Page 110 - Movers, Shapers, and Everything in Between: Influencers of the International Student Experience

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Chapter 5
Despite measures to improve the trustworthiness of the data, including cross-checking codes and interviews, there are limitations to this research. None of the researchers were able to travel on site to the IBCs included in the study to gather data in person, though they had visited some of the campuses in the past. Data was collected over a nine-month period (February through November 2021), during which time the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic evolved. The academic experience and role of IBCs will continue to develop over time, opening potential for follow up studies.
The decision to focus on one host country (Malaysia) and two home countries (UK and Australia) was deliberate, to avoid the complexities of multiple national regulatory frameworks. However, given the wide geographic presence of IBCs, it would be elucidating to see a greater variety of home and host countries represented. Including a greater breadth of home and host countries would make findings more easily transferable to other contexts. Another angle of inquiry involves comparing IBCs to the home campus, to demonstrate how the pandemic affected these two types of campuses differently. While this study considered how IBCs were uniquely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, a comparative methodology would highlight differences between the IBC and home campus.
There is inevitable bias in both the participants and the researchers. This research includes some powerful individuals as subjects, who “are well able to deal with the interviewers, to answer and avoid particular questions to suit their own ends, and to present their own role in events in a favorable light” (Walford, 2013). As a result, the views expressed by the IBC leaders may have been carefully calibrated rather than completely candid. The researchers were subject an uneven power dynamic between the researcher and subject; awareness of the existence of interpersonal dynamics and potential bias is one strategy to counter their effects.
The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically changed how higher education is carried out around the world, and stress-tested universities. It