IAFOR Journal of Education: Studies in Education

Volume 8 – Issue 4 – 2020

Academic Failure: Unspoken Experiences by International Postgraduate Students
in a Malaysian University
Jasvir Kaur Nachatar Singh
La Trobe University
Australia

79

IAFOR Journal of Education: Studies in Education

Volume 8 – Issue 4 – 2020

Abstract
Malaysia aspires to become a regional and international hub of higher education through aninternational student mobility initiative. Existing scholarly work on international students is
skewed towards understanding the general challenges faced by international students, but
limited work has been conducted in exploring the impact of severe supervision challenges oninternational postgraduate students’ experiences in a Malaysian research university. Hence,
this paper explores the evidence of academic failure experienced by international postgraduate
students by drawing on semi-structured interviews with 33 international postgraduate students.
Academic failure experiences were faced by international postgraduate students as a result of
two major challenges: supervision issues, and faculty mismanagement. The experience of
academic failure has impacted the students’ enthusiasm, motivation and inspiration inprogressing in their research work and has also impacted them psychologically. The
implications for developing significant and profound strategies to assist international
postgraduate students in achieving positive educational outcomes are also discussed.
Keywords: academic failure, International postgraduate students, Malaysia

80

IAFOR Journal of Education: Studies in Education

Volume 8 – Issue 4 – 2020

Malaysia has aspired to become a regional and international hub of higher education by 2020
and this aspiration has been supported through attracting international students from aroundthe globe. Singh et al. (2012) observed that the success of international education isstereotypically evaluated according to growth in international student numbers. Against thisindicator, according to the latest statistics in 2018, there were 170,898 international students(undergraduate and postgraduate) studying in public and private universities in Malaysia(Ministry of Education, 2019). In 2017, 32,042 were international postgraduate students, ofwhom 21,170 were enrolled at public universities and 10,872 enrolled at private universities(Ministry of Higher Education, 2018). A recent study by Singh et al. (2014) found thatinternational postgraduate students had chosen Malaysia for their studies because of its safe
environment (its political stability), shared cultural values and language (especially for students
from ASEAN countries such as Cambodia and Indonesia), its relatively low tuition fees andcost of living, “proximity to the students’ home country as well as access to culturally important
items such as halal and other dietary requirements” (p. 463). In strengthening the numbers ofsuch international students, Malaysian higher education institutions need to provide academic
and social support services to them so that they have a positive, engaging international
experience studying in Malaysia.
In the main, factors leading to academic success (Singh, 2018), as well as the academic andsocial adjustment challenges encountered by international students (Asgari & Borzooei, 2014;
Desa et al., 2012; Sidhu et al., 2014) have been widely studied. However, understanding how
severe supervision-related challenges contribute to academic failure experiences byinternational postgraduate students in Malaysia has received very little attention (da Silva &Ravindran, 2016). This paper therefore investigates several challenges that are involved inleading to academic failure experiences of international postgraduate students studying at oneof the top Malaysian research universities. The paper takes one of the first steps in offering acomplete picture of the academic experiences of international students in Malaysia.
Literature Review
Astin (1976) and other researchers (Ayán & García, 2008; Zhou et al., 2014) have generally
measured student outcomes by way of indicators such as completion of the degree andacademic grades. However, international postgraduate students in Singh and Jack’s (2018)
study understood their academic success as the development of personal and professional skills
as well as their contribution to their home country on return. Singh (2018) further revealed
institutional services, such as workshops, financial and library services, together withindividual characteristics, especially self-discipline attributes, and a quality supervision
process, were the main factors contributing to achieving academic success of international
postgraduate students. Other factors articulated by postgraduate students in Malaysia haveincluded supervisor commitment to the research project and supervisees, and the frequency of
consultations between supervisors and supervisees (Mohamed et al., 2012).
On the other side of the coin, scholars who have studied academic failure of undergraduate
students, such as Ajjawi et al, (2019a), have defined the “failure” concept as students obtaining
a fail grade for one or more subjects during their studies. Scholars such as Helfer and Drew
(2019), however, refer to academic failure experiences of postgraduate students as “unhappy,
discouraged or disappointed” (p. 512), stressed, exhausted and burn out (Cornér et al., 2017)or experiencing low satisfaction and engagement levels (Löfström & Pyhältö, 2014) due to an
ineffective supervision process and other related issues pertaining to international postgraduate
students. The most common challenge faced by international postgraduate students is limited

