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Nationality and equality in Higher Education: the postgraduate teaching experience

Nationality and equality in Higher Education: the postgraduate teaching experience . Jennie Winter Sharon Gedye, Rebecca Turner, Patricia Nash and Vivien Grant PedRIO Conference: Internationalisation and the Student Experience December 2013. Context .

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Nationality and equality in Higher Education: the postgraduate teaching experience

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  1. Nationality and equality in Higher Education: the postgraduate teaching experience Jennie Winter Sharon Gedye, Rebecca Turner, Patricia Nash and Vivien Grant PedRIO Conference: Internationalisation and the Student Experience December 2013

  2. Context Postgraduate student as teacher now subject to: • Pressure to undertake teacher training • Linking teaching and research • Possible competition for teaching opportunities • Intensification in moves to professionalise university teaching • Vitae Researcher Development Framework • Growth in internationalisation • Growth in number of postgraduates • Austerity

  3. Research strategy Research focused on a teacher training programme – an introduction to teaching and learning for those with limited teaching duties Objectives – • Motivations for participants to undertake teacher training • Satisfaction with, and utility of the course • The impacts that discipline/professional role/nationality have for on-going academic development Methods - • Online questionnaire (n=171 27%) and interviews (n=10)

  4. Motivations for participants to undertake teacher training • International students were significantly more likely (p<0.01) to want CPD certification. This supports previous work which identified that international students are strongly motivated to undertake teacher training programmes due to a perceived prestige in returning home with a UK teaching qualification (Lee et al., 2010).

  5. Satisfaction with, and utility of the teacher training course • International students reported higher levels of satisfaction with the course content and delivery (p<0.01) and the relevance of the assignment (p<0.05) • International students reported undertaking teacher training enhanced their understanding of the expectations upon them in their wider student role (PhD) in particular around feedback, collaboration and self-evaluation; something not reported by home students

  6. Issues • Lack of background knowledge, critical thinking, communicating in a second academic discipline and second language and understanding course expectations (Borg et al., 2009; Chadha et al. 2009). • 100% of home students took less than one month to complete the assignment compared to 73% of international students

  7. The impact of nationality for on-going academic development • International students reported significantly fewer teaching opportunities post teacher training (p<0.01). This was supported by interview data where international students described struggling to obtain teaching.

  8. Accessing teaching opportunities • Supervisors are gatekeepers to teaching opportunities • Some schools had policies in place that prevented PhD students teaching in the writing up stage • Lack of formal procedures by which to obtain teaching

  9. NUS Postgrads who teach….(2013) • The experience of postgraduates who teach differs widely between institutions as well as internally between departments • Nearly half of respondents claimed that they did not receive a job description when applying for their position • Almost one in three postgraduate teachers did not receive a contract • One in four postgraduate teachers thought the allocation of teaching was unfair

  10. Wider implications • 57% of the UK fulltime postgraduate population are non-UK domiciled (HESA 2011-12). • Vitae RDF increasingly used to underpin doctoral training • Limited research on the teaching development needs and experience of international doctoral students (Borg et al., 2009; Jindal-Snape and Ingram, 2013).

  11. Equality – students are not unfairly excluded, marginalised or disadvantaged because of ethnicity or any other characteristic (ECU 2013)

  12. References • Borg, M., Maunder, R., Jiang, X., Di Napoli, R., Fry, H. & Walsh, E. (2009). Entering a community of practice: the acculturation of international postgraduates and academic staff. Network Research Project Reports for the University of Oxford’s ‘Preparing for Academic Practice’ CETL. Retrieved from http://www.cetlrecord.ox.ac.uk/resources/resource27e.php • Chadha, D., Turner, N. & Maunder, R. (2009). Theoretical frameworks underpinning GTA programmes: their influence on course participants and the staff delivering these programmes. Network Research Project Reports for the University of Oxford’s ‘Preparing for Academic Practice’ CETL. Retrieved from http://www.cetlrecord.ox.ac.uk/resources/resource27b.php • Jindal-Snape, D. & Ingram, R. (2013). Understanding and supporting triple transitions of international doctoral students: ELT and SuReCom models. Journal of Perspectives in Applied Academic Practice, 1, 17-24. • Lee, A.M., Pettigrove, M. & Fuller, M.P. (Eds.) (2010). Preparing to teaching in higher education. Lichfield: UK Council for Graduate Education. • NUS (2013). Postgraduates who Teach. London: National Union of Students.

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