title: Learning to be: Acculturation as a learning process a case study of international chinese PhD students at a New Zealand university

authors: Yuan, Yu

subjects: Learning

abstract: It is challenging to transition from a Master’s level of education to a PhD level, more so when students complete their PhD education in an unfamiliar academic and societal environment. PhD education undertaken internationally can, at the same time, provide tremendous learning opportunities. Accordingly, acculturation to the doctoral journey seems to be important for successful doctoral research. Due to the focus of the adopted theories, previous scholars have concentrated either on the cognitive, psychological, or social aspects of academic acculturation. In addition, the focus on more narrow ways of development or adjustment has not adequately captured the process of academic acculturation. This study adopts Illeris's Comprehensive Learning Theory (CLT) to shed light on academic acculturation. It aims to integrate the cognitive, emotional and interaction aspects of academic acculturation to explore the possible processes by which Chinese PhD students are acculturated to their doctoral journeys in New Zealand. The research was guided by the overarching research question: How do international Chinese PhD students learn to acculturate academically in a New Zealand university?
Given its exploratory nature, this study embraced a qualitative research paradigm. To gain in-depth insight into academic acculturation, this study conducted semi-structured interviews with Chinese PhD students enrolled at a New Zealand university. The interviews employed critical incident techniques and were supported by follow-up interviews. In total, eleven students took part in the semi-structured interviews. Each participant was encouraged to share their memorable doctoral experiences and to elaborate on their understanding and emotions of doctoral experiences.
Through thematic analysis, this study identified forms of learning content, incentives and social interactions that were embedded in the process of academic acculturation. Besides the research itself, Chinese PhD students encountered various contents to learn in order to guarantee the success of their doctoral journey.  These students demonstrated diverse motivations, which served as incentives for their pursuit of a doctoral degree. To ensure success, Chinese PhD students also engaged in interactions, including observations, learning initiatives, and interactions with various people. Furthermore, Chinese PhD students demonstrated four processes to academic acculturation: assimilation, multiple identities construction, accommodation and transformation. Yet, their previous educational experiences could potentially lead to misunderstandings and defence against acculturating to their doctoral journey.  Combined, the findings underscored the intricacies of an academic acculturation process, which need to be investigated through content, incentive and interaction dimensions as a comprehensive whole. Four academic acculturation processes underscored the situational nature of the acculturation process, influenced by both Chinese students' prior educational backgrounds and their specific doctoral journeys. This strengthens the notion that individuals could experience different academic acculturation pathways, and any single process (such as knowledge acquisition, transformation or adjustments) is inadequate to encompass the entirety of potential acculturation processes.
This study contributes a holistic perspective that helps doctoral supervisors and administrators provide relevant support to international Chinese doctoral students, as well as other international students. The research encourages Chinese PhD students to enrich their research skills and experiences before their doctoral journey. The students should also be aware that the doctoral journey in all likelihood will not take place as they expected, as their pre-established experiences might not guarantee a smooth doctoral journey and even cause challenges. Yet, challenges also contain great opportunities for enhancing knowledge, academic capacities, adaptability and even personal growth. This study also suggests that the process of academic acculturation can be enhanced through observations and active participation in diverse activities, as well as engage during interactions with a variety of individuals. These interactions collectively contribute to enriching students' knowledge and facilitating necessary adjustments for successful acculturation to the new academic environment.