81

IAFOR Journal of Education: Studies in Education

Volume 8 – Issue 4 – 2020

English proficiency skills in writing, reading and speaking (Alsahafi & Shin, 2017; Li et al.,2018). Thus, international postgraduate students in Malaysia acknowledged that they mighttake up to three hours to read and understand one journal article because the vocabulary andterminologies used in some academic journals created complications for them incomprehending key arguments of the article (Kaur & Sidhu, 2009). Postgraduate students in
Malaysia have also reported that they were unable to write research papers effectively inEnglish because they had insufficient knowledge of discourse patterns common to academic
articles and this hindered their meaning-making process for writing purposes (Kaur & Sidhu,
2009).
Principally, international students experience difficulties in establishing good academic andsocial relationships with lecturers due to the inadequacy of their language skills (Kim, 2007).
This leads to communication tensions because English language limitations interfere with theirsocial and academic communication: a lack of grammar hinders them from articulating theirideas in English, thus impacting the relationship between students and lecturers/supervisors(Kim, 2007). In addition to language incompetence, Korean students in a United States-based
study by Kim (2007) acknowledged several interaction challenges, such as discrepancies
between the style of guidance or supervision from the supervisors or lecturers and the students’
expectations, student passivity in discussion and supervisor unavailability.
Critical to international postgraduate students’ academic success is their ability to use libraryservices for a variety of academic and research tasks of reading-to-writing, such as writing
research papers, theses, assignments and scientific papers (Mu, 2007). International students
mainly face challenges in using such services due to their low level of familiarity with librarysystems and resources (Mu, 2007), which may differ from those in their previous educational
background. As a result, international postgraduate students in a New Zealand-based study(Mu, 2007) expressed concerns about accessing online databases and catalogues for books,
journals and other reading materials, print indexes, library classification systems, locatingbooks, information retrieval skills and citing information (Harmon & Wales, 1999). These
challenging experiences then contribute to non-completion of the degree program or nontimely completion, as well as hindering the research growth of postgraduate students.
There are, too, multiple supervision challenges that contribute to research failure experiencesof international postgraduate students (Gao, 2019; Khozaei et al., 2015; Mohamed et al., 2012).
For example, one of the most common breakdowns in supervision is the supervisor’s varied
roles in the institution. The supervisor’s main role is to provide substantial time to guide a
student in the chosen research project. However, as they themselves are active researchers andhave other academic priorities, such as teaching and administrative loads, supervisors tend toneglect supervision time (Gao, 2019). In Gao’s (2019) study, an international postgraduate
student was excited to be associated with an internationally renowned scholar in his field;
however, by the time of enrolment the supervisor had started a collaborative research projectwith a university in the United States, leaving this student alone on the supervision journey,
which eventually impacted research progress severely. Alternatively, supervisor lack of
research expertise or knowledge (Khozaei et al., 2015) in a specific discipline has led students
experiencing research failure: for example, postgraduate students in Khozaei et al.’s (2015)
study pointed out that, by not having a supervisor who had in-depth knowledge on statisticalanalyses, understanding of the whole research proposal was jeopardised. Gube et al. (2017)
found that postgraduate students do value discipline-expert supervisors because the latter speed
up research progress by “connecting [students] with appropriate literature and contacts in thefield” (p. 7). As a result, “the role of supervisors has been often cited as an important82

IAFOR Journal of Education: Studies in Education

Volume 8 – Issue 4 – 2020

contributing factor to the success of graduate students” (Khozaei et al., 2015, p. 449) andsupervisors neglecting their responsibilities as supervisors can be a major interruption to theirstudents’ research progress.
Supervision issues mainly reported in Malaysia include individual behavior or personality
clashes between students and supervisors (Sidhu et al., 2014) due to differences in academic
culture. For instance, Al-Zubaidi and Rechards (2010) have explained how students from somecountries are taught to express their opinions directly and assertively and yet there are also
students who are educated to state their ideas indirectly in supervisory discussions. Both ofthese can result in offensive or unpleasant relationship outcomes for both parties. Sidhu et al.’s(2014) study further found that Malaysian supervisors may speak abruptly to international
students when they fail to comprehend a supervisor’s expectations. As a result, international
students felt discouraged, scared of supervisors and lacked confidence in timely completion(Sidhu et al., 2014). According to Ismail and Abiddin (2009), a high attrition rate is apparent
among PhD students in Malaysia and there are also many cases of non-timely completion of
PhD studies.
Other literature commonly relates supervision issues to a supervisor’s busy schedule (Abiddin& West, 2007), the differing levels of expectation between the supervisor and students (Ismail& Abiddin, 2009), communication issues (Ismail et al., 2013) and lack of clear guidance andfeedback (Wang & Li, 2008). International postgradaute students in Khozaei et al.’s (2015)
study also stated that repeated harsh feedback received from supervisors hampered theirresearch growth and contributed to their low confidence levels. When these supervision issues
reach severe levels, supervision ethical issues enter the discussion. According to Löfström and
Pyhältö (2020), “ethics is comprised of general, normative principles concerning what is
acceptable and what is not” (p. 537). Further, “ethics refers to expectations regarding moral
positions, integrity refers to acting upon those moral positions” (Löfström & Pyhältö, 2020, p.
537) and therefore the term “supervision ethics” is used in this paper to understand the degreeof moral behaviour of supervisors from the perspective of postgraduate students. As such,supervision ethical issues are seen as dereliction of a supervisor’s responsibility towards
supervisees (Löfström & Pyhältö, 2017). For instance, Middle Eastern postgraduate students
studying in one South East Asian university experienced research hindrance due to thesupervisor’s unavailability and the lack of commitment shown towards assisting students(Khozaei et al., 2015). Davis (2019) further posits that a supervisor’s hectic roster impacts on
students negatively, “leading to discomfort, loss of self-esteem and finally, all too often, peril”(p. 454). The extent of a supervisor’s busy schedule and lack of feedback provision have led to
fidelity issues in terms of supervision abandonment and inadequate supervision (Löfström &Pyhältö, 2017) and have huge negative implications for international students’ academic
success.
Although Davis (2019) argues that fundamental challenges of supervision include supervisory
expertise, time-related qualities and feedback, realistically these challenges are intertwined.
The challenges discussed in this section are entirely difficulties faced by international
postgraduate students without further understanding the impact of these obstacles oninternational students’ academic failure experiences in Malaysia. The research question of thispaper is therefore “What are the critical supervision challenges faced by international
postgraduate students that have significant influence on their academic failure experiences?”83

