International School Students Research Articles

World-mindedness of students and their geography education at international (IB-DP) and regular schools in the Netherlands

This article reports the results of a study conducted to gain insight into the worldmindedness of young people living in the Netherlands. Two groups are compared: students attending 'regular' Dutch schools and students attending international schools. A questionnaire measured the students' world-mindedness and their evaluation of their geography education in terms of global content and pedagogy. In our limited study, international school students were overall more world-minded than young people attending Dutch conventional schools. However, similarities were also seen: both groups were positive about values such as respect, diversity, and sustainability, and less positive about values such as solidarity and equality. International schools aimed more towards global learning than did Dutch schools, because of the experiential learning of students exposed to an international educational environment. In the opinion of the students, geography education at Dutch schools was often limited to learning about global issues and perspectives, while at international schools it seemed also to encompass learning for a global perspective.

Which preparatory curriculum for the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme is best? The challenge for international schools with regard to mathematics and science

There are two mainstream curricula for international school students at the junior high level: the International Baccalaureate (IB) Middle Years Programme (MYP) and the Cambridge International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE). The former was developed in the mid-1990s and is currently being relaunched in a 21st-century approach. The latter programme of study was developed by University of Cambridge International Examinations in 1985 and has become popular in recent years among British domestic and international schools worldwide due to the clarity of its learning content. The prevailing uncertainty about which curriculum is best to prepare students for the IB Diploma Programme represents a challenge for international schools. The purpose of the current study is to develop a methodology through causal models which can explain the relationship between student performance in the IGCSE and the Diploma Programme with regard to mathematics and science. The data evaluated here consisted of external examination scores of students who attended a private international high school between the years 2005 and 2012. Two structural equation models were developed. The first model employed a maximum likelihood estimation, while the second model used a Bayesian estimation with a Markov Chain Monte Carlo method. Both models fit the data well. The evidence suggests that the IGCSE provides a good foundational preparation for the Diploma Programme in mathematics and science.

Shanghai Suburbia: Expatriate teenagers' age-specific experiences of gated community living

Abstract This article examines expatriate teenagers’ experiences of residing in gated housing complexes in Shanghai. It builds on ethnographic fieldwork within the expatriate – mostly German – community, and draws from participant observation among international high school students. Comparing expatriate youths’ reflections and experiences with those of younger children and mothers, this case study highlights the age-specific perspective of teenagers on gated community housing abroad. While gated neighborhoods are a common form of living in Shanghai, the upscale suburban compounds under scrutiny are mainly inhabited by corporate expatriates and reflect processes of privatization and gated community growth worldwide. Previous research and interviews with German mothers in Shanghai demonstrate that compound amenities, such as clubhouses, offer expatriates space for arrival, adjustment and community building. Investigating youths’ daily practices, however, shows that teenagers make only limited use of them. While expatriate youths associate houses and bedrooms with notions of home, they relate the gated estates to boredom and borders. They voice a strong desire to transgress the borders of expat family housing estates and seek out places and activities outside the gates. Through nightlife and leisure activities teenagers build relations to the city of Shanghai and stage young, urban identities that help them form narratives of emplacement, something gated estates seem to impair.