text: Learning to be: Acculturation as a learning process a case study of international chinese PhD students at a New Zealand university It is challenging to transition from a Master’s level of education to a PhD level, more so when students complete their PhD education in an unfamiliar academic and societal environment. PhD education undertaken internationally can, at the same time, provide tremendous learning opportunities. Accordingly, acculturation to the doctoral journey seems to be important for successful doctoral research. Due to the focus of the adopted theories, previous scholars have concentrated either on the cognitive, psychological, or social aspects of academic acculturation. In addition, the focus on more narrow ways of development or adjustment has not adequately captured the process of academic acculturation. This study adopts Illeris's Comprehensive Learning Theory (CLT) to shed light on academic acculturation. It aims to integrate the cognitive, emotional and interaction aspects of academic acculturation to explore the possible processes by which Chinese PhD students are acculturated to their doctoral journeys in New Zealand. The research was guided by the overarching research question: How do international Chinese PhD students learn to acculturate academically in a New Zealand university?
Given its exploratory nature, this study embraced a qualitative research paradigm. To gain in-depth insight into academic acculturation, this study conducted semi-structured interviews with Chinese PhD students enrolled at a New Zealand university. The interviews employed critical incident techniques and were supported by follow-up interviews. In total, eleven students took part in the semi-structured interviews. Each participant was encouraged to share their memorable doctoral experiences and to elaborate on their understanding and emotions of doctoral experiences.
Through thematic analysis, this study identified forms of learning content, incentives and social interactions that were embedded in the process of academic acculturation. Besides the research itself, Chinese PhD students encountered various contents to learn in order to guarantee the success of their doctoral journey.  These students demonstrated diverse motivations, which served as incentives for their pursuit of a doctoral degree. To ensure success, Chinese PhD students also engaged in interactions, including observations, learning initiatives, and interactions with various people. Furthermore, Chinese PhD students demonstrated four processes to academic acculturation: assimilation, multiple identities construction, accommodation and transformation. Yet, their previous educational experiences could potentially lead to misunderstandings and defence against acculturating to their doctoral journey.  Combined, the findings underscored the intricacies of an academic acculturation process, which need to be investigated through content, incentive and interaction dimensions as a comprehensive whole. Four academic acculturation processes underscored the situational nature of the acculturation process, influenced by both Chinese students' prior educational backgrounds and their specific doctoral journeys. This strengthens the notion that individuals could experience different academic acculturation pathways, and any single process (such as knowledge acquisition, transformation or adjustments) is inadequate to encompass the entirety of potential acculturation processes.
This study contributes a holistic perspective that helps doctoral supervisors and administrators provide relevant support to international Chinese doctoral students, as well as other international students. The research encourages Chinese PhD students to enrich their research skills and experiences before their doctoral journey. The students should also be aware that the doctoral journey in all likelihood will not take place as they expected, as their pre-established experiences might not guarantee a smooth doctoral journey and even cause challenges. Yet, challenges also contain great opportunities for enhancing knowledge, academic capacities, adaptability and even personal growth. This study also suggests that the process of academic acculturation can be enhanced through observations and active participation in diverse activities, as well as engage during interactions with a variety of individuals. These interactions collectively contribute to enriching students' knowledge and facilitating necessary adjustments for successful acculturation to the new academic environment.

year: 2024-09-27

title: Secondary education expansion in Tanzania:  Policy and practice implications for teachers’ sense of efficacy

authors: Lawrent, Godlove

subjects: Enactment plan

abstract: Since the introduction of Tanzania’s secondary education expansion policy in 2004 student performance has declined significantly. This trend led me to hypothesise that there may have been a decline in teacher efficacy. The present study investigated the influence of the policy and its implementation on teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs, because these beliefs impact on the quality of teaching. The study used a mixed-method approach, with a focus on case studies. Interviews, questionnaires and documentary reviews were used for gathering data. Ninety-nine secondary school teachers from four schools in the Iringa region of Tanzania participated in this research. Social cognitive theory was employed as a conceptual framework for the project. While inductive procedures were used for analysing the interview data, the questionnaire data were analysed via the Statistical Package for Social Sciences Software (SPSS) before being tabulated and graphed. 

Findings indicated that strategies intended to ensure the successful enactment of the expansion policy were not fully implemented nor targets met. In a number of ways this adversely affected the ability of teachers to go about their work and, consequently, educational outcomes for students. Overall, evidence from this study suggests that the manner in which the expansion policy was enacted and implemented contributed to the erosion of teacher professional identity and social standing, particularly in relation to self-efficacy. This produced further vicious cycles of effects and consequences. Factors associated with school staffing, school infrastructures, resources for teaching, relationships with the community and poor academic standards of enrolled students emerged as central contributors to this negative situation. An analysis of quantitative data strongly suggested that the expansion policy was implemented poorly, which was detrimental to teacher efficacy and, ironically, undermined the policy itself. 

This research adds to a growing body of literature on the sources of teachers’ self-efficacy. Firstly, the study identifies evidence which indicates that social persuasion is one of the most important contributors to social self-efficacy. It also identifies factors which reinforce a view of mastery experiences as the most influential source of self-efficacy. Secondly, the study points out the causes of teachers’ negative emotional states, including factors outside of the school environment. Thirdly, the study found that certain factors which were emphasized by Bandura as having impact on only one specific source of self-efficacy actually have an impact on more than one source of self-efficacy. 

