Temporal Trajectories: A Comparative Analysis of Mexican and Vietnamese Students’ Strategies in the Canadian Edugration System

This paper aims to explore factors impacting Vietnamese international students’ satisfaction in Taiwan universities. The study was based on a process design of two sub-studies. Study 1 was qualitative research with focus group discussion, and open-ended survey questions were applied to explore essential factors of Vietnamese international students’ perception of their satisfaction. Study 2 was a quantitative study in 20 Taiwan universities, in which 192 Vietnamese students participated to answer the formal questionnaires. In this Study 2, a statistical procedure was employed to analyze the data. The findings from Study 1 indicated that instructor, learning material and facility, dormitory services, and extracurricular activity constitute Vietnamese international students’ satisfaction in Taiwan universities. Findings from Study 2 showed that Vietnamese students are satisfied with these factors. While instructor, dormitory service, and extracurricular activity were considered strong predictors of these students’ satisfaction, learning material and facility were relatively low. Also, it found that scholarship-sponsored students had lower satisfaction than self-supporting students. These findings could provide theoretical and practical implication as it addresses the lack of research on international students’ satisfaction with universities in host countries. Also, practitioners could find interesting points from this paper to design marketing strategies for international student recruitment.


 
 
 International student mobility has been increasingly subject to turbulences in politics, culture, economics, natural disasters, and public health. The new decade has witnessed an unprecedented disruption to international student flows and welfare as a consequence of the COVID-19 outbreak. COVID-19 has laid bare how fragile the current transactional higher education model is, in Australia and in other major destination countries like the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand. This health crisis hitting international education presents a range of challenges for host universities. In such a fallout, the connection between university communities and international students is more critical than ever. This connection is vital not only to university’s operations and recovery but more importantly, to international students’ learning and wellbeing. This in turn will have longer term impacts on host countries’ and universities’ sustainable international recruitment and reputation as a study destination. Therefore, it is timely to reflect on how we view and conceptualize the way we engage and work with international students. This article presents a new frame for conceptualizing the teaching, learning, and engagement for international students, which emphasizes people-to-people empathy and people-to-people connections.
 
 
 
 Conceptualize Student Connection Through Formal and Informal Curriculum
 Dis/connection has been argued to play “an important role in shaping international students’ wellbeing, performance and life trajectories” (Tran & Gomes, 2017, p. 1). Therefore, it is important to frame international student connectedness not only within the context of formal teaching and learning on campus, but also in a broader setting, taking into account the dynamic, diverse, and fluid features of transnational mobility.
 Some of the primary dimensions of international student connection vital to their academic and social experience and wellbeing have been identified as:
 • Connection with the content and process of teaching and learning• Bonding between host teachers and international students• Engagement with the university communities• Interaction between domestic and international students and among international peers• Integration into relevant social and professional networks, the host community, and the host society• Connection with family and home communities• Online and digital connection
 Based on interviews with around 400 international students, teachers, and international student support staff across different research projects, I identified four main principles underpinning effective engagement and support for international students. Most participants stressed the importance of understanding international students’ study purposes, needs, expectations, and characteristics in the first place in order to meaningfully and productively engage with and cater for this cohort (Tran, 2013). Second, effective teaching of and engagement with international students is based on understanding not only their academic needs but also other aspects that are interlinked with their academic performance, including pastoral care needs, mental health, employment, accommodation, finance, life plans, and aspirations. Third, a sense of belonging to the content of teaching and learning and the pedagogy used by teachers is essential to international students’ engagement with the classroom community. In this regard, connection is intimately linked to international students being included and valued intellectually and culturally in teaching and learning, and in being treated as partners (Green, 2019; Tran, 2013) rather than ‘others’ in the curriculum. Fourth, to position international students as truly an integral component of campus communities, it is essential to develop explicit approaches to engage them not only academically and interculturally, but also mentally and emotionally, especially during hard-hitting crises in international education such as the 2019–2020 COVID-19 outbreak, the 2003 SARS epidemic, and the 2001 September 11 attacks.
 Productive Connectedness
 The lack of engagement between international and domestic students is often identified as a primary area for improvement for universities that host international students, especially in Anglophone countries (Leask, 2009). While international education is supposed to strengthen people-to-people connections and enrich human interactions, ironically it is this lack of connection with the local community, including local students, that international students feel most dissatisfied about in their international education experience. To support and optimize the learning and wellbeing of international students, productive connectedness is essential. Productive connectedness is not simply providing the mere conditions for interaction between domestic and international peers (Tran & Pham, 2016). These conditions alone cannot ensure meaningful and real connectedness but can just lead to artificial or surface engagement between international students and the host communities. Productive connectedness is centered around creating real opportunities for international and local students to not only increase their mutual understandings, but importantly also to reciprocally learn from the encounter of differences and share, negotiate, and contribute to building knowledge, cultural experiences, and skills on a more equal basis. In this regard, productive connectedness is integral to optimizing teaching and learning for international students.
 Teaching and Learning for International Students
 Over the past 15 years, I and my colleagues have undertaken various research on conceptualizing the teaching and learning process for international students, an evolving and dynamic field of scholarship (Tran, 2011; Tran, 2013a, 2013b; Tran & Nguyen, 2015; Tran & Gomes, 2017; Tran & Pham, 2016). Figure 1 summarizes the six interrelated dimensions of teaching and learning for international students emerging from our research: connecting, accommodating, reciprocating, integrating, “relationalizing,” and empathy.
 
