Challenges Faced By International Students In Australian Universities

Discuss about the Content and Thematic Analysis.

Many previously conducted studies in this context have raised about the issues that are faced by international students. According to the analysis of Yan (2017), the exact type of challenges and barriers that are faced by international students depends on individual Nations and the cultural perception along with the behavior of the local people. It can be also said that the various depends on the cultural background of the students and also their adjustable power in foreign countries. For example, in the analysis of Leder and Forgasz (2004), it has been seen that the Chinese students face more Challenges to settle in America compared to that of any other European students. This is because of the fact the cultural difference between Chinese and Americans are much more compared to that of Europeans and Americans. Hence it can be said that cultural difference plays a crucial role in deciding upon the level of challenges or barriers faced by an international student in a foreign country.

The current research work is aimed to investigate on the challenges that are faced by international students in the universities of Australia.

The current research will use primary data for better mode of data, which will be collected from the interview of the international students, who studies in the universities of Australia. The researchers will mainly focus on the students from the Asian and African nations.

The researchers will also collect data from the secondary sources, which include the data from the previously conducted research on the challenges that are encountered by the students of the foreign universities.

The data that is collected is analyzed using the techniques of qualitative methods, where various themes relevant to the topic has been framed and discussed accordingly. The themes are framed from the questions of the interviews are compared with the data from the secondary sources.

Epistemological position theory is being applied in the given research work that will help to relate the existing information and knowledge related to the  challenges that are encountered by the international students along with the latest findings. Hence, it is possible to frame the themes that will help in the data analysis section. With the help of this theory it is also possible o evaluate the change in the mode of challenges that are encountered by the international students in the mode of the challenges that have change over the past years in the universities of Australia.  

Challenges faced by international student in the foreign countries

The positioning of the research is important in the context that it can help the researcher to relate the findings of the literature along with the findings of the primary data collection methods for the research work.

The main source of the primary data is from the interview that is framed with the help of questionnaire format. The questions are designed in the semi-structured interview methods, which are best, suited for the qualitative methods and a pre-derertmeined set of questions are being applied to conduct the interview. For the given case the interview of two international students from the Asian countries, studying in the universities of Australia is being conducted. The transcript of the interview has been recorded in the electronic devices and the time taken for each interview is roughly 30 minutes.

It is also important to consider the ethical issues in the matters related to the matters that they do not enforce the students to ask personal questions, which they are comfortable to answer.  The students are also asked about the positive experience they gathered in the universities of Australia and also the ways they have able to deal with the challenges in the foreign universities of Australia.  

In quantitative research analysis systemic mode of analysis is one of the most commonly used techniques to interpret the data which is collected from primary and secondary source. The main things along with sup themes become the category of analysis and coding the findings in order to make suitable conclusion. According to Vaismoradi et al., (2013), the main purpose of thematic analysis is to emphasize on the methods that are used in data collection. By interpreter the codes of the theme it is possible for the researcher to make productive discussion about the subject of the topic.

In the given research work based on the experience of international students in foreign countries, the thematic mode of analysis will be used in the following section in order to evaluate the result of the findings that this collected from interview and secondary sources. The primary area of focus of this research is to evaluate the experience of international students, who are attending universities in Melbourne.

From the data which is collected from the international student in Australia it is clear that all International students face some sort of challenges or others in every occasion. Being away from their own family in an alien environment with new culture lifestyle and food habits is the main barriers that every international student has to face while pursuing their education. The demographic changes in the foreign country pose an important challenge for all international students to adjust their lifestyle and food habits according to their new place of residence.

Language and Cultural challenges and the challenge for the French students

It has been found that stress is the primary mode off challenge that is faced by all international students in Australia or any other foreign countries. Leaving from their own family and friends and residing in an alien environment can cause high level of challenge among the international students. The psychology of any human resist to all type of changes in the social environment and hence it is challenging for any students to make themselves adjust with the rules and regulations of a foreign culture. However, the process of adjusting themselves they have to face enormous pressure from the people and also from the Peer groups. This pressure of adjusting themselves in the foreign environment and also cope up with the new style of study and education, it is common for any student to face high level of stress and Burnout situation. They had to adjust to the psychological changes that are associated with existing in the foreign environment.

The language of Australia has been one of the major causes of challenges for international students residing in the place. The higher the level of difference in the culture more is the level of challenge that a student has to face. For example, according to the findings of Ross and Exposito (2017), it has been seen that Japanese to in the Australian University faces challenges during the process of understanding the lecture notes in the class and also due to the fact that they are not able to communicate properly with the professors and Express the challenges they are facing. With more difference in the language, it has been singer the level of challenge in communicating with all other people and college of university, can have significant effect on the stress level of a student.