MULTILINGUALISM IN EDUCATION: THE ROLE OF FIRST LANGUAGE

A bstract: This paper discusses the possibilities and effects of different language policies in schools around the world, based on recent research on second language learning and on the relationship between language and cultural identity. With reference to some of the latest findings from brain imaging in learners who speak one, two or more languages, it looks at the physical effects of bilingualism and multilingualism, and how these may be applied in teaching and in school policy to improve education. With reference to a recent survey of students in international secondary schools in Indonesia, it also discusses the cultural aspects of language use in schools and the role of language in identity. It examines the effects of learning more than one language at a young age, and of learning subjects through a language which is not the learner's first language. A large number of schools worldwide currently teach English to speakers of other languages from an early age. This paper discusses the degree to which such early foreign or second language teaching is actually useful or effective. In many parts of the world, it has also become popular to teach mainstream or even all curriculum subjects in English. Some, however, have found this to be detrimental in several ways and have therefore reverted to teaching subjects in their national language. Many are concerned about the possibility that languages with a small number of speakers are doomed to being lost and replaced by a national language, or that their national language could eventually be replaced by English. This could have important repercussions both on local cultures and on international relations, given the emotive aspects of one's first language. Vital decisions on language are frequently made based on the need for English in careers. However, it may be that the current language teaching situation is not actually succeeding in improving students' use of English or their learning in general. Moreover, there is a great risk of producing one or more generations of school leavers and graduates who cannot function beyond everyday conversation in their first language. It may be impossible for English to continue to dominate education without raising affective barriers to learning by giving a low status to local languages and cultures. In this paper, all of the above questions are discussed and researched, and several solutions to the problems arising from them are proposed. Keywords : multilingualism, first language, second language curriculum

Stress and Coping Strategies among Nursing Students

Stress is seen as modem society's illness by professionals from different sectors. It has effects on people's behaviors, communications and efficiency. Stress was described as a relationship between individuals and their environment that is appraised as dangerous and evaluated as beyond their ability to deal with stress (Lazarus, 1966). Selye defined stress as a physiological non-specific reaction to external or internal demands (Selye, 1976).Stewart et al. (1997) suggest that students with an active coping style have lower levels of psychological distress. As a result, it is important that individuals develop different (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Strategies are in order to manage stressful situations (Chew-Graham, Rogers & Yassin, 2003; Fish et al., 1996). In Malaysia, handful studies conducted related to stress and coping styles were focused on stress among nursing students, international school students, school athletes, university students, medical students and among prescience students (Emilia et al., 2007; Jani, 2005; Sherina, 2004; Tharbe, 2006; Uguaket al., 2006).In terms of stress management, Lazarus and Folkman, (1984) defined eight separate coping strategies that they believed individuals employed in stressful situations. Stress could be defined simply as the rate of wear and tear on the body systems caused by life (Stranks, 2005). It occur when a person has difficulty dealing with life situations, problems and goals (Videbeck, 2007). Stress has physical, emotional, and cognitive effects. Although everybody has the capacity to adapt to stress, not everyone responds to similar stressors exactly the same (Timby, 2008). Nursing involves activities and interpersonal relationships that are often stressful. Caring for clients who are experiencing high levels of anxiety can be stress provoking for nurses (White, 2000).Objectives of the study* The first objective aimed to elucidate the psychometric adequacy of the behavioural measures of (a) Perception of Stress Scale (PSS; Cohen et al., 1983), and (b) Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations (CISS; Endler & Parker, 1999).* The second objective aimed to elucidate the relationship between the various subscale measures of the coping strategies and stress among nursing students.Hypotheses of the study* It was expected that the behavioural measures (as incorporated in the present study) would find their replicability in the project population,* The hypothesis with regards to the significant independent and interaction effects of 'gender1 (male and female), stress and various faces of coping strategies.This is exploratory analytical survey designed to collect information from nurses on the coping strategies used by them to maintain equilibrium from the stress.MethodParticipantsOne hundred eighty (180) nursing students belonging to the age group of 20 to 25 years served as subjects for the study. The sample was comprised of 180 nursing students in various hostels selected by a stratified random sampling.InstrumentsThe Hindi Adaptation of Perception of Stress Scale: (PSS; Cohen et al., 1983) by Singh and associates (2010), and Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations (CISS; Endler & Parker, 1999) by Singh and associates, 2010, were employed for measurement purposes of the theoretical constructs. The CISS consists of 48 items measuring taskoriented, emotional-oriented and avoidance-oriented coping strategies with 16 items in each. The CISS has been successfully employed in a number of representative studies (Cosway et al., 2000; Slesnick et al., 2007).The PSS consists of 10 items. It has 10 items, and reported to show high reliability and validity of the theoretical construct.ProcedureThe Perception of Stress Scale (PSS; Cohen et al., 1983) and Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations (CISS; Endler & Parker, 1999) were employed in hostels with two or three subj ects in each room. …