 Connecting
 It is critical in effective teaching and learning for international students that conditions are provided to engage them intellectually, culturally, socially, and affectively. Curriculum, pedagogies, and assessment activities should aim at supporting international students to make transnational knowledge, skills, experience, and culture, as well as people-to-people connections (Tran, 2013).
 Accommodating
 Effective teaching and learning for international students cannot be achieved without an effort to understand their purposes to undertake international education, their cultural and educational backgrounds, their characteristics, their identities, and their aspirations. Good teaching and learning practices in international education are often built on educators’ capacities to tailor their curriculum and pedagogies to cater to international students based on an understanding of their study purposes, backgrounds, and identities.
 Reciprocating
 Reciprocal learning and teaching is integral to international education (Tran, 2011). It is centered around positioning international students as co-constructors of knowledge and educators as reciprocal co-learners (Tran, 2013b). It refers to extending beyond mutual understanding and respect for diversity, to validate and reciprocally learn from diverse resources, experiences, and encounters of differences that international classrooms can offer. This is vital to making international students feel included and valued as an integral part of the curriculum and the university community.
 Integrating
 Integrating refers to the purposeful incorporation of international examples, case studies, materials, and perspectives into the curriculum. Strategies to diversify the teaching and learning content and pedagogies are closely connected with de- Westernizing the curriculum and moving away from Euro-centric content (Tran, 2013a). Integrating contributes to enriching students’ global awareness, world mindfulness, and intercultural competence, which are central to internationalizing student experience and outcomes.
 “Relationalizing”
 “Relationalizing” is crucial in assisting domestic and international students to develop open-minded and ethno-relative perspectives. Engaging students in a comparing–contrasting and reflexive process about professional practices, prior experiences, and cultural norms in different countries represents a critical step in assisting them to develop multiple frames of reference and build capacities to relationally learn from richly varied perspectives and experiences that an international classroom can offer.
 Empathy
 International students’ sense of belonging to the classroom and university community significantly depends on the empathy local teachers and students display toward them. Teachers can develop activities that enable students to develop an understanding and empathy toward what it feels like to be an international student in an unfamiliar academic and social environment, studying in a language that is not their mother tongue. One of the teacher-participants in our research shared an activity she used to help all students develop empathy:I asked for volunteers, I’d speak to them in English and they had to answer in their language. The group had to try and figure out from their body language and tone of voice what they were actually saying to me...But what I try and make them understand that part of the reason we’re doing that, not in English, is because it’s like excluding the local students and it’s making them look like foreigners and to understand the challenge.
 Conclusion
 Effective practices in engaging, teachin