IAFOR Journal of Education: Studies in Education

Volume 8 – Issue 4 – 2020

Research Design and Methodology
The empirical data in this paper originated from a PhD project that explored academic successexperiences of international postgraduate students at a Malaysian research university.
Hermeneutic phenomenology was developed by Heidegger (1889-1976) and has both elementsof lived experiences (phenomenology) and of interpretation (hermeneutic) for understanding;here the research participants’ academic failure experiences (Ajjawi & Higgs, 2007).
Heidegger’s hermeneutic phenomenology is concerned with the lived human experience and“addresses experience from the perspectives of meanings, understandings and interpretations”(Pernecky & Jamal, 2010, p. 1056). Its main focus as a method is on understanding the meaningof experiences by searching for themes and engagement with the data interpretively with a lessimportance on the essence of the experience (Sloan & Bowe, 2013). It offers researchers theopportunity to explore, understand and interpret experiences.
Participants
Data were collected from 33 international postgraduate students (21 males, 12 females) at a
research university in Malaysia. Participants were invited using a purposive sampling method:
the author made an initial contact with the elected international postgraduate ambassadors
through their publicly available contact details via the Student Ambassador Program (SAP)
website. Participants were also selected using the snowball sampling technique when the initial
participants from the SAP identified further candidates (Minichiello et al., 2008). Notices torecruit participants were also posted on notice boards in the postgraduate lounge, library andInternational House (accommodation). Table 1 illustrates the demographic details ofinternational postgraduate students who participated.
Table 1: Demographic details of international postgraduate students
GenderNationality

Faculty

Information
Male
Female
India
Iraq
Iran
Yemen
Nigeria
China
Indonesia
Sri Lanka
Pakistan
Palestine
Cambodia
Bangladesh
Somalia
Pharmacy
Education
Communication
Humanities
Computer Science
Architecture
BiologyManagement

84

Number of IS
21
12
4
4
4
3
3
3
3
2
2
2
1
1
1
5
5
4
3
3
3
2
2

IAFOR Journal of Education: Studies in Education

DegreeLength of Candidature

Volume 8 – Issue 4 – 2020

Language
Industrial Technology
Physics
Mathematics
Business
PhD
Masters0 – 11 months
1st year
2nd year
3rd year
4th year
5th year
Graduated

2
1
1
1
1
23
10
8
10
4
5
3
1
2

Pseudonyms are used to preserve the identity of participants. In reporting, qualitative
comments, the following convention is used: IS for international postgraduate student,
interview number (i.e. IS 1, IS 2, etc.).
Data Collection
Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted in English for between 30 and 60 minutes
at a Malaysian university and were audio-taped with a digital voice recorder with thepermission from the participants to ensure that all their perspectives were captured accurately.
The main ideas addressed in the interviews included experiences of academic success andfailure, challenges that contributed to these experiences, strategies employed to overcome
challenges, and factors that enhanced academic success. Interviews were subsequently
transcribed by the author. Students were mostly interviewed in the University Postgraduate
Lounge.
Data Analysis
This study sought to interpret the participants’ social lived experiences by analysing theinformation they provided using thematic analysis. Van Manen’s (1990) method was adopted
because it is one of the most complete and popular hermeneutic methods that focuses on“understanding the meaning of experience (by searching for themes) with greater interpretative
engagement with the data” (Langdridge, 2007, p. 109). Van Manen describes the method’sbase as built on three approaches: holistic reading to achieve a holistic understanding of thephenomenon; selective reading, highlighting significant statements to formulate meanings; anddetailed or line-by-line reading to consider every sentence. The author used holistic andselective reading to analyse the data, because this would “result in a good balance between partand whole reading and less likelihood of idiosyncratic interpretations that are beyond the data”(Langdridge, 2007, p. 124). Techniques proposed by Boyatzis (1998), Braun and Clarke (2006)
and Creswell (2008) were also adopted to complement van Manen’s hermeneutic
phenomenological approach, which is less prescriptive and guided more by the relationshipbetween the text and the researcher.
An inductive approach was adopted. Data analysis began with coding, collating codes into
possible themes and generating a thematic map (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The author manually
selected the shortest transcript and assigned key words or phrases that described whatparticipants meant (Tesch, 1990). At this stage, the author used van Manen’s second approach,selective reading or highlighting, to see which phrases represented the phenomenon underinvestigation. While doing the coding, the author asked “What statement(s) or phrases(s) seem85

