Satisfiers and dissatisfiers for international vocational education students: A case study using narrative frames

While the satisfaction of international students is frequently surveyed, much of this research is based on a very limited range of closed-item data collection methods, producing findings that partially reflect the researchers’ assumptions in designing the survey items. Recognizing the potential value in using methods that are more open-ended and qualitative analyses, the present study employed narrative frames and follow-up interviews to explore the satisfiers and dissatisfiers for international vocational education students at one institution in New Zealand. Reporting on perceptions of the class, institution, and community, the findings identify the participants’ top-of-mind (dis)satisfiers and complement the existing literature by identifying seldom-reported themes. Discussion of issues in analyzing narrative frames is also provided

Life around and beyond study: Chinese students’ voices on their experience in New Zealand

Student satisfaction plays a crucial role in the education and experience of international students and in ensuring a thriving export education industry. While research in this area has been growing over the last thirty years in general, few studies have specifically explored Chinese students’ experience in New Zealand, and fewer have included their life beyond academic study. This presentation reports part of a wider study investigating international students’ satisfiers and dissatisfiers regarding New Zealand vocational education and focuses on voices of the Chinese group only. The study explored the experiences of international students in tertiary vocational training in NZ. It adopted an interpretative paradigm and collected data through a narrative frame and a semi-structured interview. Data reported in this presentation derived from 55 participants who clearly stated their Chinese identity in the narrative frames and eighteen of these who agreed to the subsequent interviews, areas of their study ranging from language courses at various levels to mainstream programmes. The data reveals a diversity of contributors towards students’ satisfying/dissatisfying experiences, involving professionalism and personal attributes of the teaching staff within and outside the classroom, availability and quality of facilities and supporting services across the institution, and various personal interactions in the wider social-cultural New Zealand community. The presentation will conclude with practical implications for international students’ teaching and supporting staff and administrators of international education providers and public services, aiming for positive changes in the mutual interests of Chinese students and New Zealand international education market

Life around and beyond study: Chinese students’ voices on their experience in New Zealand

Student satisfaction plays a crucial role in the education and experience of international students and in ensuring a thriving export education industry. While research in this area has been growing over the last thirty years in general, few studies have specifically explored Chinese students’ experience in New Zealand, and fewer have included their life beyond academic study. This presentation reports part of a wider study investigating international students’ satisfiers and dissatisfiers regarding New Zealand vocational education and focuses on voices of the Chinese group only. The study explored the experiences of international students in tertiary vocational training in NZ. It adopted an interpretative paradigm and collected data through a narrative frame and a semi-structured interview. Data reported in this presentation derived from 55 participants who clearly stated their Chinese identity in the narrative frames and eighteen of these who agreed to the subsequent interviews, areas of their study ranging from language courses at various levels to mainstream programmes. The data reveals a diversity of contributors towards students’ satisfying/dissatisfying experiences, involving professionalism and personal attributes of the teaching staff within and outside the classroom, availability and quality of facilities and supporting services across the institution, and various personal interactions in the wider social-cultural New Zealand community. The presentation will conclude with practical implications for international students’ teaching and supporting staff and administrators of international education providers and public services, aiming for positive changes in the mutual interests of Chinese students and New Zealand international education market

Methods of Detecting Differential Item Functioning: A Comparison of Confirmatory Factor Analysis Methods

The present Monte Carlo study compared four confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) methods for detecting differential item functioning (DIF). The four methods were the noniterative and iterative mean and covariance structure analysis (MACS) methods, the modification index (MI) method, and the modification index-divided sample (MI-divided) method. Reference and focal groups responded to 12 items with 3 of the 12 items designed to exhibit DIF. Sample sizes of 250 and 500 were examined. In addition, three types of DIF were examined: DIF on loadings, DIF on thresholds, and DIF on both loadings and thresholds. Results indicated that for sample size 250, all methods had good DIF detection rates for DIF on thresholds and for DIF on loadings and thresholds; all methods were not sensitive to DIF on loadings. For sample size 500, all methods had good DIF detection rates for DIF on thresholds and for DIF on loadings and thresholds. With the greater sample size, the noniterative and iterative MACS methods were more sensitive to DIF on loadings. The MI-divided method improved to a lesser degree, but the MI method did not improve at all. For DIF on thresholds for sample size 500, the noniterative MACS, MI, and MI-divided methods had false positive rates that were greater than expected by chance. Only the iterative MACS method maintained the false positive rates at or below that expected by chance

