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Journal of International Education in Business

Enhancing academic skills for first-year overseas business students

Thi Tuyet (June) Tran

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Thi Tuyet (June) Tran , (2013),"Enhancing academic skills for first-year overseas business students", Journal of International Education in Business, Vol 6 Iss 2 pp 165 - 178

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INNOVATIONS IN STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES

Enhancing academic skills for first-year overseas business students

Thi Tuyet ( June) Tran

La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia and Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam

Abstract

Purpose – This study reports on the academic support programs targeting first-year business

students at La Trobe Melbourne The at-risk students were offered both a general academic support

class and a content-based program This study was conducted to explore students’ perception of the

usefulness of these programs The paper also aims to create a better intervention to attract more at-risk

students by exploring the reasons behind the low rate of at-risk students making use of these services.

Design/methodology/approach – The specific research uses a mixed method approach to explore

a way to best address the academic needs of the first-year international business students, especially

those identified as at-risk students in a college in Melbourne where both a general academic program

and a discipline-based program were on offer.

Findings – The findings indicate that although the content-based program was highly evaluated by

students and also attracted more students than the general support module, many at-risk students did

not use this service The low level of English proficiency, the heavy workload, the passive and

dependent learning style, the unclear information about the service and the desire to follow only

teachers’ guidance all prevented at-risk students from making use of the available services These

students need further help and guidance in this transitional period to recognise the assistance provided

for them and to make use of these services to enhance their learning.

Originality/value – Recently, various support activities have been designed to assist international

students in enhancing their language and academic skills necessary for pursuing their study in Australia.

These activities range from credit-based English for Academic Purposes courses, to optional general

language and study programs, and more recently, discipline or content-based programs There is also a

tendency in several universities to move from offering general language and study programs to embedding

disciplinary programs Adopting disciplinary-based academic support activities seem to be the right

direction in many universities as these activities are more likely to help increase the overall pass-rate and

improve student learning outcomes However, problems seem to remain when many at-risk international

students do not seem to go for these services This study has led some light on how to improve the future

language and academic skills to support activities for first-year overseas business students.

Keywords International students, Academic skills, Business students

Paper type Research paper

www.emeraldinsight.com/2046-469X.htm

The author would like to thank Denise Bush and Jacqueline Tulk (La Trobe Melbourne) for their

essential support and constructive comments

Received 8 June 2013 Revised 6 August 2013 Accepted 16 August 2013

Journal of International Education in

Business Vol 6 No 2, 2013

pp 165-178

q Emerald Group Publishing Limited

2046-469X

Enhancing academic skills

165

Introduction International education is one of the key businesses in Australia The industry is the third largest export earner in Australia (AEI, 2012) It is reported that since 2005, international students have constituted one in four of all Australian university enrolments (Russell et al., 2010) In December 2012, the number of international enrolments in the higher education system (HES) was 230,932, nearly 60 percent of whom were from four Asian countries: China, Malaysia, India and Vietnam (AEI, 2013) These full-fee-paying students have, on the one hand, helped universities to compensate for declining government support On the other hand, they also create challenges for the HES to change in order to address the new needs of the large number

of second language learners The differences in terms of culture, learning styles and language proficiency levels of these students need to be taken into consideration in designing the curriculum and increasing appropriate academic support activities to help them successfully pursue their studies This is especially important for first-year international students, because the transition these students have to make is not only from school to university (Bridges, 2009), but also a cultural transition where they have

to learn new academic norms in another language Thus, the first-year experience has been recognised as an important foundation for international student success at university (Reason et al., 2007; Tinto, 2001)

Many universities in Australia have been conducting research on the needs of international students and designing different activities to support these students and help them better engage in their study A range of language and academic support programs such as English as a second language classes, different workshops, and short courses on various academic skills have been offered However, this type of general support module has gained much criticism as its impact on student learning outcome is limited (Baik and Greig, 2009; Durkin and Main, 2002; Wingate, 2006) Many universities have, instead, developed content-based intervention programs or discipline-based academic programs to address the particular needs of students studying in different disciplines (Baik and Greig, 2009; Evans et al., 2009; Kennelly et al., 2010; Skillen et al., 2003) Although it has been reported that the outcomes of these programs are quite positive with more international students attending the programs and the overall pass-rate increasing, the perennial problem remains – the attendance of at-risk international students in these support programs is often low (Kennelly et al., 2010) Many of these students fail repeatedly and some drop out