Analysis of the research findings generated three major policy recommendations for helping teachers develop self-efficacy: promoting professional learning; empowering parents and education authority figures; and improving teaching and learning environments. The study also indicates areas for further research in factors related to teacher efficacy in Tanzania. These include: teaching practices in new schools created under the policy; the extent to which the curricula of university teacher education courses influence self-efficacy in professional practice; and how the policy impacts upon the self-efficacy of students as learners.

text: Secondary education expansion in Tanzania:  Policy and practice implications for teachers’ sense of efficacy Since the introduction of Tanzania’s secondary education expansion policy in 2004 student performance has declined significantly. This trend led me to hypothesise that there may have been a decline in teacher efficacy. The present study investigated the influence of the policy and its implementation on teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs, because these beliefs impact on the quality of teaching. The study used a mixed-method approach, with a focus on case studies. Interviews, questionnaires and documentary reviews were used for gathering data. Ninety-nine secondary school teachers from four schools in the Iringa region of Tanzania participated in this research. Social cognitive theory was employed as a conceptual framework for the project. While inductive procedures were used for analysing the interview data, the questionnaire data were analysed via the Statistical Package for Social Sciences Software (SPSS) before being tabulated and graphed. 

Findings indicated that strategies intended to ensure the successful enactment of the expansion policy were not fully implemented nor targets met. In a number of ways this adversely affected the ability of teachers to go about their work and, consequently, educational outcomes for students. Overall, evidence from this study suggests that the manner in which the expansion policy was enacted and implemented contributed to the erosion of teacher professional identity and social standing, particularly in relation to self-efficacy. This produced further vicious cycles of effects and consequences. Factors associated with school staffing, school infrastructures, resources for teaching, relationships with the community and poor academic standards of enrolled students emerged as central contributors to this negative situation. An analysis of quantitative data strongly suggested that the expansion policy was implemented poorly, which was detrimental to teacher efficacy and, ironically, undermined the policy itself. 

This research adds to a growing body of literature on the sources of teachers’ self-efficacy. Firstly, the study identifies evidence which indicates that social persuasion is one of the most important contributors to social self-efficacy. It also identifies factors which reinforce a view of mastery experiences as the most influential source of self-efficacy. Secondly, the study points out the causes of teachers’ negative emotional states, including factors outside of the school environment. Thirdly, the study found that certain factors which were emphasized by Bandura as having impact on only one specific source of self-efficacy actually have an impact on more than one source of self-efficacy. 

Analysis of the research findings generated three major policy recommendations for helping teachers develop self-efficacy: promoting professional learning; empowering parents and education authority figures; and improving teaching and learning environments. The study also indicates areas for further research in factors related to teacher efficacy in Tanzania. These include: teaching practices in new schools created under the policy; the extent to which the curricula of university teacher education courses influence self-efficacy in professional practice; and how the policy impacts upon the self-efficacy of students as learners.

year: 2018

title: Balancing openness with Indigenous data sovereignty: An opportunity to leave no one behind in the journey to sequence all of life

authors: Cartney, Ann M. Mc

abstract: The field of genomics has benefited greatly from its "openness" approach to data sharing. However, with the increasing volume of sequence information being created and stored and the growing number of international genomics efforts, the equity of openness is under question. The United Nations Convention of Biodiversity aims to develop and adopt a standard policy on access and benefit-sharing for sequence information across signatory parties. This standardization will have profound implications on genomics research, requiring a new definition of open data sharing. The redefinition of openness is not unwarranted, as its limitations have unintentionally introduced barriers of engagement to some, including Indigenous Peoples. This commentary provides an insight into the key challenges of openness faced by the researchers who aspire to protect and conserve global biodiversity, including Indigenous flora and fauna, and presents immediate, practical solutions that, if implemented, will equip the genomics community with both the diversity and inclusivity required to respectfully protect global biodiversity.

text: Balancing openness with Indigenous data sovereignty: An opportunity to leave no one behind in the journey to sequence all of life The field of genomics has benefited greatly from its "openness" approach to data sharing. However, with the increasing volume of sequence information being created and stored and the growing number of international genomics efforts, the equity of openness is under question. The United Nations Convention of Biodiversity aims to develop and adopt a standard policy on access and benefit-sharing for sequence information across signatory parties. This standardization will have profound implications on genomics research, requiring a new definition of open data sharing. The redefinition of openness is not unwarranted, as its limitations have unintentionally introduced barriers of engagement to some, including Indigenous Peoples. This commentary provides an insight into the key challenges of openness faced by the researchers who aspire to protect and conserve global biodiversity, including Indigenous flora and fauna, and presents immediate, practical solutions that, if implemented, will equip the genomics community with both the diversity and inclusivity required to respectfully protect global biodiversity.

year: 2022