What are the factors that contribute to postgraduate international students’ academic success? A Malaysian qualitative study

Singh, Jasvir Kaur Nachatar

doi:10.1080/07294360.2018.1467383

Cited by 31 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…These have been classified under four broad categories including: institutional factors, which include the ability to provide sufficient services and resources and development opportunities (Shariff et al, 2015); personal factors, such as financial circumstances, marital status and inner motivation (Pauley et al, 1999;Pitchforth et al, 2012); professional skills factors relating to English proficiency, writing and reading, and critical thinking (Mohamed et al, 2013;Pitchforth et al, 2012); and others, such as lack of quality research materials, inadequate research equipment, and growing job opportunities (Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia, 2016). A recent study by Singh (2018) suggests that supervision quality is a major contributor to low GoT, high attrition rates, and overall student satisfaction in Malaysia. This confirms previous findings by Suhaimi (2016), in which poor supervision was the most commonly cited problem among Malaysian PhD students.…”

Section: Background: the Malaysian Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Alignment of Doctoral Student and Supervisor Expectations in Malaysia

Collins

Saadi

2021

IJDS

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Aim/Purpose: This paper compares doctoral student and supervisor expectations of their respective roles and responsibilities in doctoral research supervision relationships in Malaysia. It identifies the areas, and the extent to which expectations align or differ. Background: Incongruence of expectations between doctoral students and their supervisor has been cited as a major contributor to slow completion times and high attrition rates for doctoral students. While researchers urge the need for explicit discussion of expectations, in practice doctoral students and supervisors rarely make their expectations explicit to each other, and few researchers have examined the areas of alignment or misalignment of expectations in depth. Methodology: Semi-structured interviews were held with fifteen doctoral students and twelve supervisors from two research-intensive universities in Malaysia. An inductive thematic analysis of data was conducted. Contribution: This paper provides the first in-depth direct comparison of student-supervisor expectations in Malaysia. A hierarchical model of student-supervisor expectations is presented. Findings: Expectations vary in the degree of congruence, and the degree to which they are clarified by students and supervisors across four different areas: academic practice, academic outcomes, skills and personal attributes, personal relationships. A hierarchical model is proposed to describe the extent to which both students and supervisors are able to clarify their mutual expectations arising throughout the doctoral student-supervisor relationship. Recommendations for Practitioners: Institutions should support discussions with both doctoral students and supervisors of expectations of their student-supervisor interactions, and encourage them to be more proactive in exploring their mutual expectations. Recommendation for Researchers: Data is recommended to be collected from students who have recently completed their studies, given the observation that some student participants were uncomfortable speaking about their supervisors while still in the student-supervisor relationship. Impact on Society: Opening opportunities for discussions of expectations by students and supervisors, supported and encouraged by the institutions within which they work, can help set the scene for positive and productive relationships. Future Research: Findings indicate there is need to examine in depth the impact of gender, and the competing pressures to publish and graduate on time, as they relate to the student-supervisor relationships and experience.

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Section: Background: the Malaysian Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Alignment of Doctoral Student and Supervisor Expectations in Malaysia

Collins

Saadi

2021

IJDS

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“…However, international postgraduate students in Singh and Jack's (2018) study understood their academic success as the development of personal and professional skills as well as their contribution to their home country on return. Singh (2018) further revealed institutional services, such as workshops, financial and library services, together with individual characteristics, especially self-discipline attributes, and a quality supervision process, were the main factors contributing to achieving academic success of international postgraduate students. Other factors articulated by postgraduate students in Malaysia have included supervisor commitment to the research project and supervisees, and the frequency of consultations between supervisors and supervisees (Mohamed et al, 2012).…”

mentioning

confidence: 98%

“…In the main, factors leading to academic success (Singh, 2018), as well as the academic and social adjustment challenges encountered by international students (Asgari & Borzooei, 2014;Desa et al, 2012;Sidhu et al, 2014) have been widely studied. However, understanding how severe supervision-related challenges contribute to academic failure experiences by international postgraduate students in Malaysia has received very little attention (da Silva & Ravindran, 2016).…”

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confidence: 99%

Academic Failure: Unspoken Experiences by International Postgraduate Students in a Malaysian University

Singh¹

2020

ije

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Malaysia aspires to become a regional and international hub of higher education through an international student mobility initiative. Existing scholarly work on international students is skewed towards understanding the general challenges faced by international students, but limited work has been conducted in exploring the impact of severe supervision challenges on international postgraduate students’ experiences in a Malaysian research university. Hence, this paper explores the evidence of academic failure experienced by international postgraduate students by drawing on semi-structured interviews with 33 international postgraduate students. Academic failure experiences were faced by international postgraduate students as a result of two major challenges: supervision issues, and faculty mismanagement. The experience of academic failure has impacted the students’ enthusiasm, motivation and inspiration in progressing in their research work and has also impacted them psychologically. The implications for developing significant and profound strategies to assist international postgraduate students in achieving positive educational outcomes are also discussed.

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“…Likewise, personal attributes, such as disciplined, dedicated, responsible, and selfmotivated are mentioned in the literature as positive aspects that allow the student to complete the thesis within the established deadlines (Nachatar, 2018). That is to say, successful completion of the thesis on time is conditioned by the personality of the student and by having disciplined as the most important attribute.…”

Section: Supervised Performancementioning

confidence: 99%

Why Students FindIt Difficult to Finish their Theses?

Bayona-Oré¹,

Bazan²

2020

tused

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This study focuses on the reasons why students from private universities who have finished their studies, but not their research work, a requirement to obtain their degree. Several studies agree that the supervision process is a fundamental factor to complete the thesis successfully. Thesis development and successful thesis completion are conditioned by a number of factors, one of which is supervisor performance. This study explores the limitations on supervision, time, and money, which are resources students need in order to finish their theses, and suggestions for improvement. The sample of the study consisted of 129 graduate candidates from different careers at a private university in Peru. The findings show that lack of supervision during the thesis development process, lack of time to develop the thesis and finance have an impact on finishing a thesis. Supervisors must have cognitive competences in scientific methodology, statistics, and the research topic, and help the students to transition from course work to independent research.

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What are the factors that contribute to postgraduate international students’ academic success? A Malaysian qualitative study

Cited by 31 publications

References 34 publications

Alignment of Doctoral Student and Supervisor Expectations in Malaysia

Alignment of Doctoral Student and Supervisor Expectations in Malaysia

Academic Failure: Unspoken Experiences by International Postgraduate Students in a Malaysian University

Why Students FindIt Difficult to Finish their Theses?

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