ERIC Number: EJ981704
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2012-Dec
Pages: 15
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0018-1560
EISSN: N/A
Re-Situation Challenges for International Students "Becoming" Researchers
Franken, Margaret
Higher Education: The International Journal of Higher Education and Educational Planning, v64 n6 p845-859 Dec 2012
This paper presents data generated during a semester-long programme to support international students from countries in Melanesia and Asia embarking on masters research in education in a New Zealand university. All were scholarship recipients. The researcher-and facilitator-of the programme, was interested in documenting and understanding the nature of the students' experience as they planned and wrote research proposals. The process of developing a research proposal, as one of the early stages of "becoming" a researcher, highlighted a number of challenges for the six case study students. The challenges are viewed from a transition or "resituation" perspective (Eraut in "Stud Contin Educ" 26(2): 247-74, 2004, 2008) rather than an adjustment one. A resituation perspective assumes that students brought with them "personal expertise, practical wisdom and tacit knowledge" (Eraut 2008, p. 42) which needed to be reconciled with what was demanded of them by different aspects of the research planning process. The resituation challenges experienced by the students included situating a perceived problem or issue in the research literature; reconciling personal research goals with the limitations of one's own agency as a researcher; integrating new learning with research goals; and reconciling the new role or identity as a researcher with the previous role as colleague or community member. The paper presents a case for providing a context for postgraduate students in which explicit recognition of what they bring to the research task, and acknowledgement of the resituation challenges can take place.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, International Education, Student Research, Foreign Students, Case Studies, Graduate Students, Masters Programs, Research Methodology, Researchers, Research Proposals, Research Projects, Prior Learning, Research Skills, Educational Research, Student Role
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Asia; New Zealand
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A