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1 Project OutcomesThe outcomes of this project include data analysis results and findings drawn fromstudent/staff surveys and interviews and two sets of guidelines/suggestions that canbe used in the teaching and learning development programs of ouruniversities/departments:1) Guidelines and suggestions to lecturers and education managers to furtherimprove the approaches to teaching/guiding students from diverse culturalbackgrounds, to manage their expectations, and to develop related strategies toimprove the quality of teaching.2) Guidelines and suggestions to assist students of Asian background to developbetter study approaches for cross-cultural learning, including examples of theexperiences of successful Asian graduates from Australian universities.3) The report covers the following key areas: Research methodology of this project including questionnaire design, surveyconduction, interviews, and quantitative and qualitative data analysis. Data analysis-derived findings regarding differences in assumptions betweenstudents and staff of different cultural backgrounds relative to what constituteslearning, the perspective of teaching style, and differences in the expectations ofthe lecturer and student in the teaching and learning process. Discussion on the need for extra resources or support to address issues arisingfrom the cross-cultural characteristics of the student cohort based on theparticular learning difficulties and frustrations, and on improving the quality ofteaching and learning in our universities, if appropriate. Analysis of the found factors and issues that motivate cross-culture students topursue their learning, to cope with the difficulties in the classroom and otherlearning activities, and the factors that contribute to the success of their learning.In the following sections, these outcomes will be presented in detail.7
2 Research Approach and MethodologyThis project applied both quantitative and qualitative study methodologies. It applieda questionnaire-based structured survey and semi-structured interviews to obtaindata. It then applied numerical/linguistic data analysis approaches to find results.The questions used in the surveys were designed based on hypotheses proposedwithin an overarching action research framework. The interviews were conductedafter an initial phase of data collection via the questionnaire survey.Data was drawn from staff, undergraduate/postgraduate international/local studentsand graduates mainly within the Information Technology and Businessdepartments/faculties of the University of Technology, Sydney, Curtin University ofTechnology, The University of Sydney, Edith Cowan University, and Southern CrossUniversity.The total number of participants in the survey is 1026, including 640 internationalstudents of Asian background and 386 students from Australia or other westerncountries. The interview participants include 10 lecturing staff, 25 students of Asianbackground, 7 Australian local students and 8 graduates of Asian background. Thesurvey and interview participants combined total 1076.This project was completed in two years (10/2007-10/2009) in the following steps.Step 1 Continued literature review and developed ethics applicationsBased on our pre-literature review results, we continued the literature review byfurther focusing on cross-cultural issues in higher education within theteaching/learning process. Asian cultural background is the main focus of thereview. A more detailed literature review is presented in Section 4 of this report.As the surveys and interviews conducted in this project involve personal information,an ethics application was first submitted to the UTS Human Research EthicsCommittee and then to Curtin University of Technology, The University of Sydney,Edith Cowan University and Southern Cross University for approval.Step 2 Establishment of a framework for factor analysis in cross-cultureteaching and learningBased on the literature review and our previous research, we summarised the mainimpact factors, and the possible assumptions and expectations of both students andlecturing staff, and developed a research framework. This framework identified fiveaspects of cross-cultural teaching and learning in universities. Under the framework,we designed and proposed 59 hypotheses. The aim was to find out how differingexpectations/assumptions affect the progress of learning over its various phases,and how they impact on the quality of experience and outcomes in our universitiesand how to assist cross-culture students becoming successful learners.Step 3 Development of preliminary questionnaireBased on the 59 hypotheses, the questionnaire consists of an identificationinformation section and over 50 questions within other six sections as follows:(1) Teaching Contents and Textbooks;(2) Teaching and Learning Methods;(3) Education Management Systems;(4) Language;(5) Culture-based Teaching & Learning Concepts; and(6) Others (open questions).8
Page 1 and 2: Strategies and Approaches toTeachin
Page 3 and 4: Table of Contents0 EXECUTIVE SUMMAR
Page 5: 0 Executive SummaryAustralian terti
Page 10 and 11: The identification information sect
Page 12: questions aim to discover their ass
Page 15 and 16: 3.2 Literature reviewCross-cultural
Page 17 and 18: 4 Survey Data AnalysisThis section
Page 19 and 20: Total Count 380 632 1012Percentage
Page 21 and 22: 2 Count 12 30 42Percentage 3.1% 4.7
Page 23 and 24: Table 13 shows that nearly all loca
Page 25 and 26: methods are good, while less than h
Page 27 and 28: Preferredfewerlectures andmore labs
Page 29 and 30: Table 26 (Question III.4.D) Preferr
Page 31 and 32: Maindifferencesbetweenteachingmetho
Page 33 and 34: Table 33 shows that about half of l
Page 35 and 36: Table 38 (Question IV.4) Sufficient
Page 37 and 38: understanding lectures?Table 42 (Qu
Page 39 and 40: confident Count 301 179 480Percenta
Page 41 and 42: Table 49 (Question VI.4) Caring abo
Page 43 and 44: Table 52 shows that more local stud
Page 45 and 46: Table 56 shows that both local and
Page 47 and 48: a chi-square test to determine whet
Page 49 and 50: Significance Level (α= 0.05)Hypoth
Page 51 and 52: presentations are unrelated (Indepe
Page 53 and 54: Hypotheses V.2H0: Student category
Page 55 and 56: encountered at university in 2/3/4
Page 57 and 58: III.7What are you most concerned ab
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II.6.EII.6.FII.6.GTextbooks you pre
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VII. OtherVII.1.1VII.1.2What are th
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III.6 Do you like lecturers to ask
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distribution of these comments acro
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Figure 4.5 University of Sydney und
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Australia is the environment (11.06
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example, one student said that home
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5 Interview Data AnalysisThis secti
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class?Eight students thought studen
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(1) Did you have any difficulty sel
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5.2 Staff interview data analysisA
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(2) Do you think that the methods y
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is the biggest problem”. One lect
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comments was, “No, I send them to
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lecturer, and one of them like the
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am a shy person I am not comfortabl
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When they have difficulties in read
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(7) Have you been involved in many
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Only two of the graduates had diffi
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Furthermore, I was not familiar wit
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ased communication style such as e-
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CrosstabDifficultieswhenreadingtext
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CrosstabPreferred workingin groups
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CrosstabMain differencesbetween tea
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CrosstabWhat are the maindifficulti
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CrosstabDo you have anyEnglish lang
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CrosstabAre you confidentabout your
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CrosstabWhat are the mainstudy diff
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Pearson Chi-SquareLikelihood RatioN
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ead lecture notes.2. Regarding the
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II.9 0.022 0.097 0.174 0.02 0.135II
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From Table 65, we can see that ther
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countries peoples. Personally, I fi
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perceived by them as something insi
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7. Arrange peer groups for those st
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covered (or not covered well) in th
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13. Ask assistance from internation
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11) • Weekly groupcase studies an
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8 Guideline for International Stude
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life. However, it is very important
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There are ways of maintaining focus
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Expect to be nervous initially and
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Avoid cheating and plagiarismAustra
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9 Disciplinary and interdisciplinar
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10 Results communication, publicati
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Visiting Professor Javier Montero f
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11 ReferencesAsmar C. (1999), Schol
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