Students' experience of adjustment to academic and socio-cultural life was therefore captured from arrival in the new country to the return home one full year later. This study finds that stress was at its height in the initial stage of the academic sojourn; the struggle to cope with the challenges of foreign language use and an unfamiliar academic and the socio-cultural environment at a time when students were beset with homesickness and loneliness are the causes of this stress. An association was made between the passage of time and a gradual decrease in acculturative stress; however, this was not a generalisable process; there was fluctuation not only in experience across the student body but also in the individual's subjective sense of success across different aspects of life in the new country. This led to the conceptualisation of the adjustment journey as an unpredictable and dynamic process that is experienced differently among sojourners and fluctuates throughout the sojourn as a result of a host of individual, cultural and external factors. The relevance of this study to tourism scholars comes from drawing parallels between the long-stay tourist and the international student who represents an important segment of international travel. However, a gap in the literature exists on the impact of tourism on the tourist that this study helps to fill.

The academic needs of postgraduate online distance students are often very diverse. Typically, the students will be over 35 years old and studying part-time, while juggling other commitments, such as family or employment. Therefore, providing academic support which is targeted and meets their needs is paramount for enhancing the student experience and ensuring that they have the best possible chance of succeeding at postgraduate level. The academic support can be positioned into three transitional stages: into, throughout, and exiting their studies. Typically, during the first stage (entering the university), the main concern for the student is around academic expectations and getting started. During the second stage (while studying), there will be a variety of academic needs, ranging from assignments to literacy skills. In the third stage (exiting the university), this will typically be related to employability or going onto further study. This chapter presents an academic transitions roadmap (ATR) that can be used by institutions, in order to provide targeted academic support that is aligned with the three stages. By implementing the ATR, there is the potential for enabling students to become more confident while on their academic journey, and ultimately, this contributes to enhancing the student experience.

The internationalisation of academia has significantly altered the higher education environment. Interactions between academic staff and students from a range of social, political and cultural backgrounds are now commonplace. Within this context, it is important to explore the professional and personal impact of internationalisation on academics and academic environments. This chapter synthesises the global literature on academic mobility and migration through the lens of personal reflections by three international academics at an Australian-based university. The reflections focus on the complexities of transitioning to a new academic environment, the unique challenges often encountered by international academics, and how these impact on their teaching and research experiences as well as on their professional identity. The nature of the adjustments and changes in lifestyle that academics make when transitioning to an overseas academic environment are explored, with reference to implications for future developments in academic mobility.

This chapter provides a critical analysis of the literature on individuals in cultural transitions in higher education, namely, international students in culturally unfamiliar contexts; teachers of international students and culturally more diverse classrooms; and local students in increasingly culturally diverse classes. All these individuals are actors exposed to new and shifting cultural experiences expected to impact their motivation and engagement. Two broad perspectives emerging from the literature were used to organize the chapter: a perspective of adaptation representing research grounded in unilateral, bilateral or reciprocal conceptualizations, and a perspective of transformation, capturing experiential learning research leading to personal and academic development. The analysis highlights how motivation is a critical, yet under-examined construct. This leads to numerous suggestions for future research including: addressing the neglected role of agency in research on international students' sociocultural adaptation and the lack of research on successful processes of adaptation; examining the confounding issue of socialization into new cultural-educational environments and level of proficiency in the medium of instruction, which impacts on engagement; and scrutinizing the posited link between deep-level motivated engagement in cultural transitions and the emergence of transformative experiences. A case is made for research on individuals' engagement and motivation in cultural transitions to be conceptually and methodologically stronger and broader, moving from studies of single groups of individuals in need of adaptation, to investigations of the co-regulated, reciprocal adaptations of actors and agents operating in complex sociocultural contexts where power dynamics related to knowledge and language affect participation and engagement with cultural 'others'.

The economic ramifications of tourism and hospitality have led to the considerable growth of global education in this industry. The ever-changing needs of this industry for appropriate skills and expertise have made it more competitive in nature, which has led to the increase in studies exploring the motivations for students to choose a specific destination. This chapter explores the motivations of South Asian students to undertake tourism and hospitality qualifications in the United Kingdom. The research was based on mixed method approach through two sequential phases of focus group and questionnaire among the students of a higher education provider in London. The results revealed a set of motivational factors influencing South Asian student’s choices to study tourism and hospitality in the United Kingdom.

The chapter evaluates the value of practice-based teaching and learning on a UK postgraduate unit and describes the development of conceptual models for the student practice-based experience.

Student experience is explored through the use of an in-depth case study. Student understanding is explored through an exit survey of students.

Student experience of the unit was positive and negative. Positive experiences stem from good client communications, a motivated student team, and the buzz of a real project. Positive experiences appear to lead to a perception of pride in outcomes and personal transferrable skills. Negative experiences stem from the lack of life experience, language difficulties, client unavailability, lack of subject knowledge, and literature gaps which left students feeling ill-equipped to deal with the international group context. Negative experiences lead to stress and poor group development.

The study is based on a single simple case. The methodology has sought to reduce problems with internal validity and bias. The data collection and analysis methods are repeatable and we encourage other academics to test our conceptual models and conclusions.

Conceptual models for positive and negative experience are proposed.

The study suggests there is a balance to be sought between providing a positive student experience and practical learning. Practice-based learning adds significant value to the student in terms of improved understanding of hard and soft tools, but may need to be based upon positive and negative experience.

The tertiary education system has become an international phenomenon in recent decades, and, increasingly, Australian institutions are employing academic staff and postgraduate students from other countries. This now poses a number of challenges. International academics are reporting that cultural differences and stresses are impacting on their work. This has required an examination of both curricula and assessment practices in the tertiary sphere. Having academic staff from diverse backgrounds working in tertiary institutions arouses interesting patterns of interaction with other personnel, students, learning materials and learning contexts. This chapter examines a large number of international academics from Non-English Speaking Background (NESB), who are working in various Australian university faculties and disciplines. The study analyses the key factors influencing the NESB international academics’ employment. Seventy-five participants working in six Australian universities participated in this study.

This chapter chronicles an international inter-institutional Māori-led small-scale tertiary intervention that has potential for larger scale future implementation. The educational intervention, Optimising Māori Academic Achievement (OMAA), is based in Te Puna Wānanga (The School of Māori Education) in the Faculty of Education at the University of Auckland (UoA). It aims to increase the completion rates of Māori students enrolled in the Bachelor of Teaching Māori-Medium Specialisation (Huarahi Māori) at the UoA and the Bachelor of Nursing at Waiariki Institute of Technology, Bay of Plenty. The OMAA initiative is based on the adaptation and implementation of a tertiary intervention that has a research-based track record in North America and has also been successfully adapted for use in Australia. Authors of this chapter are Māori and Indigenous women working as primary investigators, programme directors and leaders facilitating the international inter-institutional intervention among the UoA, Waiariki Institute of Technology (Waiariki) and Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia. Adaptation of the North American tertiary intervention by Māori for Māori is at the heart of the initiative. Māori and Indigenous projects such as OMAA can attract potential postgraduate students from within New Zealand as well as from other countries where there are Indigenous communities of people. Implementation details, implications, lessons learned and future directions will be described in this chapter.