Coming to America for Spiritual or Academic Growth? Experiences of International Students at One Christian School

The number of international students flocking to North American private Christian schools has continued to grow. The author examined the overall experiences of 67 international high school students studying at a private Christian school in South Carolina. Their frustrations and struggles with academic and spiritual growth in a new cross-cultural setting, their reasons for coming to study in the United States at their own expense, as well as their motivations to come to the United States were investigated. The findings signified that none of the participants came to the Christian school for a Christian education, but for a good academic education and a bright future. In addition, the absence of their home cultures, the lack of academic language, and the large culture distance contributed to their frustrations and struggles in the process of adaptation to the new school environment.

Opinions and Knowledge About Climate Change Science in High School Students

This study investigates the influence of knowledge on opinions about climate change in the emerging adults' age group (16-17 years). Furthermore, the effects of a lecture in climate change science on knowledge and opinions were assessed. A survey was conducted in Austria and Denmark on 188 students in national and international schools before and after a lecture in climate change science. The results show that knowledge about climate change science significantly affects opinions about climate change. Students with a higher number of correct answers are more likely to have the opinion that humans are causing climate change and that both individuals and governments are responsible for addressing climate change. The lecture in climate change science significantly improved knowledge development but did not affect opinions. Knowledge was improved by 11% after the lecture. However, the percentage of correct answers was still below 60% indicating an urgent need for improving climate change science education.

Correlates of the Reading Interest of Chinese High School Students in International Schools

Reading builds and shapes a man’s life as part of the society he chooses to belong. It is an essential tool for learning especially for young students who should possess a level of interest in reading to enable them to understand and appreciate materials and tools for learning.The study underscores the significance of reading interest in one’s learning process and analyzes the different correlates that affect it and their extent. It brings to fore important features of independent and variable factors that function as correlates. To do this, a survey was conducted of a group of Chinese third year high school students in an international school in Makati City, Philippines. On the independent factor, which is the personal profile of the respondents, the study involved more males than females. They are young and come from average income families. They belong to the average and high average students in their English classes. Majority prefer to join groups than be alone. On the variables, which are the external factors, the data showed that parents and teachers influence them to a very great extent while classmates and friends affect them only to a great extent. Majority expressed that their home environment is generally conducive and reading materials are available. In presenting its findings, the study finally attempts to show how they apply to our subject -- the Chinese high school students in international schools in general.

Everyday Electrical Engineering: A One-Week Summer Academy Course for High School Students

A summer academy is held for grade 9-12 high school students at the University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada, every year. The academy, dubbed the Da Vinci Engineering Enrichment Program (DEEP), is a diverse program that aims to attract domestic and international high school students to engineering and sciences (and possibly recruit them). DEEP also provides them with the opportunity to experience the university setting. This paper discusses the organization of DEEP and presents the details of a DEEP course developed to introduce students to electrical engineering. This course is designed for junior (grades 9 and 10) students and includes lectures, hands-on activities (both in a team and individually), and a field trip. The survey results, collected as both formative and summative feedback, indicate the success of the course. This paper also provides recommendations for future offerings of the course.

National or global: The mutable concepts of identity and home for international school students

This article examines a selection of responses about identity and belonging among students in an international school in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, who must often move from one continent to another because of the nature of their parents’ work. A review of the literature highlights some of the issues these students face within an international school community, including social, psychological, and academic difficulties. The students were interviewed about their nationalities, their sense of belonging, and their thoughts about the future. Their responses were video-recorded and analyzed by thematic groupings. Initial findings indicate three distinct groups of students: those who know exactly which country they come from, those who are not sure, and those who feel an attachment to a global rather than a national identity.

Career Services Provision to Secondary School Students in Tanzania: Is it a dream or Reality?

