Engagement in Continuing Subject Knowledge Development: A Year After Short-Term International Courses

Abstract

This article examines how students’ subject knowledge acquired in short-term international courses (SICs) developed while engaging in university studies in the year following their SICs. It also explores factors associated with their engagement and disengagement. Two interviews with a 1-year interval with 25 students revealed their transformations in their SIC subject matter knowledge. Some students’ engagement in continuing studies of the SIC-related subject matter was supported in a multifaceted manner by their personal motivation, teaching-learning environment, educational structure, and wider social relationships. However, the analysis demonstrated that many students discontinued deepening their knowledge of the subject matter. Students’ personal factors and certain dimensions of the institutional educational system explained their disengagement in continuing studies. Concerning the continuing SIC impacts on students in interdisciplinary liberal arts programs, the study discusses some suggestions drawing on the concepts of integrative learning and formative assessment.

International students’ study-related burnout: Associations with perceptions of the teaching-learning environment and approaches to learning

“…International students’ unreflective approach to learning correlated positively with exhaustion, cynicism and sense of inadequacy, which was in line with previous research among non-international students ( Asikainen et al, 2019 ). For such international students, listening to lectures, reading material and completing assignments becomes more challenging and time consuming ( Sakurai, 2021 ). Therefore, they are more likely to experience fatigue, tiredness and a loss of emotional energy.…”

“…Consequently, international students must learn how to learn in the new TLE. While international students possess their own study experience from their home countries and have developed strategies that may be successful or suitable in that context ( Sakurai et al, 2016 ; Sakurai, 2021 ; Smith et al, 2022 ), in the host institutions, they must adjust their learning processes and attempt to adapt them to the requirements and characteristics of the new TLE ( Lin and Scherz, 2014 ; Tian et al, 2021 ).…”