‘Part of the Community?’ First Year International Students and Their Engineering Teams
‘Part of the Community?’ First Year International Students and Their Engineering Teams
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“社区的一部分？”一年级国际学生和他们的工程团队
DOI：
10.11120/ened.2014.00019
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发表时间：
2014
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
C. Hopkins
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Tom Joyce;C. Hopkins
在过去的10年里，工程专业（非欧盟）国际学生的数量大幅增加。在纽卡斯尔大学机械与系统工程学院，一年级的学生分为两个模块的“工程团队”，其中一个模块是设计和制造两台小型风力涡轮机。之前对工程团队系统的评估显示，尽管国际学生更有可能将其视为具有挑战性，但仍受到高度赞赏。为了更深入地探讨这一点，我们使用了混合方法研究设计，以获得整个第一年的国际学生组（N = 22）在2012/2013年的反馈。研究发现，尽管许多国际学生在与队友合作时没有遇到困难，但在确实发生这种情况的情况下，可以识别出一种模式。一些国际学生发现他们很难理解同伴的口音或方言表达，很难融入他们的团队，成为团队对话的一部分，或者在某些情况下，他们认为自己被积极地排除在项目活动之外。少数学生经历了学术和社会信心的丧失，一个子集撤回到他们的团队的边缘。本文提出了一个国际学生早期适应的模式，并提出了三个早期干预措施：（1）国际学生有另一个国际团队成员;（2）所有学生都有机会在促进跨文化互动的环境中进行社交;（三）所有学生都意识到沟通和其他团队困难的可能性，并强烈提醒国际交流是所有学生的责任。
Abstract The number of (non-European Union) international students in engineering has increased substantially over the past 10 years. In the School of Mechanical and Systems Engineering at Newcastle University first year students are organised into ‘Engineering Teams’ for two modules, in one of which they design and manufacture two small-scale wind turbines. Previous evaluation of the Engineering Team system showed a high level of appreciation although international students were more likely to experience it as challenging. To explore this in greater depth a mixed-method research design was used to obtain feedback from the entire first year international student group (N = 22) during 2012/2013. The study found that although many international students experienced no difficulties in working with team mates, where this did occur a pattern was recognisable. Some international students found it difficult to understand their peers' accented speech or dialect expressions, found it hard to integrate into their team, to be part of team conversations or in some cases perceived themselves as actively excluded from taking part in project activities. A smaller number of students experienced a loss of academic and social confidence and a subset withdrew to the periphery of their teams. A model of early international student adjustment is proposed together with three early interventions: (1) international students have another international team member; (2) all students have an opportunity to meet socially in an environment that promotes intercultural interaction; (3) all students are made aware of the potential for communication and other team difficulties to occur initially with a strong reminder that international communication is the responsibility of all students.