This study reports on the academic support programs targeting first-year business students at La Trobe Melbourne (LTM) The at-risk students were offered both a general academic support class and a content-based program This study was conducted to explore students’ perceptions of the usefulness of these programs We also aim to create a better intervention to attract more at-risk students by exploring the reasons behind the low rate of at-risk students making use of these services

Institutional context LTM operates in association with La Trobe University It has an enrolment of 1,318 students[1], the majority of whom are international students from Asian countries such as China, Vietnam, Saudi, and India Chinese and Vietnamese students outnumber the students from other nationalities and often make up 65-70 percent of the LTM international student cohort LTM offers several pathway programs to bachelor

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degrees at La Trobe University The diploma courses offered at LTM are equivalent to

La Trobe University’s first-year bachelor degree After completing the courses (which

usually takes one year), students are allowed access to second year at the university At

the point of enrolment, LTM students do not meet the necessary university entrance

requirements in terms of English skills and/or study achievements at high school

Therefore, these students need more help both to improve their English and to develop

relevant academic skills required to study in the Australian tertiary education context

Literature review

The literature has indicated many challenges non-English-speaking background

students face when pursuing higher education in English-speaking countries Two of

the most challenging requirements for these students are to develop an understanding of

a new discipline in a second or foreign language, and to develop adequate academic

skills required to study in Western countries (Kennelly et al., 2010; Rajaram and Bordia,

2011; Soosay, 2009)

The claim of weak English skills of international students is popular in the

literature Different authors have raised concerns about the lowering of the minimum

English language requirements for international students to enrol in university study

as a result of the competition to attract more fee-paying students in the HES (Baik and

Greig, 2009; Birrell, 2006; Watty, 2007) Birrell (2006) and Kennelly et al (2010) pose a

warning that despite achieving the minimum entry language requirements for

university, many international students still struggle to understand their subject

content, to follow the course instruction and to meet the demand of their courses At the

point of graduation, as Birrell (2006, p 53) indicates, at least one-third of these students

have their English “score below the level normally required for employment as

professionals in Australia”

Nevertheless, there are other explanations for the weak capabilities of these

students in enhancing their English and academic skills and succeeding in their

overseas study Johnson (2008) for example, draws attention to the difficulties in

mastering technical and discipline-related aspects of academic language, especially in

writing He suggests that although many international students feel quite relaxed

about their everyday English, they find it hard to understand extended discourse,

which links to the norm of academic writing style with which they are unfamiliar Lum

(2006), instead, makes explicit the role of culture in learning He suggests that culture,

communication and learning are intertwined and mutually dependent In the case of

LTM, when the majority of international students come from Asian Confucian heritage

cultures (such as China and Vietnam), there is a significant difference in terms of

students’ inherited learning style and their prior learning experience in their home

countries and the style students are expected to adopt in order to pursue tertiary

education in Australia

It has been argued that different cultures develop different learning styles and the

differences in learning styles lead to the differences in pedagogical preferences (Kemp,

2010) Thus, an instruction technique which works with local students may not be

suitable and effective with international students from other cultures (Warner and

Child, 1992) Confucian heritage culture with its key features such as face saving,

hierarchical order in decision making, collectivist, conformity and harmony (Liu, 2006;

Subramaniam, 2008; Thompson, 2009; Tran, 2013) does not encourage its students to

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be independent, proactive and to take the initiative – characteristics required for students to be successful in Australian tertiary study The general role of the teacher in Asia is to teach – or to transfer key knowledge and to set rules (Rajaram and Bordia, 2011) Most of the time, students only need to follow the instruction of the teacher

In Australia, the teacher does not provide the rules, the knowledge is not “transmitted”, and the language of instruction and teaching is not always easy to understand for these non-English-speaking background students They need help for this multiple transition: transition from school to university, transition to understand instruction

in another language, transition to adopt a new learning style and transition to understand the academic norms of a specific discipline in a totally different culture Australian universities have trialled different ways to assist international students Most universities offer international students some form of language and academic skills support activities These activities range from credit-based English for Academic Purposes courses, to optional general language and study programs, and more recently, discipline or content-based programs There is a tendency in several universities to move from offering general language and study programs to embedding discipline-based programs Numerous research results indicate that discipline-based programs attract more international students as these programs often provide students with task-specific assistance (Baik and Greig, 2009; Evans et al., 2009; Hutchings, 2006; Kennelly et al., 2010; North, 2005) These studies all point to the importance of learning within a disciplinary context and that skills may also be context-specific Hutchings (2006) suggests that discussion and feedback should be incorporated into disciplinary content because this will help students to more easily clarify their understanding Dressen-Hammouda (2008) also recommends disciplinary-based support activities and emphasises the need for situated learning, especially in relation to the different written genres in different disciplines

