Page 88 - Movers, Shapers, and Everything in Between: Influencers of the International Student Experience

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Chapter 4
diSCuSSion
It is compelling that there are indications of differences between international students enrolled at home campuses and IBCs in all areas of satisfaction with academic experience investigated by this study. To date, there have been no large-scale quantitative studies investigating this question. Results corroborate the body of research that suggests that differences exist between the academic experiences offered by home campuses and their international outposts (Garrett et al., 2016; Ziguras & McBurnie, 2011; Wang, 2008); though they may be altogether comparable (Wilkins, 2020).
This study has important implications for how IBC leaders, faculty, and administrators consider the role of academic satisfaction in the international student experience. The successful replication of satisfaction with the academic experience may be a crucial element of an IBC’s success—this has been noted in research and by leaders of both home campuses and IBCs (Clifford, 2015; Garrett et al, 2017; Wilkins & Balakrishnan, 2013; Shams & Huisman, 2012, 2016). Results highlight the key role that academic satisfaction plays in the international student experience, suggesting that universities should make this area a top priority.
National policies and regulatory frameworks have an impact on the delivery of TNE (Hou et al., 2018), including on the international/ local mix of staff; the coursework required to receive a qualification; how the campus is structured and governed, and many other areas. Nonetheless, universities must ensure that the academic experience is replicated in the areas that they can control, and that any discrepancy is made clear to the student during the decision-making process. A 2014 report on transnational education in the UAE by the UK’s Quality Assurance Agency (QAA), suggests that institutions must work harder to replicate the standards they achieve at their home campuses at their overseas branch campuses, recommending good practices such as “engaging branch campus staff in academic governance and quality assurance; encouraging a culture of scholarly enquiry” and “providing better staff training and support to locally recruited part-time and fixed-contract staff” (p. 24).