It has also been seen from the study of Choudaha and de Wit (2014), that language barrier is one of the major issues of poor performance of international students in Australian University. Students mainly from Japan all other non English speaking countries are the major sufferers of language barriers. It has been also found that the score of these foreign students has been significantly low during the first year of the education careers. Nevertheless in the subsequent years most of the students who are able to adjust in the foreign environment, have able to improve upon their marks of exams.

Pursuing education    in a foreign country can always be of high financial pressure. Students mainly coming from the developing Nations to Australia has to be a with large amount of expense due to the difference in their currency values. Moreover, the high cost of living in the cities of Australia can also be a burden for most of the students. In many cases, it has also been seen that the students have to work out on their own to make the money of the education, which thereby creates and extra pressure on the lifestyle. It is also the main cause of poor level of concentration among the following students in Australia.

Motivation of for the foreign students

The high quality of educational infrastructure in the higher universities of Australia encourages several foreign students from different countries of the world to get admission in their universities. With the Rapid rise of globalization and industrial changes, it has been a trend for all ambitious students to adapt themselves in the foreign culture in order to have a better prospect in the career (Choudaha et al., 2014).

It has been also discovered that better education quality in Australian universities has have enabled the students to have better understanding about the foreign culture and language. It has also been evaluated that most of the international students in Australia also have the ambition of settling in the country in order to have a high quality of living and enjoy healthy economic condition for the future.

In many countries like that of in Japan, the poor educational infrastructure in higher level of education, forces the student to look for foreign universities. There is also be a strong belief among the international students that adjusting themselves in the foreign culture and environment, can help them to have better understanding of general awareness knowledge and also improve upon their skills, which can be used in the future in getting jobs in multinational corporations. Hence it can be said that cultural awareness among the foreign student can also be high which can help them to interact with different type of communities in the future life.

The marketing values of Australia about the importance of high level of education have also been an attractive for foreign students from all over the world. Effective promotional business campaign of the universities is one of the major causes that civil students from all over the globe want to pursue their career in Australian universities. Promoting the importance of high quality lifestyle and leisure activities in Australia has also been one of the major attractive points for foreign students. Hence the promotional activities of Australian education department have been a major inducing factor for the decision making of the foreign students who are currently residing in Australia.

With the rise in the attacks on international students in Australia especially belonging from the third world countries of Asia and Africa has been one of the major issues of concern for these students.

It has been found that racial discrimination has been a major social issue in the cities of Australia. More than 3 million students are visits various universities of Australia and most of them are from Asia and African countries (Abdullah et al., 2014). The security of these international students has been one of the major areas of debate for past few years. In many occasions these students have been the victim of racial discrimination, and also have to encounter physical assault because of their skin color and cultural background. In spite of several initiatives taken by the government of Australia to protect these students, physical attacks among the students is still one of the highlighting areas of the society in Australia.

Security of The international students in Australia

The international education industry of Australia is estimated to be around 16 million dollar. In spite of huge earnings of Australia from the international, over the years they spent very insignificant amount in the security issues of the international students. There is also no special provision in the legal guidelines of the country to provide Strict actions against all forms of racial discrimination. The foreign universities in Melbourne hand initiated are special security group for the international students in order to ensure that they do not encounter any harassment during their stay in the City. This initiative by the Melbourne universities has been the cause of high level of security within the city of Melbourne and it is regarded as the best place in Australia to get education for an international student.

The purpose of most of the international students in Australia is to get employed in the country, which will enable them to have a great career prospect. It has been found that in the last few years recruiting the international students from the Melbourne universities has been a Trend for various Australian companies. This has been the cause of major rise in competition among recruitment in the Australian universities. Is the cost of recruiting and international students specially belonging from Asian and African countries is much lower, most of the Australian countries are expanding their cultural diversity in order to recruit these foreign students. Hence, the Australian students have to face severe tough competition in order to get them recruited in all major Australian companies. The Australian government has passed the street legal action in order to ensure that there are equal numbers of foreign and Australian students being recruited in any workplace (Lee, 2015). This has helped to reduce the rate of unemployment among the Australian students.

The context of mobility of the international students which has increased severely to a great extent in the last few years, has resulted in the increase number of international students in universities of Melbourne and other cities of Australia. Hence, the challenge for Australian students and also for the recruitment process is becoming more challenging. The universities are also facing the challenge to deal with use growth in the total number of students for the last few years.

