Enhancing students' experience through co-constructing academic community

School: Moray House School of Education and Sport

Team Members:  Farah Akbar, Xiaomei Sun, Chia-Ying (Annie) Yang

Abstract

In recent years, challenges (both academic and non-academic) facing international students in UK higher education have been gaining increasing attention. The Institute of Language Education, specifically the MSc Language Education programme, is recruiting record numbers of international students whose difficulties are one of the priorities to be addressed. Under these circumstances, the proposed project aims to construct an academic community by involving both PGT and PGR students to enable them to share experience and seek solutions together. Complementing the existing services in the university, this project is oriented to providing instant, specific, and ongoing assistance through drop-in sessions initiated by PGT students based on their needs. Meanwhile, through providing assistance and sharing expertise, PGR students could hone skills for their future academic career.

The research team of this project consist of both staff and PhD students to  ensure that the project design considers students’ perspective and voice. Data will be collected from two main sources: (i) feedback form and (ii) post-drop-in session interviews. Content analysis willbe applied to data interpretation. Dissemination of the results takes the form of a report, which if possible, will be presented in the Edinburgh Teaching and Learning Conference 2022. If granted, this project will promote cooperative research between staff and PhD students, more importantly, the PGT-PGR co-construction of academic community which could be advanced to a wider range of higher education arena.  Integrating student participation and EDI with Board of Studies: towards a community of critical readers.

Final Project Report

Download the final project report now (PDF)