Adopting disciplinary-based academic support activities seems to be the right direction in many universities as these activities are more likely to help increase the overall pass-rate and improve student learning outcomes (Baik and Greig, 2009; Kennelly et al., 2010) The benefit of attending these programs is quite significant However, problems seem to remain when many at-risk international students do not use these services In a study by Kennelly et al (2010), the number of at-risk students who did not (often) attend the discipline-based support programs always outnumbered those who regularly attended There seems to be a need for further investigation into meeting the needs of these at-risk students

The research This research was designed to explore a way to better address the academic needs of first-year overseas business students, especially those identified as at-risk, at LTM After enrolment, all international students were required to take part in an English diagnostic test If they scored below 60 percent, they were identified as at-risk students At-risk students also included those who failed in the early unit assessment

The study drew on the data from three consecutive 13 week-trimesters in 2012 During the first trimester, three major activities were designed to support students’ learning: general academic workshops such as “independent study and time management skills”, “referencing style” and “exam preparation”; an academic skills development (ASD) subject; and individual consultations with the academic skills

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advisor (ASA) After the results of the English diagnostic test were released, all

students who were identified as at-risk students were advised to attend the ASD class

which was also timetabled and ran for 2 hours a week To encourage students to attend

this class, a 5 percent bonus mark was given to students who had overall 80 percent

attendance In the first trimester, the general workshops were organised during week 3

(i.e the “independent study and time management skills” workshop), week 6

(i.e referencing style workshop) and week 11 (i.e exam preparation workshop)

However, the attendance in both the ASD subject and the general workshops was low

In the second trimester, discipline-based writing workshops were embedded in the

foundations of management subject (FOM) This subject contains heavy content

related to language and academic skills These workshops replaced the general

workshops that were conducted in the first trimester and aimed to better address the

specific needs of FOM students These content-based workshops started in week 5,

when students were given the writing task which was an essay of 1,500 words, and ran

every week until week 10 They were open to all students in the program; however,

at-risk students identified by early unit assessments and the diagnostic test were

especially encouraged to attend These 1-hour workshops ran twice a week, and were

flexibly arranged to match with students’ timetables In these workshops, students had

a chance to work on their essays and gained prompt support in the following areas:

. writing task analysis: task requirements;

. overall structure of an essay (argumentative essay/balancing essay);

. searching academic journal articles using Google Scholar, Proquest Business,

Emerald and Expanded Academic Search;

. scanning, skimming for relevant ideas, note-taking skills;

. how to write an introduction (broad statement, thesis statement, structure of the

essay);

. paragraph writing (topic sentence, supporting ideas, coherence); and

. referencing (in-text citation and reference list, following Harvard reference style)

At the beginning of each trimester, the ASA, who has a background in both applied

linguistics and business, worked closely with the FOM coordinator to discuss the

writing task and to design the activities in the workshops which would best address

students’ needs Students were also encouraged to make appointments to see the ASA

for further guidance or comments on their writing The FOM teachers were encouraged

to suggest at-risk students come to seek the assistance of the ASA

At the end of trimester 3, research was conducted based on our observation during

these three trimesters The research was aimed at finding the most appropriate way to

attract students, especially the identified at-risk students into the academic support

services, and to better enhance their learning The data presented below are the results

of both a quantitative survey and qualitative interviews with FOM students enrolled in

trimester 3, 2013 A questionnaire was sent to all FOM students during week 11 of the

trimester, individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with five at-risk

students, and a focus group interview was conducted with eight students Participation

in the interviews was on a volunteer basis They were selected by their FOM teachers

on the basis that they could provide insight into the subject being explored

Research questions:

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RQ1 Do students know about the academic support services?

RQ2 What do students perceive about general academic support classes and discipline-based academic programs?