IAFOR Journal of Education: Studies in Education

Volume 8 – Issue 4 – 2020

particularly essential or revealing about the phenomenon or experience being described?” (vanManen, 1990, p. 93) in order to formulate the meanings.
The next step was to group similar codes and redundant codes and reduce the list to a smaller,
more manageable number (Braun & Clarke, 2006; Creswell, 2008). The process of thematic
analysis is an iterative one (Braun & Clarke, 2006): the author revisited the list and data to see
if any new codes emerged (Creswell, 2008). Quotes that supported the codes were highlighted(Tesch, 1990) and the list reduced to establish themes that answered the research question.
Findings
Supervision Issues
The lack of support from the supervisor in terms of insufficient provision of feedback on
research work and communication breakdown due to the supervisor’s busy schedule were themain reasons for an Iranian Master’s student experiencing academic failure: the student fromthe Communication Faculty was left for months to find her own footing in her research work
due to her supervisor’s extreme busy schedule; working on her research proposal for nearly ayear on her own, she was deprived of constructive feedback. At this stage of candidature, she
is frustrated; she it yet to present her proposal to the panel so that she can move on to the nextstage of her project:
I really had difficulty finding my supervisor. He was really busy with different
things, inside or outside Malaysia. Most of the time he is not around. I haven’t
presented my proposal yet, and my proposal is completely ready, but he has notread it yet. I am waiting for his comments. I have sent more than 10 emails in
one week to him, trying to call him, even going to his office, but I cannot findhim. For example, when I want to meet him, I go to his office to set an
appointment. About 1 month later I get an appointment and in this one-month
period, he may postpone or cancel the meeting two or three times. And it willtake another two months to meet him. It should be our meeting but it won’t lastmore than 15 minutes, as he will be talking on the phone, talking to people. (IS10)
Several other PhD students indicated the same issues with their supervisors: they feel very tiredof “chasing after” their supervisors. An Indonesian student said her supervisor tended tomisplace her thesis chapters due to the supervisor’s busy schedule. As a result, she had to
reprint her chapters several times for comment:
My supervisor is very busy. I pass my chapters to her and then she needs a lotof time to read and to give the feedback. Sometimes I pass on the chapters, andthen she said, ‘I lost it somewhere, I don’t know where I put it’, so I need toreprint again, and pass it to her again… Sometimes I cry, but [there is] nothing
to be done [about it]. So that’s the big challenge for me. (IS 6)
Two PhD students and one Master’s student claimed that they had challenges in meeting
regularly with supervisors and receiving constructive feedback on draft chapters:
I submitted my third draft one and half months ago. I am still waiting forcomments. I emailed and I have given a printout copy, I am still waiting forcomments. It’s only 23 pages. (IS 21)

86

IAFOR Journal of Education: Studies in Education

Volume 8 – Issue 4 – 2020

He was very busy, and at the same time he doesn’t have time to edit or to see,to talk, [he was] travelling, meeting, lecturing in other places. (IS 23)
There is no communication between me and her. I feel very tired with her. Everytime I make contact to see her, she said “Ok”. I go and wait for her for 1-2
hours, [but] I couldn’t find her. Later I feel very sad. (IS 12)
As a result of these disappointments, a Master’s student said that she just wants to finish her
Masters and pursue her PhD degree in another Faculty or even in other countries such as
Australia or New Zealand. This student, however, went on to work with her supervisor:
I really want to get rid of it [the Masters]…But for sure I won’t start a PhD in
this [Faculty]… maybe in another [Faculty]… and maybe in another country…
[I am] thinking about Australia or New Zealand… I don’t want to have thischallenge again… It was not a good experience for me. (IS 10)
For other students, one of the main strategies adopted was to change supervisors because of bad
supervision experiences. For example, a Master’s student from Iraq decided to change hersupervisor due to limited support in the research project. Wisker and Robinson (2013) argue
that changing supervisors influences research progress because students then might take moretime to complete their research. However, this student was determined to change her supervisor
because she wanted to feel comfortable in completing her studies and found herself in an
unpleasant supervision situation:
I decided to change my supervisor. I found it is ok to be late, but it is better tofeel comfortable than just take the degree and don’t feel comfortable with it.
(IS 12)Another challenge experienced at this research university was the supervisor’s limited expert
knowledge on the topic. A Palestinian PhD student pointed out:
Sometimes supervisors are not very specialised in that field. Sometimes you feelyour supervisor is disconnected from your field or on what you are going to door what you are thinking. You feel you didn’t make progress or you fail inmaking progress. This makes me think that I didn’t make progress and I feeldepressed. (IS 8)
A PhD student from China claimed that his supervisors seem to lack knowledge relevant to his
research field. As a result, they were unable to provide meaningful guidance in his researchdiscipline and the student felt disconnected from his supervisors:
For the PhD level, sometimes I find the supervision is not very nice, because
my research is Chinese cinema, so all the supervisors here are mostly Malay,
and they have no such background. (IS 3)
These findings do not add to the list of supervision challenges widely acknowledged inscholarly research, but they are serious, authentic reports associated with the spectrum of
academic failure experiences felt by international students at this Malaysian university. Basedon these findings, supervision commitment is being clearly breached because supervisors are87