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine Vietnamese international students’ experiences with the campus learning environment by analysing differences in staff and student perceptions.Design/methodology/approachTwo focus groups (n=12) and ten in-depth interviews were conducted with Vietnamese students and four in-depth interviews with the university staff (totalling 26).FindingsThe findings show a greater divergence of views between students and staff on teaching and learning than English language proficiency and student support services. These key differences were influenced by students’ prior expectations of their learning environment in Vietnam.Research limitations/implicationsThis study is limited to one group of international students and to one Australian university.Practical implicationsThe lecturers/administrators must have a good understanding of international students’ learning backgrounds and expectations to enhance their positive experience; appropriate teaching skills and practices are essential for teachers to meet the current needs of students. More effective training for international students to understand the multicultural nature of Australia is also essential.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the literature by identifying the experience of Vietnamese international students in a western university, which is, a relatively under-researched nationality compared to other Asian nationalities such as Chinese and Indian.

Objectives The purpose of this study is to examine the process of “becoming a learner” for Vietnamese students and explore its educational implications in order to reflect on the lives and experiences of international students as agents of learning.
 Methods For the purpose, this research conducted in-depth interviews with 7 Vietnamese international students enrolled in A-University in KyungBuk province. This research used ‘becoming a learner’ process and experience that cannot be generalized by using Yin’s ‘explanation’ method with following steps of ‘open coding’, ‘categorization’, and ‘confirm category’. In addition, Deleuze and Guattari's concept of ‘becoming’ was used as the direction of analysis of the interview data.
 Results As a result of the analysis of the data, the experiences of Vietnamese students ‘becoming a learner’ were confirmed to be those that continuously pursue novelty and were classified in the following forms: ‘escape to Korea,’ ‘experiencing the ‘difference’ and ‘repetition’ of balancing work and study,’ ‘growing up while observing the lives of myself and others,’ ‘the place where I am becomes a place of learning,’ and ‘dreaming a nomadic life different from yesterday.’
 Conclusions The insight from the Vietnamese international students' experience in the process of 'becoming a learner' was that the learning was not limited to a place. The process of constantly rearranging the given environment and people through their lives allowed creative creation and transformation to continue, and it could be explained that work and learning were never separated. In this respect, it is necessary to devise educational countermeasures such as community connection and university community vitalization that enable Vietnamese students to maintain their studies based on their understanding of life as learners.

Drawing on the findings from in-depth interviews with Vietnamese international students studying at Australian universities, this article presents insights into the sociological influences that stem from international students' social networks, at home and abroad, and how they impact on students' aspirations and engagement in international education. Underpinned by Bourdieu's social capital framework, this article critically challenges human capital ideology for its assumptions of individualism and utilitarian function of education as economic goals. The implication for international education providers is to create learning and living opportunities that consider students' social and cultural conditions so as to develop their capacity, self-determination and citizenship.

Since 2021, Australia's international education and migration policies have undergone significant changes. However, a critical gap remains in understanding how these policy shifts are experienced, interpreted, and evaluated by international students themselves. Drawing on in-depth interviews with Chinese, Indian and Vietnameseinternational students, this article examines how these cohorts make sense of and navigate the evolving landscape of Australia's international education policies. It unpacks their experiences of administrative delays, visa insecurity and escalating visa fees, constrained employment opportunities, and emotional uncertainty, and shows how these vary across national backgrounds. By centring student voices, the analysis moves beyond official policy rhetoric to explore how international education and migration governance is lived, evaluated, and internalised in students' everyday life. In doing so, the article contributes to a deeper understanding of how seemingly technical policy instruments function as technologies of affect, shaping not only international education and migration outcomes but also students' sense of belonging, self-worth, and future possibilities. Particularly, this article offers an original conceptual framework by introducing three new concepts to the international education literature: 'temporal bordering', 'aspirational compromise', and 'affective governance in international education' to illuminate how international education-migration policies shape international students' experiences, aspirations, emotions, and sense of belonging. It reconceptualises international education governance as relational and affective, moving beyond macro-level policy analysis to highlight the affective dimensions of students' experiences with shifting geopolitical and policy contexts.

