Cross-cultural exchange aligns students, lecturers

Friday, 16 March 2007

New research at MIT offers Indian nursing students the chance to shine

Cross-cultural exchange aligns students and lecturers

Research into the barriers faced by migrants entering tertiary study has revealed that Indian students find mainstream integration and understanding what is academically required of them to be the major challenges.

The research project, focusing on first year students who had been in New Zealand less than five years, was a collaboration between MIT’s Nursing and Health Studies senior lecturer Susan Duraisamy and staff developer Maureen Lewis from the Academic Development Centre. It opened up a cross-cultural dialogue between students and teachers so that expectations and needs could be clearly spelled out and understood.

“We found that many recent Indian migrants, who were previously high achievers, often floundered in the first semesters of their courses,” says Susan, who is also a mentor and support to students from the Indian diaspora.

“Their spoken language was excellent and they understood what was being taught, but they struggled to understand academic expectations. While they had mastered the art of exams in their schooling they didn’t know how to handle assignments and what was required of them in that format.”

Many of the students believed that assignments tested writing skills rather than factual learning so they felt disadvantaged. “They needed very clear step-by-step instructions and wanted to see examples of work or sample answers,” says Susan. “They also found it difficult to ask for help as they come from a background where teachers are authority figures who are to be obeyed but not questioned.”

The other major issue for the students was their desire to integrate into the mainstream. While group work is meant to encourage students to mix, they most commonly split up into their own ethnic groups. This, according to Susan, can emphasise feelings of isolation.

With the major issues identified, Maureen and Susan arranged an information-sharing meeting with staff that was the starting point for change. “At this cross-cultural exchange, staff heard the students voicing their perceptions and needs,” says Maureen.

“They quickly realised they had to go back to the basics - starting with the way things are explained in class. Staff needed to help the students crack the code of academic language which was so foreign to them.”
There has been an increasing emphasis on study skills and the courses have exams to benefit all those who excel in that form of assessment. It’s also standard practice now for tutors to divide students into multi-ethnic groups and this integration improves everyone’s learning.

Susan adds: “We believe the new teaching methods we’ve put in place give all our motivated students the chance to fit in and to shine.”

ENDS

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