IAFOR Journal of Education: Studies in Education

Volume 8 – Issue 4 – 2020

too busy to provide feedback and this then has negative implications on the students’ research
work and their research success.
Faculty Mismanagement
Ajjawi et al. (2019b) argue that students generally want to be connected to and supported by
the university and academic staff members in order to excel in their studies. However, a fourthyear Management PhD student from Iran expressed his disbelief on the inappropriate treatment
he received from the Faculty’s management once his supervisor left the university:
My supervisor left and nobody wants to help me and [the faculty members] gave
me a lot of corrections based on my proposal defense. I haven’t had access to
the EG machine which was my main equipment to do my research. The
management sent the machine to [another branch campus]. (IS 24)
This particular student described his academic failure experience thus: “everything is reverse,
no happy life, boring life, no acknowledgement, no scholarship, no admiration by others” when
his supportive supervisor left the university. He received insufficient support from his Faculty’s
management in terms of accessibility to vital equipment. Other academics from the Faculty
were reluctant to supervise his research project because the research was different from thetypical management research conducted in the Faculty. He was asked to change his topic after
three years’ working on the initial research which he had been so passionate about. His grief iscaptured thus:
Writing a new proposal after three years, I have changed my lovely thesis anddo the stupid stuff in the field and do the questionnaire, typical management
research which I don’t like, but I am forced to do… [It is a] boring…boring
life… when you are forced to do this. It means you are forced to do… I don’t
have a choice right now… This is not my field, this is not my passion. (IS 24)
The student feels he has been left with no choice about his research change.
Discussion
The main purpose of this paper is to explore diagnostic supervision challenges experienced byinternational postgraduate students that significantly influenced their academic failure
experiences. The results have highlighted two main supervision challenges that contributed toacademic failure incidents in a Malaysian university. The first main challenge surrounds
supervision. Good supervision is essential in research students’ educational journeys but
students at this Malaysian university reported supervision issues arising from lack ofconstructive feedback by academic staff due to busy staff schedules and supervisor
unfamiliarity with the students’ research topics. Although et al. (2007) highlighted that apositive supervisory relationship is primary in ensuring that students are guided andempowered to be independent learners in gaining a Masters or PhD degree, lack of constructive
feedback and communication breakdown reported here influenced students’ research
performance because they were unable to revise their writing in good time without helpfulcomments from their supervisors. As a result, students experienced delay in completing theirresearch on time and in developing constructive communication on research work with theirsupervisors.

88

IAFOR Journal of Education: Studies in Education

Volume 8 – Issue 4 – 2020

Cornér et al. (2017) argue that frequency of supervision is a fundamental element of students’satisfaction with the supervision process and it reduces the risk of dropping out. However, forpostgruadate international students in this study, lack of timely guidance and feedback
discouraged them in move on in their projects. As a consequence, students experienced
academic failure in the sense that there was limited progress in their research. Postgraduate
students in Löfström and Pyhältö’s (2014) study also experienced inadequate supervisionbecause supervisors were to busy to provide research direction and had too many supervisees.
Such incompetent, abandonment and inadequate supervision is categorised as an ethical issue,
according to Goodyear, Crego and Johnston (1992).
Postgraduate students in Gube et al.’s (2017) study argued that discipline-expert supervisors
were appreciated because they were strongly connected with the discipline context andtherefore “provide[ed] support in relation to research direction and content-specific feedback”(p. 10). This is a sharp contrast to experiences reported here, where some students did notreceive positive or clear feedback from the supervisor because the supervisor lacked relevant
knowledge. This is a dishonest on the part of the supervisor and this then impacts not only
students’ research success but also students’ well-being in terms of their experiencing
psychological distress such as depression for not progressing in their research work. As aconsequence, lack of guidance does impede international students’ completion of research andstudies within a stipulated timeframe. Although the Malaysian Internationalisation Policy
document (Ministry of Higher Education, 2011) strongly recommends that is it the
responsibility of universities to provide positive learning experiences to international students,
these supervision challenges obstruct the national strategy that wishes to promote student
engagement and experience.
The second main challenge is mismanagement at Faculty level. The Faculty management failed
to acknowledge that postgraduate research program is indeed a vibrant body of research, asargued by Wisker et al. (2003). The management clearly neglected to accommodate, facilitate
and manage a student’s research when his supervisor suddenly left: the PhD student was left
“hanging” or an “orphan”, in Wisker and Robinson’s (2013) terms. As a consequence, thestudent was devastated by the whole situation, resulting in limited passion and enthusiasm tocarry on with his new research topic which to him was not challenging enough compared tohis first topic. Yet this student is resilient: he wants to persevere with his PhD studies (although
not within the completion timeline), which also aligns with established literature thatinternational students have an “edge” in striving, thriving and demonstrating resilience in theirstudies (Nguyen, 2013).
International postgraduate students in this study have adopted several varied strategies toovercome supervision challenges. Some had the mindset of going along with the supervisors’
timeline, because too much time and effort had been invested in the research and also in the
supervisory relationship – there was no turning back. Nonetheless, after these negative
experiences, students may not want to persevere or engage with the supervisors for further
educational opportunities. Others took a drastic step in changing their supervisors because they
were just uncomfortable with the situation.
Conclusion and Implications
The findings of this paper reveal not only new but unique findings on the international
postgraduate students’ academic failure experiences at one of the research universities in
Malaysia. A spectrum of academic failure experiences was experienced by international