As there has been a rise of the total number of foreign students in Australian University, the governing Council has decided to introduce different formal and informal curriculum activities to improve upon the interactions with the foreign students and also ensure that they do not face any challenges while communication.

Initiatives taken by universities of Australia to improve upon the rate of interaction of the foreign student interaction

As language and cultural change a few of the major challenges faced by international students, the Australian universities have initiated special interacting sessions,  where they perform personal level of counseling to all the foreign students in order to get the idea of the challenges they are facing and also suggesting them the ways to overcome. There are also special English spoken classes arrange for those who belonging from totally different linguistics background. These interacting sessions and classes has been the main cause of high level of satisfaction among international students in Australia. Most of the universities also have a friendly atmosphere with professors and other governing bodies taking special care of the needs of foreign students.

It has been found that has more number of students are able to interact with the teachers and other people of Australia; they have been able to overcome all the challenges and stress that are encountered by them initially in the foreign atmosphere. The friendly atmosphere in most of the universities has also allowed the international students to settle properly and also focus on the quality of their education. The foreign students belonging from the same nations also had initiated special groups among themselves, which has enabled them to feel comfortable in the foreign lands by interacting with the people of their own community. These groups of students belonging from the same nations can discuss the issues and challenges they are facing in the foreign and are thus able to resolve the issues of cultural and language challenges of the foreign country (Gomes, 2015).

Conclusion

In this section all the findings using the thematic mode of analysis are properly discussed which help to bring about a conclusion about the research topic area. The discussion what is same in both qualitative and quantitative form of data analysis.

The current research work focuses on all forms of challenges that are encountered by foreign students in the universities of Australia. From the findings and thematic analysis that is done, it can be found that adjusting in the foreign culture with foreign language is the major challenge of all foreign students and is also the major cause of stress. It has been also found that the level of stress and challenges encountered by a student depends on the nation of their origin. The higher cost of living in Australia has also been regarded as a major challenge for all foreign students especially belonging from developing countries of Asia and Africa. The racial discrimination has also been a major area of concern for the students belonging from Asian and African countries.

The health challenges has also been one of the major concern in the given context that most of the students are not accustomed with the climatic condition and food habits of Australia. These challenges which are discovered in the current study are very similar to the past challenges that are encountered by foreign students in Australia. Hence, in spite of several initiatives taken, the condition of the foreign students has not improved significantly in the past few years.

Nevertheless the high rate of motivation among international students in order to have a better career and good prospect for the future, they usually have a high rate of motivation in order to deal with all the challenges in the foreign country. Therefore it can be said that better chance of future prospect is the main motivating factors for all the foreign students in the Australian universities. However, with the rise of racial discrimination attacks among the foreign students in Australia many belonging from Asian and African countries do not feel secure in the country in spite of several initiatives taken by the government. In this context it is important for the government to implement special and Street legal actions to provide punishment to all the racial discrimination who physically assault the foreign students. It is also the duty of the university governing bodies to ensure high level of security for the foreign students. As the business of the Australian universities depends vastly on the investment done by foreign students, it is important for them to maintain a friendly environment to encourage more people choose Australia as their destination of foreign and higher studies.  Introduction of formal and informal interacting sessions has been the major cause of motivating factors for the foreign students which help them to adjust themselves in the foreign culture.

The researchers have not been able to interact with large number of students in order to collect primary data and conduct interview. Lack of time and budget has been the main limitation in the context, which has not allowed the researchers to provide more data in order to support the discussions they are providing. The researchers also collected data only from the foreign students of Melbourne universities. Hence, they had to make a conclusion using the data from only limited number of universities. The lack of interest among the foreign students to interact with the researchers has also been a major limitation. In order to collect more accurate data it would have been better to directly interact with more number of foreign students in all the major cities of Australia. This could have helped the researchers to collect more relevant data to support the statement they are providing at the end of the end of the research work.

As the challenge encounter by the international students in Australia has been identified properly with sufficient data, it can be used by the government and also the governing bodies of the universities in order to prepare they are foreign policies for the international students. By understanding the exact nature of the challenges encountered by foreign students it is possible for the universities to prepare their policies in order to resolve the issues. It can also help the future international students who are planning to take higher education in Australia, to understand the exact scenario and also to take necessary precautions to overcome the future challenges in the foreign country.

With time the nature of challenges encountered by foreign students in Australia will change significantly.  Hence, it is important to ensure that all the challenges are properly identified in future research for which will help to adapt proper intervention steps. It is also important for the Australian universities to actively support this research work.

Reference

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