RQ3 What are the reasons for the low proportion of at-risk students attending these programs?

Results Attendances From our observation during these three trimesters, the students’ attendance in the ASD subject was often low and the number of students who attended this class decreased during the trimesters By contrast, the attendance in the discipline-based writing workshops increased, from about 15 or 16 students in weeks 5-20 and sometimes 30 students in each workshop from weeks 6 to 10 There were 37 students (trimester 1), 57 students (trimester 2) and 63 students (trimester 3) who sought the individual assistance of the ASA Some students only sought the help of the ASA once, whereas others made frequent appointments and came for a consultation every week With regard to attendance, there is obvious evidence for the claim made by Kennelly et al (2010) that a discipline-based approach to academic and language development works better to meet the specific needs of the international students in FOM Nonetheless, our database revealed that about 50 percent of the at-risk students did not turn up in any of the academic support activities Thus, the survey and the interviews were created to explore students’ perceptions of these activities and the reasons for the low proportion of at-risk students making use of these services Students’ perceptions of academic support programs

Do students know and use the academic support services? In total, 100 out of

125 students returned the survey They were asked whether they knew about these services, where they received information about these services, and if they used these services They were also required to evaluate these services and provide the reasons (if any) for not using the language and academic skills support activities

The information about these services was introduced to students through several channels such as on the student portal, during orientation, or by the subject teachers Under LTM policy, it is made explicit that subject teachers have to adopt the responsibility to ease students’ transition to Australian higher education Thus, the teachers of subjects with heavy language content often remind students about these academic support services As a result, in most cases, more than 70 percent of the students were made aware of these activities However, not all students who knew about these free services had tried to use them (Table I)

I used this service (%)

I know but have not used this service (%)

I do not know this service (%) Academic skills workshops 51 28.60 20.40 Academic skills advisor 35.80 35.80 28.40 Academic skill development

subject 9.80 32.60 57.60 Table I.

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A high proportion of students did not know about the ASD subject – (57.6 percent).

This seems reasonable because this class was designed only for students with

low English proficiency However, more than 40 percent of students were informed

about the service and many were likely to be the target of this class, but only 9.8 percent

of them (9 students) used the services This is a disappointing number 50 percent of

the students (35.8 percent) who were aware of the availability of the ASA made efforts

to make use of this service The academic writing workshops had the highest

proportion of students attending (51 percent out of 79.6 percent of the ones who knew

about this service)

The tendency to follow only teachers’ guidance The survey results reveal that

students preferred to receive information from their teachers The student portal is the

second most important source of information when students want to seek available

academic services Table II shows the proportion of the students who knew about the

language and academic support services via these three sources

Student participants in the focus group also supported this finding They all

suggested that they only wanted to follow their teachers’ guidance and “orders”

Most students confessed that they did not get much information out of the orientation

Nina suggested:

Don’t expect us to learn anything during orientation That’s the time we just finished our

holiday, we was also new here, just wanted to talk, to know each other We were busy with

our own stuff and could not learn anything

Some students did not pay attention to information on the student portal either

For example, Thanh suggested:

We don’t often read the student portal; because we think the information there is general

information If we need to do anything, the teacher should tell us in class

Clearly, there is evidence of the dependent learning style adopted by many Asian

students in the traditional learning by “receiving” knowledge and information from the

teacher (Kennedy, 2002; McKay and Kember, 1997) They seemed to be familiar with

listening to their teachers, and thus did not pay much attention to these optional

activities In the Australian context, it is expected that students need to take initiative

and find the resources to enhance their learning (Dahalin and Watkins, 2000; Tran,

2013) It is not the primary responsibility of Australian teachers to direct students to

these activities However, these new students may not recognise the difference and

thus may not be able to adjust to the new learning style

The limitation of the general academic skill development subject As discussed

earlier in this paper, the survey has revealed a disappointing number of students

attending ADS classes When the interviews were conducted, students were asked for

Where did you get the information

about the services?

Subject teachers (%)

Student portal (%)

Orientation (%)

Others (%) Academic skills workshops 72 22 9.8 6.1

Academic skills advisor 62.3 24.7 14.3 7.8

Academic skill development

subject 46.9 16.3 14.3 26.5 Table II.