89

IAFOR Journal of Education: Studies in Education

Volume 8 – Issue 4 – 2020

postgraduate students due to various supervision challenges. Students felt that they were notvalued or admired; they were unhappy, demotivated, depressed, disappointed, tired andfrustrated.
Two main supervision challenges that were themselves unethical were also observed. Firstly,
management at the Faculty level was unethical in “taking away” research equipment of aninternational student while this student was still collecting data for his PhD study. In addition,
due to his supervisor leaving the university, this student was asked to change his research topic
in his third year of study, which is wrong to do if the ground is that the research area is uniqueand yet no academic is interested in that topic. Ethically and morally, PhD students needspecific guidance and feedback in their research project, even though independent learning isvital and is asked for from students. But, in this situation, guidance was not provided nor was
genuine assistance offered to this student to pursue his research.
Secondly, inadequate supervision has contributed to international postgraduate students
experiencing not only academic failure but also undergoing psychological distress. In
particular, receiving unclear feedback or none at all from the supervisor due to the latter’s busy
schedule, lack of discipline expertise or lack of research support is unacceptable, because it hasbreached the supervision code of ethics. Students are left stressed, demotivated and unsure of
their research direction in their project, which subsequently impacts their research growth.
These findings contribute to the non-Western literature on academic failure experiences,
particularly for valuable and vulnerable stakeholders – the international students at thisprestigious research university. In practical terms, these findings have not only exposed serious
academic and research problems, they also have implications for students’ academic failure
experiences. Singh and Jack (2018) reported that international postgraduate students seekinternational education to achieve academic success, build knowledge and skills, andcontribute to their home country on return. However, if these benefits are abridged by researchor academic issues, international student numbers may dwindle in Malaysia.
Recent scholars (Brimble, 2016; Löfström et al., 2015; McCrohon & Nyland, 2016) havesuggested that there is a lack of institutional guidance and support in place for academic staff
members to adhere to research integrity practices and procedures. However, many Western
universities, particularly Australian universities, have taken initiatives to build online modules
on research integrity, informative websites on research integrity, and conduct training anddevelopment workshops and forums for faculty staff members (Devlin, 2006; East, 2016;
Zangenehmadar et al., 2015). Since Malaysia is a new contender in attracting international
students, such ethical guidelines and policy concerning supervision and management support
need to be put in place to minimise and then eradicate challenges experienced by international
postgraduate students. Such guidelines and policy will also generate positive experiences ofinternational students’ academic success in Malaysia.
Like many other research studies, this study has its limitations. This research was based onsemi-structured interviews from one single research university in Malaysia, which limits thegeneralizability of these findings. Further research could overcome this limitation by
conducting mix-methods research design with supervisors, as well as with domestic students,from public and private universities in Malaysia and beyond.

90

IAFOR Journal of Education: Studies in Education

Volume 8 – Issue 4 – 2020

References
Abiddin, N. Z., & West, M. (2007). Effective meeting in graduate research student
supervision. Journal of Social Sciences, 3(1), 27–35.
https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.962230
Ajjawi, R., Boud, D., Zacharias, N., Dracup, M., & Bennett, S. (2019a). How do students
adapt in response to academic failure? Student Success, 10(3), 84–91. https://doi.org/10.5204/ssj.v10i3.1403
Ajjawi, R., Dracup, M., Zacharias, N., Bennett, S., & Boud, D. (2019b). Persisting students’
explanations of and emotional responses to academic failure. Higher Education
Research & Development, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2019.1664999
Ajjawi, R., & Higgs, J. (2007). Using hermeneutic phenomenology to investigate how
experienced practitioners learn to communicate clinical reasoning. The Qualitative
Report, 12(4), 612–638.
Alsahafi, N., & Shin, S. C. (2017). Factors affecting the academic and cultural adjustment of
Saudi international students in Australian universities. Journal of International
Students,7(1), 53–72.
Al-Zubaidi, K. O., & Rechards, C. (2010). Arab postgraduate students in Malaysia:
Identifying and overcoming the cultural and language barriers. Arab World English
Journal, 1(1), 107–129. https:// doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2777058
Asgari, M., & Borzooei, M. (2014). Evaluating the perception of Iranian students as
educational tourists toward Malaysia: In-depth interviews. Interdisciplinary Journalof Contemporary Research in Business, 5(9), 81–109.
Astin, A. W. (1976). Academic gamesmanship: Student-oriented change in higher education.
Praeger.
Ayán, M. N. R., & García, M. T. C. (2008). Prediction of university students’ academic
achievement by linear and logistic models. Spanish Journal of Psychology, 11(1),275–288. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1138741600004315
Boyatzis, R. E. (1998). Transforming qualitative information: Thematic analysis and codedevelopment. Sage Publications.
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Researchin Psychology, 3(2), 77–101. https://doi.org//abs/10.1191/1478088706QP063OA
Brimble, M. (2016). Why students cheat: An exploration of the motivators of student
academic dishonesty in higher education. In T. Bretag (Ed.), Handbook of Academic
Integrity, (pp. 365–382). Springer Science+Business Media.
Campbell, J., & Li, M. (2008). Asian students’ voices: An empirical study of Asian students’learning experiences at a New Zealand university. Journal of Studies in International
Education, 12(4), 375–396. https://doi.org/10.1177/1028315307299422
Cornér, S., Löfström, E., & Pyhältö, K. (2017). The relationships between doctoral students’
perceptions of supervision and burnout. International Journal of Doctoral Studies,
12(12), 91–106. https://doi.org/10.28945/3754
Creswell, J. W. (2008). Educational research: Planning, conducting and evaluating
quantitative and qualitative research (3rd ed.). Pearson Prentice Hall.
da Silva, T. L., & Ravindran, A. V. (2016). Contributors to academic failure in postsecondary
education: A review and a Canadian context. International Journal of
Noncommunicable Diseases, 1(1), 9–17. https://doi.org/10.4103/2468-8827.184854