Commentary: COVID‐19 Pandemic and Higher Education: International Mobility and Students’ Social Protection

Objective : This study aims to investigate the correlations among contact experiences with the elderly, knowledge about dementia, and attitudes toward dementia among Vietnamese international students residing in Korea. It seeks to serve as foundational research for improving dementia awareness among international students and developing educational programs. Methods : An online survey was conducted on 73 Vietnamese international students enrolled in Korean language training programs and degree programs in Gwangju and Jeollanam-do. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and Spearman's correlation analysis with SPSS 25.0. Results : The quality of international students' contact experiences with the elderly was 9.92 points, their knowledge of dementia was 7.08 points, and their attitudes toward dementia were 36.26 points. Positive contact experiences with the elderly showed a significant positive correlation with emotional attitudes toward dementia, while knowledge of dementia showed a significant positive correlation with behavioral attitudes. Conclusion : This study confirmed that an integrated approach is necessary to positively change the attitudes of Vietnamese international students toward dementia, including not only fragmented knowledge education but also providing opportunities for positive contact with the elderly to form positive relationships. Future studies should be expanded to include international students of various nationalities and confirm the need for educational programs and vocational training to improve international students' awareness of dementia.

The study reported in this paper examines the experiences of Chinese and Vietnamese international students in engaging in their institutional written discourse at an Australian university. The study highlights the significance of exploring the real accounts of the students as the ‘insiders’ and uncovering students’ individual potential choices and intentions as their ‘seemingly unrecognized’ values in producing their own texts in English as a second language. In particular, based on international students’ reflection on their intentions and potential choices in academic practices, the study signals how the taken-for-granted institutional conventions may contribute to silencing or marginalizing the possibilities for alternative approaches to knowledge and communication within the higher education institutional context.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the voice of Chinese and Vietnamese international students through studying the similarities and differences in their learning experiences and the reasons underlying their experience.Design/methodology/approachIn total, 57 Chinese and Vietnamese international students participated in focus groups and interviews regarding their experiences of higher education and their suggestions for improvement.FindingsThe findings show that Chinese and Vietnamese students had varying levels of challenges and different progress in the adaptation process and that Chinese students were more vocal and less satisfied with their experience of higher education than Vietnamese students. This is due to the mismatch in their expectation and the actual experience and the cultural influence.Research limitations/implicationsThe sample size is relatively small. This study only looked at Vietnamese and Chinese students in one university, which might have limitations in relation to subjectivity and bias.Practical implicationsThe findings provide useful implications for educators, institutional leaders and support staff to improve facilities, teaching quality and service to students.Originality/valueIn the current era of internationalisation, commercialisation and mobility in institutions around the world, this study advances current research and provides timely insight into the experiential differences of the Chinese and Vietnamese student experience and their voice.

China, Vietnam and Republic of Korea are among the top five source countries of international students for Australia. This chapter focuses on the narratives of Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese students as globally mobile learners. It draws on a larger study on the educational experiences of 105 international students from 25 Australian colleges. Drawing on a Bourdieuian conceptual framework and the related notions of investment and cosmopolitan, the chapter shows that international Vietnamese, Korean and Chinese students are motivated to engage in cross-border education by the aspiration for intellectual, professional, cultural, linguistic, and citizenship transformations. Integrated extrinsic and intrinsic motives appear to underpin their engagement in international education. Accordingly, the traditional view that sees academic considerations as the main or sole impetus for students’ cross-border mobility to pursue an international education is no longer relevant in a more globalized age. In addition, the research highlights the association between international students’ choice of mobility and the navigation of their identity paths.

