Exploration of the Academic Experience of International Students Studying Project Management *Dr Reda M Lebcir, Hany Wells and Angela Bond The Business School, University of Hertfordshire 1

Overview Introduction Literature Review Research Methodology Findings and Analysis Conclusions and Future Directions

Introduction International students constitute an important and dynamic group of students in British Higher Education (Binsardi and Ekwulugo, 2003) This is reflected in the project management subject area, at PG and UG levels Acknowledging that project management is an emerging subject that can be viewed from a range of perspectives The contents of project management are of immense interest in industry and academia As lecturers in this subject, the authors became interested in investigating the experience and performance of the international students 3

Research Aims The aim of this research is to investigate the academic experience and performance of international students in studying the subject of project management.

Defining International students Research has found that there are various definitions for “International Students”, in the UK and other contexts: ‘Students not domiciled in the UK’ (Morrison, et al 2005) (UK) ‘..in terms of (1) Differences in ethnicity between home and university cultures’ and ‘(2) the kind of problem experienced’. (Biggs, 2003) (International) ‘students from non-English speaking backgrounds (Mulligan and Kirkpatrick, 2000) (Australian) These definitions were limiting for our research therefore for this research the definition is: Students for whom English is not their first language And/or students who may not have studied in the British or Higher Education systems in which English is not the first language of study. 5

International Students: Academic Performance, Experiences and Project Management No theory relating to international students in relation to project management However there is some research on academic performance of international students in other subjects and overall, for example: Marshall and Chilton (1995) – Singaporean engineering students studying in the UK Bie (1976) – Norwegian students studying in the UK Morrison, et al (2005) – class of undergraduate degree obtained in the UK by student country of origin Biggs (2003) – referring to a number of studies relating to Confucian Heritage Culture students and different teaching and assessment approaches 6

International Students: Academic Performance, Experiences and Project Management There is substantial research on the experience of international students studying in US, UK and Australian Universities (comparative developed countries with the highest numbers of international students (Binsardi and Ekwulugo, 2003)) Ridley (2004) McNamara and Harris, eds. (1997) And the culture equivalence of or preference for particular learning, teaching and assessment methods, for example: De Vita (2002, 2001, 2000) Mulliqan et al (2000) 7

Background – Institute X Exploratory and novel case study One cohort, undergraduate programme, with project management modules at two levels, L2 & L3 From 80 students registered on the programme 45 were international students Traditional teaching structure of one hour lecture and one hour tutorial – high level of interaction required in the tutorials Assessment methods: Examination: closed or open book examination, in-class test Coursework: report, essay- presentations – some are group based

Research Methodology (1) Combination of closed and open ended set of questions were used to develop questionnaires The questions were based on three main factors that were considered to be associated with international students’ experience and academic performance Pilot: One reader, one IS colleague (project management) and experience with international and 3 UG students of which one was female and two males - over a week The purpose of the pilot was to understand, clarify and examine the depth of the questions 9

Research Methodology (2) Snap shot – one month quantitative data was collected Questionnaires were distributed to students after the lecture or tutorials – 3 weeks time limit was given to students 40 students responded of which 35 responses were used (5 omitted data) Statistical Analysis was undertaken and triangulation method was used for validation and verification

Findings and Analysis Three main factors considered to associated with international students’ experience and academic performance: Project Management Subject Reading and Writing Language and Oral Communication 11

Project Management Subject Project Management content were new and the subject was interesting for international students This created enthusiasm amongst students It was found that despite project being an optional module and students having a choice to drop out there was a minimal or no numbers of drop out

Reading and Writing Project management text books contain text as well as diagrams and formulas which students appeared to find relatively easy to understand It was found that although project management was an optional module and students found it difficult to write reports and answer examination international students still continued to study the module The results indicated that students have difficulties understanding special technical words related to the project management subject of in lectures and in textbooks. Consequently this affected their academic experience and performance 13

Language and Oral Communication Students relied on their lecturers’ delivery of project management material when understanding the subject The lecturer's presentation manner appeared to assist the students obtain a better understanding of the subject Assignments emphasising mathematical content were strongly preferred by students Assignments requiring English language proficiency skills and qualitative questions were not preferred by students 14

Conclusions Academic English Language proficiency is important when studying project management The research has identified the importance of offering English language support throughout the academic cycle The selection of accompanying project management text books has to take in to account the language issues The selection of the lecture content and the preparation of the lecture material needs to recognise the diversity of the student population and the fact that many international students may have difficulties with English language 15

Future Work and Development This is an exploratory and novel study. We intend to undertake a longitudinal study over three years in the project management area and over a wider context: Large Sample - sophisticated statistical analysis Forming a conceptual framework to examine these factors and others that are not covered by our research for example ethnicity, culture, gender At the time researchers’ focus was on term “international students” therefore “home students were not sampled. In the future both home and international students will be sampled and a deeper and rigorous understanding will be formed 16

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