Exploring the challenges experienced by international students during work-integrated learning in Australia

This study explores the challenges experienced by international students during Work Integrated Learning (WIL) in Australia. Student participation in WIL not only enhances individual student employability but also the attractiveness of Australia as a study destination. WIL, in particular work placements, is in high demand by international students who seek to gain relevant experience in their host country and increase their chances of employment post-study. Data were gathered from employers, academics and students on the challenges faced by international students during the WIL experience and how WIL is currently being managed for the international cohort. Stakeholders identified a number of challenges which impact on student performance and the success of their WIL experience. These include cultural differences, inflated expectations, difficulties managing assessment tasks, relatively weak language skills and an imbalance in the support needed by international students in comparison to what is on offer. Stakeholder strategies to manage these challenges are discussed.     

A collaborative assessment of students’ placement learning

The research informing this paper set out to investigate the qualitative experiences of students, supervisors and tutors involved in a summative collaborative assessment of placement learning on an undergraduate professional qualifying programme in the UK. Analysis of data gathered through semi-structured interviews provides valuable insights into its use. In particular, engagement in a collaborative assessment brings a degree of exposure for all concerned. Participants need to feel ‘able’ to participate, and ability to participate is linked to notions of agency and autonomy. Collaborative assessment design needs to acknowledge power relations and include strategies to reduce imbalances. The importance of recognising and working with the complexities of assessment should not be underestimated. Criterion referencing offers a guide to support consistency but can also falsely present assessment as mechanistic and instrumental. The research shows that it is in the ‘doing’ of assessment that a ‘shared language’ is developed. It demonstrates the value of active student engagement in assessment in relation to the construction and use of theory, developing reflective practice and assessment literacy. The collaborative assessment provides students with the opportunity to experience a ‘performance of understanding’ in a community of practice that, whilst pressured, reflects ‘real’ professional life.     

“Theorizing teacher mobility”: a critical review of literature

In this critical review of literature, we summarize the major theoretical frameworks that have been used to study teacher mobility. In total we identified 40 teacher mobility studies that met our inclusion criteria. We conclude that relatively few theoretical frameworks have been used to study teacher mobility and those that have been used are lacking in several key areas. Specifically, none of the current teacher mobility theories are able to adequately account for the many teacher- and school-level factors that likely influence teachers’ professional decisions. Finally, we suggest a theoretical framework from the organizational psychology literature that can address the shortcomings of theories identified in this review.     

Shaping global teacher identity in a short-term mobility programme

This article explores the shaping of Australian and Malaysian pre-service teachers’ possible selves in a short-term mobility programme. With the theory of possible selves, individuals imagine who they will become based on their past and current selves. The focus of the research was on pre-service teachers’ possible selves as global and culturally responsive teachers. The experiential learning through participation in the programme allowed participants to consider their future possible selves as teachers with a deeper understanding of diverse learners’ needs and how they might strive to address these needs in their own classrooms. The scaffolding of reflections in the programme encouraged the pre-service teachers to take on multiple perspectives, to step outside their comfort zones and in many ways to see the world from different eyes. The research found that through experiential learning in the short-term mobility programme both the Australian and Malaysian pre-service teachers gained in positioning their cultural selves currently and as future teachers, suggesting that there is merit in utilising the theory of possible selves in future research in the area of shaping teacher identity.     

Mobile self-fashioning and gendered risk: rethinking Chinese students’ motivations for overseas education

This article complicates dominant instrumentalist understandings of international student motivation by focusing on Chinese female tertiary students in Australia. Based on longitudinal fieldwork with 56 such students, it analyses motivations described by students and their parents in interviews, showing that these far exceed instrumentalism and engage tactics of both gendered risk management and cosmopolitan self-fashioning. Discussion of the gendered risks in post-socialist China that students seek to mitigate through study abroad illustrates the complexity of students’ motivations, and underlines the limitations of western European sociological theories of risk society which assume that gender inequality tends to decrease in late modernity.     

Stretching the academic harness: knowledge construction in the process of academic mobility in Chile

In this article, we analyse the impact of academic mobility on the construction of knowledge for Chilean scholars who have studied abroad. We conducted 41 semi-structured interviews with Chilean-born scholars in the social sciences and humanities, who accepted jobs at national research universities in Chile after receiving their doctorates abroad. Findings show that international academic mobility allowed these participants to question legitimised ways of doing knowledge, where they can stretch the academic harness that increasingly rules their knowledge construction. Our main argument is that knowledge construction process is neither linear nor unidimensional and it occurs as a rhizomatic process in a multidimensional space.     

全球科学精英覆盖地图及动态特征——基于SCI论文的计量分析

科学精英跨国流动已成为全球化的一个重要特征,聚焦科学研究领域,从SCI论文产出的角度出发,以全球高被引科学家和战略性新兴产业前沿科学家为研究对象,基于高被引科学家数据库、Web of Science科学引文数据库和Scopus数据库,统计分析这些具有世界影响力的科学家的地理分布和跨国流动情况成为研究的热点。研究发现,这些科学精英大量集中在少数几个发达国家,在全球科学精英正以不同形式向美国集聚或流动的同时,有相当数量的高被引科学家开始流向发展中国家和新兴经济体国家,但基本上是短期流入。最后基于有效地发挥政府和市场2种引进和配置全球科技人才资源的机制,提出从加强海外精英的供需对接、完善集聚海外精英的机制建设以及营造海外精英创新的环境氛围等方面入手,促使全球科学精英向我国集聚和流动。     

女博士就业初探——基于落实率和求职过程及结果的分析

本文通过对北京某综合性研究型大学2005年-2010年博士毕业生历史数据的梳理,以及对2010届毕业生的问卷调查,比较了男、女博士毕业生的年终落实率和求职过程与结果。研究发现,女博士获得第一个工作机会所需时间长于男博士。但在落实率、获得的工作机会总数、实习期间和实习期后起薪,以及工作满意度方面,均不存在显著的性别差异。基于上述结果,本文讨论了女博士在求职过程和结果上的特殊性,提出了有针对性的辅导建议。     

植入式广告在体育网游中应用的优势分析

随着广告行业的发展,植入式广告已经出现在我们所接触到的各种媒介中,而在网络游戏盛行的现在,植入式广告找到了更加广阔的发展平台,但现阶段也呈现出一些问题,体育网游的出现在很大程度上为植入式广告的发展提供了新的契机。本文从网络游戏植入式广告的发展现状分析其存在的优势和不足,进而指出植入式广告在体育网游中的应用优势扣发展前景。     

我国竞技运动员社会流动分析

采用文献资料法,联系社会化,主要阐述社会流动的基本理论和运动员的流动趋势.分析运动员在社会流动中存在的问题,以及社会资本等因素对运动员社会流动带来的影响等方面进行研究,特别是运动员向下流动的现象作了详细描述,最后针对运动员流动困境提出解决建议.