International English Language Testing System (IELTS) scores have been widely used as the language entry requirements for international students in many English-medium universities. However, research on the predictive validity of IELTS on subsequent academic performance has been inconclusive. Additionally, despite the proliferation of IELTS preparation courses, very few attempts have been made to explore the extent to which these courses support course takers’ development of knowledge and skills needed for their subsequent university study. This paper investigated (a) the predictive validity of IELTS results on the subsequent academic performance of Vietnamese international students at UK universities, and (b) the extent to which an IELTS preparation course in Vietnam supported its course takers in their subsequent academic study in the UK. Questionnaires with 80 Vietnamese international students from 31 universities across the UK showed that there was a positive significant correlation between these students’ IELTS scores and their academic results. Follow-up interviews with two undergraduates and two postgraduates who had previously studied in the same IELTS preparation course, but were studying different academic disciplines at different institutions in the UK, and analysis of the materials used in their IELTS preparation course and university courses revealed that the course positively supported these students’ subsequent academic study, but certain skills and knowledge needed in their academic study were not effectively covered in the IELTS preparation course.

This study provides a critique of institutional discourses that are informed by race, culture and identity, learning constraints and particular constructions of English and offers ways of thinking that encourage multiplicity and complexity. Its principal aim is to probe issues relating to the identity formation of international TESOL students in the context of the globalisation of international education. To achieve this aim, the study poses questions about the commodification of the TESOL machinery through marketing programmes and its impact on international TESOL students. In addressing these questions the study considers Australian universities’ marketing practices, the discursive representation of international students by these universities and the government, as well as wider matters of educational policy. The research draws on poststructuralist and postcolonial theories, particularly on selected aspects of the works of Foucault and Said and in so doing demonstrates the usefulness of such theories for exploring issues associated with international TESOL students. Taking from these theorists the concepts of power/knowledge, subjectivity, identity and agency, it also incorporates the work of cultural theorists such as Althusser and Hall. The participants were drawn from a wide range of cultural, linguistic and professional backgrounds, enrolled in Masters of TESOL at Australian universities. Through dialogic sessions with them and documentary analysis the discursive practices of the university sites were examined. So too were the subjectivities of students, as they became involved in the various activities of the institution in which they were enrolled, before, during and after their studies. Overall, the analysis reveals how the subjectivities of international TESOL students are constructed both by the university and the students themselves. The students’ accounts of their experiences broadly conflicted with the sweeping claims made by certain institutes, as well as by the dominant knowledges of marketing, international education and globalisation. The analysis shows how the subjectivities of international TESOL students are constructed by both the university and by the students themselves. It also shows how economics has become firmly entrenched in a market discourse and overall how international students are inscribed within policy shifts. The academic welfare, teaching and learning processes of the university indicated little awareness of the fluidity of culture and language or hybridity of its international students. A consequence of this myopic vision of the university is that students are subjected to constricting, divisive and exclusionary discursive practices that fail to properly acknowledge their complex histories, subjectivities and professional aspirations. An identity has been created for them that is not only superficial but also inaccurate. The findings point to the benefits of examining through a Foucauldian analytic such discursive practices of the institution alongside the subjectivities of students. The approach adopted in the research points to the possibility of moving beyond the current reductionist dualisms and binaries to the adoption of educational and institutional practices that recognise students’ hybridity and syncretic subjectivity. In such a space, the meaning of ‘international students’ and the institutional and educational policies and practices designed for them might be renegotiated. The study concludes that if the goal of genuine internationalisation is to be achieved, there is a need for significant institutional change.