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the reasons for the low proportion of students using this service In an individual interview, Singh confessed:

I should go to that class, but I didn’t I only go to the classes that I have to go

Cheng Yu, another at-risk student, found another excuse:

I came once at the beginning of the term, but I don’t think it helps me with my subjects I think it’s a waste of time, so I stopped

John, a non-at-risk student in the group interview also explained:

You know, the compulsory subjects are already very demanding Not only the weak students but we all have to focus on the subjects Our time is all occupied, that’s why I think not many students want to come to this optional class and to have more work to do

Hong Anh in the individual interview suggested that she may be the only one who often turned up in the ASD class Sometimes she was the only one in the class She also asked the teacher about her writing assignments in other subjects, but she noticed that: Most of the time, the teacher only commented on my grammar, but I need more advice on the content and arguments Probably the teacher does not have a business background, so it is not easy for her to give me advice in that field

In short, the low attendance in the ASD class was explained by the students with several reasons such as the heavy work load in the compulsory subjects, and the laziness of some at-risk students who only wanted to satisfy the minimum requirements of the course Some students attended the ASD class at the beginning of the trimester but they could not see the connection between this service and the assistance for their main course study, thus they did not turn up again Even one of the most hard-working students who often turned up in this class also confirmed that the assistance of this service for her learning was modest This finding supports Wingate’s (2006) claim that because the generic academic skills programs lie outside the students’ main course of study, these programs are often not seen by the majority students as being useful and relevant to their study

Although the discipline-based programs were considered useful, many at-risk students did not attend When students were asked to rate language and academic skills support services, 65.5 percent of students considered discipline-based workshops extremely or very useful, and 59.6 percent had a similar comment for the ASA consultation service However, when evaluating the ASD subject, the highest proportion

of students (35.6 percent) chose “moderately useful” (Table III)

In the group interview, when participants were asked why many students did not generally turn up in the ASD class, but they did in academic writing workshops and in seeing the ASA – other optional activities, Dharani explained immediately:

Extremely useful

Very useful

Moderately useful

Slightly useful

Not at all useful Academic skills workshops 16.2 47.3 31.1 2.7 2.7 Academic skills advisor 9 50.7 31.3 6 3 Academic skill development subject 6.7 33.3 35.6 11.1 13.3 Table III.

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There are two differences here One, when we received the essay task, the teacher encouraged

us to come to writing workshops and to see the ASA to know how to write that essay And

two, these workshops basically just helped us do what we had to do, thus my teacher told me

that I don’t have to attend that class [he is a quite good student], I still wanted to

Cassandra added:

The same like the ASA, we become familiar with her in the writing workshops She

understands the task and can provide prompt advice She also offers flexible meeting, I can

drop into see her at my convenient time When our time doesn’t match, I can send her my essay

and she gives me online comments

Nina, on the other hand, provided a quite critical point:

You know, the writing workshops and ASA service are open to everyone, that’s the

difference We come because we find the workshops useful, but I know lots of weak students

did not attend those workshops and did not see the ASA

Nina’s claim was quite consistent with our attendance record, where many students

who were not at-risk students came to every workshop, and tried to seek all available

assistance, but many at-risk students did not often participate in these activities This

finding is similar to Kennelly et al.’s (2010) findings about the high proportion of at-risk

students not attending academic support programs

The survey data suggested two major reasons for students not using the available

support even when they know that the services are free, available and useful: time

constraint (71 percent) and lack of teachers’ guidance (19 percent) Nonetheless,

the focus group participants suggested that insufficient information about these

workshops and not a strong enough “push” from the subject teachers were also major

reasons for the absence of many at-risk students in these workshops For example,

Bo Jun suggested:

Advertisements about these services are placed somewhere, somehow, but it is not clear what

these services are really about, who they are for and what benefits we would get when

spending time using the services

Tung added:

Yes, this is especially right for the ones with poor English skills Sometimes the teachers also

encourage us to use these services, but they don’t explain clearly about the services The

students with poor English skills cannot understand They are the ones who need help most

but they often did not know the availability of these services and how to get access to these

services

Nonetheless, Singh, an at-risk student, when asked, suggested that he was not

interested in these activities:

I don’t care much about these services I just do what my teachers ask me to do, for example,

open the Moodle and do some quizzes, there’s mark for them

Thanh Mai, another at-risk student, described her struggle:

I find it hard I don’t understand the lecture I try to read book and do homework I don’t have

time and don’t know what these activities are for

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