Refugees and integration in the UK: the role of gender

The population of refugees in the UK is growing, yet our understanding of the process of integration is limited. Jenny Phillimore and Sin Yi Cheung break new ground and explain how gender impacts on the process. They offer unique insights drawing on areas including language proficiency, health, employment, and housing, and outline key recommendations that the government must consider in order to enable those individuals to thrive

Gender and refugee integration: a quantitative analysis of integration and social policy outcomes

The population of refugees in the UK is expanding and will expand further given the UK Government’s response to the European refugee crisis. This paper breaks new ground by undertaking a gender analysis of integration outcomes across a range of areas, namely social networks, language proficiency, health, education, employment and housing, that are highly relevant for social policy. Using the UK’s only longitudinal survey on refugees, we conduct secondary data analysis to examine the factors associated with integration outcomes. We find significant gender differences in language, self-reported health, ability to budget for household expenses and access to formal social networks and quality housing, with women generally faring worse than men and some inequalities enduring or intensifying over time. We call for the recording of refugee outcomes in institutional monitoring data to enable inequalities to be identified and addressed. The findings also enable the identification of social policy areas in which a gender sensitive approach might be necessary

Voluntary action for asylum seeker and refugee integration

This chapter focusses on the role of a self-organised civil society project known as the Welcome Project, based in the superdiverse neighbourhood of Handsworth/Handsworth Wood, Birmingham, in supporting social integration. We begin by describing the characteristics of Handsworth/Handsworth Wood before setting out the reasons why the project was established and the needs it was intended to address. We then outline the services offered by the project before exploring the ways in which their work supports social integration locally. We end the chapter by reflecting on the reasons for the project’s success and the key dimensions of their approach that could be adopted elsewhere

Facilitate recycle activities via ICT and physical approach

Recycle, reuse and reduce are commonly heard as the activities to support for green environment. However, without or lack of self awareness and voluntary to contribute to the green it can cause a failure effort and projects from the government and other sectors. Furthermore, the public could not be expected to keep recycling without enough motivation, assistance and facility. Alternatively, we proposed a web application as an e-platform for the community and business entity including shopping mall, green business and other agencies to support and collaborate between each other in supporting for recycle and reuse. We have investigated through survey and interview with those involved including the public and representatives from the selected shopping malls to collect data of the current scenario regarding their awareness and willingness to contribute to green. Our solution called e-Reward for Recyclers purposely to motivate people to recycle their used items from home at one stop recycling centre by collaborating with shopping malls. Lastly, we wanted to connect people from the green business including recycle factory, reused company and welfare organization to the recycle centre for them to collect mass recycled items to be reused for their purposes

The violence of uncertainty: empirical evidence on how asylum waiting time undermines refugee health

Grace and colleagues (2018) introduced the idea of violent uncertainty making claims about the deleterious impacts of insecure immigration status on the health of migrants. Policies of uncertainty are said to directly and indirectly create harm by impacting on individual's health via detention and public degradation and undermining healthcare services. We offer original empirical evidence indicating an association with uncertainty, in the form of asylum waiting times, on refugees' self-reported health. We devise four hypotheses that: long waiting time for asylum decisions increases likelihood of self-reported health problems and the effect persists overtime, that female refugees report higher levels of health problems and religion moderates the association between health and uncertainty. We use data from the UK longitudinal Survey of New Refugees wherein all new refugees were sent a baseline survey immediately after receiving refugee status and then follow-up surveys 21 months later. The findings show longer asylum waiting time is associated with poor health. Female refugees were more likely to report poor emotional and physical health. The negative effect of asylum waiting time on emotional health persists 21 months post settlement with hypotheses about the ameliorating effect of religion only partially supported. Our findings supports existing theory and findings from qualitative studies about the deleterious effects of using policies of waiting-related uncertainty for managing migration. Given the wide use of such policies in the Global North, our work is suggestive of likely generalisability. Thus, countries with large refugee populations might want to consider our findings when developing asylum policy which minimises impact on refugee health