The Institute of International Education (IIE) 2018 Open Doors report highlighted that the United States is the leading international education destination, having hosted about 1.1 million international students in 2017 (IIE, 2018a). Despite year over year increases, U.S. Department of State (USDOS, 2018) data show that for a third year in a row, international student visa issuance is down. This is not the first decline. Student visa issuance for long-term academic students on F visas also significantly dropped following the 9/11 attacks (Johnson, 2018). The fall in issuances recovered within 5 years of 2001 and continued to steadily increase until the drop in 2016. Taken together, the drops in international student numbers indicate a softening of the U.S. international education market. In 2001, the United States hosted one out of every three globally mobile students, but by 2018 it hosted just one of five (IIE, 2018b). This suggests that over the past 20 years, the United States has lost a share of mobile students in the international education market because they’re enrolled elsewhere. The Rise of Nontraditional Education Destination Countries Unlike the United States, the percentage of inbound students to other traditional destinations such as Canada, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, has remained stable since the turn of the 21st century. Meanwhile, nontraditional countries like the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Russia are garnering more students and rising as educational hotspots (Knight, 2013). The UAE and Russia annually welcome thousands of foreign students, respectively hosting over 53,000 and 194,000 inbound international university students in 2017 (UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2019). This is not happenstance. In the past 5 years, these two countries, among others, have adopted higher education internationalization policies, immigration reforms, and academic excellence initiatives to attract foreign students from around the world. The UAE is one of six self-identified international education hubs in the world (Knight, 2013) and with 42 international universities located across the emirates, it has the most international branch campuses (IBCs) worldwide (Cross-Border Education Research Team, 2017). Being a country composed of nearly 90% immigrants, IBCs allow the UAE to offer quality higher education to its non-Emirati population and to attract students from across the Arab region and broader Muslim world. National policy and open regulations not only encourage foreign universities to establish IBCs, they alsoattract international student mobility (Ilieva, 2017). For example, on November 24, 2018, the national government updated immigration policy to allow foreign students to apply for 5-year visas (Government.ae, 2018). The Centennial 2071 strategic development plan aims for the UAE to become a regional and world leader in innovation, research, and education (Government.ae, 2019), with the long-term goal of creating the conditions necessary to attract foreign talent. Russia’s strategic agenda also intends to gain a greater competitive advantage in the world economy by improving its higher education and research capacity. Russia currently has two higher education internationalization policies: “5-100-2020” and “Export Education.” The academic excellence project, known as “5-100-2020,” funds leading institutions with the goal to advance five Russian universities into the top 100 globally by 2020 (Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation, 2018). The “Export Education” initiative mandates that all universities double or triple the number of enrolled foreign students to over half a million by 2025 (Government.ru, 2017). These policies are explicitly motivated by boosting the Russian higher education system and making it more open to foreigners. Another growing area is international cooperation. Unlike the UAE, Russia has few IBCs, but at present, Russian universities partner with European and Asian administrators and government delegates to create dual degree and short-term programs. Historically, Russia has been a leading destination for work and education migrants from soviet republics in the region, but new internationalization policies are meant to propel the country into the international education market and to attract international students beyond Asia and Europe. Future Trends in 21st Century International Education Emerging destination hotspots like the UAE and Russia are vying to become more competitive in the global international higher education market by offering quality education at lower tuition rates in safe, welcoming locations closer to home. As suggested by the softening of the U.S. higher education market, international students may find these points attractive when considering where to study. Sociopolitical shifts that result from events such as 9/11 or the election of Donald Trump in combination with student mobility recruitment initiatives in emerging destinations may disrupt the status quo for traditional countries by rerouting international student enrollment to burgeoning educational hotspots over the coming decades.

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to report on a three-year Australian study of international business and accounting students and the transition to employment. For international students seeking to differentiate themselves in a highly competitive global labour market, foreign work experience is now an integral part of the overseas study “package”. Work-integrated learning (WIL) is seen to provide critical “employability” knowledge and skills, however, international students have low participation rates. The high value placed on WIL among international students poses challenges for Australia as well as opportunities. Understanding the issues surrounding international students and WIL is closely linked to Australia’s continued success in the international education sector which has broad, long-term, social and economic implications.Design/methodology/approach– This paper draws on 59 interviews with a range of stakeholders including international students, universities, government, employers and professional bodies. Central to the paper is an in-depth case study of WIL in the business and accounting discipline at one Australian university.Findings– Providing international students with access to discipline-related work experience has emerged as a critical issue for Australian universities. The study finds that enhancing the employability skills of internationals students via integrated career education, a focus on English language proficiency and “soft skills” development are central to success in WIL. Meeting the growing demand for WIL among international students requires a multipronged approach which hinges on cooperation between international students, universities, employers and government.Originality/value– This project aims to fill a critical knowledge gap by advancing theories in relation to international students and WIL. While there is a significant body of research in the fields of international education and WIL, there is an absence of research exploring the intersection between the two fields. The study will contribute to the advancement of knowledge in both fields by exploring the emerging issue of WIL and international students.