91

IAFOR Journal of Education: Studies in Education

Volume 8 – Issue 4 – 2020

Davis, D. (2019). Students’ perceptions of supervisory qualities: What do students want?
What do they believe they receive? International Journal of Doctoral Studies, 14,
431–464. https://doi.org/10.28945/4361
Desa, A., Yusooff, F., & Kadir, N. B. Y. A. (2012). Acculturative stress among international
postgraduate students at UKM. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 59, 364–
369. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.09.287
Gao, Y. (2019). Experiences of Chinese international doctoral students in Canada who
withdrew: A narrative inquiry. International Journal of Doctoral Studies, 14, 259–
276. https://doi.org/10.28945/4240
Goodyear, R. K., Crego, C. A., & Johnston, M. W. (1992). Ethical issues in the supervisionof student research: A study of critical incidents. Professional Psychology: Researchand Practice, 23, 203–210. https://doi.org/10.1037/0735-7028.23.3.203
Gube, J. C. C., Getenet, S. T., Satariyan, A., & Muhammad, Y. (2017). Towards “operating
within” the field: Doctoral students’ views of supervisors’ discipline expertise.
International Journal of Doctoral Studies, 12, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.28945/3641
Harmon, H. A., & Wales, B. A. (1999). International and domestic students’ perception oflibrary personnel and resources. Journal of Teaching in International Business, 10(3),129–148. https://doi.org/10.1300/J066v10n03_09
Helfer, F., & Drew, S. (2019). Students’ perceptions of doctoral supervision: A study in anengineering program in Australia. International Journal of Doctoral Studies, 14, 499–
524. https://doi.org/10.28945/4368
Ismail, A., & Abiddin, N. Z. (2009). The importance of graduate students’ needs onsupervisory contribution in a Malaysian public university. The Social Sciences, 4(4),355–365.
Ismail, H. M., Majid, F. A., & Ismail, I. S. (2013). “It’s a complicated” relationship: Research
students’ perspective on doctoral supervision. Procedia-Social and Behavioral
Sciences, 90, 165–170. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.07.078
Kaur, S., & Sidhu, G. K. (2009). A qualitative study of postgraduate students’ learning
experiences in Malaysia. International Education Studies, 2(3), 47–56.
https://doi.org/10.5539/ies.v2n3p47
Khozaei, F., Naidu, S., Khozaei, Z., & Salleh, N. A. (2015). An exploratory study of factorsthat affect the research progress of international PhD students from the Middle East.
Education+ Training, 57(4), 448–460. https://doi.org/10.1108/ET-09-2013-0115
Kim, Y. (2007). Difficulties in quality doctoral academic advising: Experiences of Korean
students. Journal of Research in International Education, 6(2), 171–193.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1475240907078613
Langdridge, D. (2007). Phenomenological psychology: Theory, research and method.
Pearson Education.
Li, J., Wang, Y., Liu, X., Xu, Y., & Cui, T. (2018). Academic adaptation among international
students from East Asian countries: A consensual qualitative research. Journal ofInternational Students, 8(1), 194–214. https://doi.org/10.32674/jis.v8i1.160
Löfström, E., & Pyhältö, K. (2014). Ethical issues in doctoral supervision: The perspectivesof PhD students in the natural and behavioral sciences. Ethics & Behavior, 24(3),
195–214. https://doi.org/10.1080/10508422.2013.830574
Löfström, E., & Pyhältö, K. (2017). Ethics in the supervisory relationship: supervisors’ anddoctoral students’ dilemmas in the natural and behavioural sciences. Studies in Higher
Education, 42(2), 232–247. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2015.1045475

92

IAFOR Journal of Education: Studies in Education

Volume 8 – Issue 4 – 2020

Löfström, E., & Pyhältö, K. (2020). What are ethics in doctoral supervision, and how do theymatter? Doctoral students’ perspective. Scandinavian Journal of Educational
Research, 64(4), 535–550. https://doi.org/10.1080/00313831.2019.1595711
Löfström, E., Trotman, T., Furnari, M., & Shephard, K. (2015). Who teaches academic
integrity and how do they teach it? Higher Education, 69(3), 435–448.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-014-9784-3
McCrohon, M., & Nyland, B. (2016). Academic experiences in teaching Chineseinternational students. Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education, 8(2), 238–
251. https://doi.org/10.1108/JARHE-11-2014-0106
Minichiello, V., Aroni, R., & Hays, T. (2008). In-depth interviewing: Principles, techniques,
analysis (3rd ed.). Pearson Education Australia.
Ministry of Education (2019). 2018 Higher education statistics. Kuala Lumpur: Ministry of
Education.
Ministry of Higher Education. (2011). Internationalisation policy for higher education
Malaysia 2011. Kuala Lumpur: Ministry of Higher Education.
Ministry of Higher Education (2018). 2017 Higher education statistics. Kuala Lumpur.
Mohamed, A., Ismail, A. H., Mustaffa, M. M., & Mohd, N. (2012). Exploring factors
influencing the success of doctoral students in engineering. Procedia-Social and
Behavioral Sciences, 60, 325–332. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.09.387
Mu, C. (2007). Marketing academic library resources and information services tointernational students. Reference Services Review, 35(4), 571–583.
https://doi.org/10.1108/00907320710838390
Nguyen, H. M. (2013). Faculty advisors’ experiences with international graduate students.
Journal of International Students, 3(2), 102–116.
Pernecky, T., & Jamal, T. (2010). (Hermeneutic) phenomenology in tourism studies. Annalsof Tourism Research, 37(4), 1055–1075. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2010.04.002
Sidhu, G. K., Kaur, S., Fook, C. Y., & Yunus, F. W. (2014). Postgraduate supervision:Comparing student perspectives from Malaysia and the United Kingdom. ProcediaSocial and Behavioral Sciences, 123, 151–159.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.01.1409
Singh, J. K. N. (2018). What are the factors that contribute to postgraduate international
students’ academic success? A Malaysian qualitative study. Higher Education
Research & Development, 37(5), 1035–1049.
https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2018.1467383
Singh, J. K. N., & Jack, G. (2018). The benefits of overseas study for international
postgraduate students in Malaysia. Higher Education, 75(4), 607–624.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-017-0159-4
Singh, J. K.N., Schapper, J., & Jack, G. (2014). The importance of place for international
students’ choice of university: A case study at a Malaysian university. Journal ofStudies in International Education, 18(5), 463–474.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1028315314523990
Singh, J. K. N., Jack, G., & Schapper, J. (2012). Factors that contribute to academic successof international students: A literature review. Bulletin of Higher Education Research,
19 (June), 4–6.

93

IAFOR Journal of Education: Studies in Education

Volume 8 – Issue 4 – 2020

Sloan, A., & Bowe, B. (2014). Phenomenology and hermeneutic phenomenology: The
philosophy, the methodologies, and using hermeneutic phenomenology to investigate
lecturers’ experiences of curriculum design. Quality and Quantity, 48(3), 1291–1303.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-013-9835-3
Tesch, R. (1990). Qualitative research: Analysis types and software tools. The Falmer Press.
van Manen, M. (1990). Researching lived experience: Human science for an action sensitive
pedagogy. Althouse Press.
Wang, T., & Li, L. Y. (2008). Understanding international postgraduate research students’challenges and pedagogical needs in thesis writing. International Journal of
Pedagogies and Learning, 4(3), 88–96. https://doi.org/10.5172/ijpl.4.3.88
Wisker, G., & Robinson, G. (2013). Doctoral ‘orphans’: Nurturing and supporting the
success of postgraduates who have lost their supervisors. Higher Education Research& Development, 32(2), 300–313. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2012.657160
Wisker, G., Robinson, G., & Shacham, M. (2007). Postgraduate research success:Communities of practice involving cohorts, guardian supervisors and online
communities. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 44(3), 301–320.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14703290701486720
Wisker, G., Robinson, G., Trafford, V., Warnes, M., & Creighton, E. (2003). Fromsupervisory dialogues to successful PhDs: Strategies supporting and enabling thelearning conversations of staff and students at postgraduate level. Teaching in Higher
Education, 8(3), 383–397. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562510309400
Zhou, Y.-X., Ou, C.-Q., Zhao, Z.-T., Wan, C.-S., Guo, C., Li, L., & Chen, P.-Y. (2014). The
impact of self-concept and college involvement on the first-year success of medical
students in China. Advances in Health Sciences Education, 1–17.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10459-014-9515-7
Corresponding author: Jasvir Kaur Nachatar Singh
Email: j.nachatarsingh@latrobe.edu.au94