Career services provision include all actions which deal with giving students information and psychological assistance that may directly affect their decisions and choices which these individuals are about to make on their schooling and employment. The purpose of this study was to examine the status of career services provision and its role on career decision making among high school students in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania by comparing career services provision in government and international schools. Specifically, the study intended to identify the career programs available to students in schools, students’ career knowledge and the contribution of career programs and career knowledge to students’ career decision making. The study was conducted in six secondary schools using a sample of 322 students. The data from students were collected through a structured questionnaire and focus group discussions. The results revealed that students in international schools had access to many career programs and they have better knowledge on careers as compared to students in government schools. It was therefore concluded that, career services provision in international schools is to some degrees a reality as opposed to government schools where career services provision is still a dream. It is suggested that, future research can observe the role of career services provision in secondary schools to students’ ability to make relevant course choices in higher learning institutions.

RETRACTED ARTICLE: The moving finger: Asian international hotel school students developing English language writing skills

A thorough investigation has determined that the article “The moving finger: Asian international hotel school students developing English language writing skills” by Peter Graham published in Research in Hospitality Management (2012) Volume 1 Issue 2, pp. 53-63, is substantially similar to that of an already published article “The impact of studying in a second language (L2) medium university on the development of L2 writing” by Neomy Storch published in Journal of Second Language Writing (2009) Volume 18, pp. 103-118, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jslw.2009.02.003.As a result, the article published in Research in Hospitality Management has been retracted and should not be cited in the electronic or print version of the journal.Erwin LosekootEditor-in-Chief

Integrating multiple identities: Narrative in the formation and maintenance of the self in international school students

This article reports on an investigation into the formation and maintenance of identity in globally mobile children and young people in the setting of an international school. The findings suggest that students at the school sustain composite identities that encompass their multiple experiences. The school itself offers a milieu which recognizes their way of life as the norm and with which they can identify. The data further suggests that narrative serves to integrate the multiple aspects of participants’ identities.

Online Social Networks: Changing the Face of Business Education and Career Planning

Online social networks have become increasingly popular in recent years, providing an efficient and user-friendly way to maintain social connections and share information. They have been shown to facilitate business relationships and building of social capital using electronic media. Graduates who are coming into business for the first time are almost expected to be comfortable with interactions using social networks. This brings new challenges to graduates in the way they use social networks and how they enhance their career development and relationships with employers. This study reports the findings of a survey of 272 UK and international business school students on career development and entrepreneurship as a part of a wider study of online social networking. The results of the study reveal key differences between undergraduate, postgraduate and international student populations. The paper discusses differences across gender, educational level and nationality that have implications for social networking practices and argues for a pressing need to raise the awareness of graduates in the use of social networks to enhance their career prospects. The conclusions of the study offer better understanding of motivations and barriers to an effective application of social networks in business.

The PULSE@Parkes Project: a New Observing Technique for Long-Term Pulsar Monitoring

AbstractThe PULSE@Parkes project has been designed to monitor the rotation of radio pulsars over time spans of days to years. The observations are obtained using the Parkes 64-m and 12-m radio telescopes by Australian and international high school students. These students learn the basis of radio astronomy and undertake small projects with their observations. The data are fully calibrated and obtained with the state-of-the-art pulsar hardware available at Parkes. The final data sets are archived and are currently being used to carry out studies of 1) pulsar glitches, 2) timing noise, 3) pulse profile stability over long time scales and 4) the extreme nulling phenomenon. The data are also included in other projects such as gamma-ray observatory support and for the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array project. In this paper we describe the current status of the project and present the first scientific results from the Parkes 12-m radio telescope. We emphasise that this project offers a straightforward means to enthuse high school students and the general public about radio astronomy while obtaining scientifically valuable data sets.

Three Pathways to a Physician Career: Applicants to U.S. MD and DO Schools and U.S. Citizen Applicants to International Medical Schools

To determine the size of the overall applicant pool for medical education (applicants to U.S. MD schools and DO schools, and to international medical schools) and to determine the degree of overlap of the three types of applicants. A cooperative agreement among the Association of American Medical Colleges, the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine, and the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates permitted the authors to uniquely identify applicants and students of all three types and to combine their data into a study file containing data on applicants for each year. Overlaps in the three applicant pools were then determined, and repeat applicants were separated from first-time applicants. A key finding is that two thirds of osteopathic applicants in any recent year also applied to U.S. MD schools, whereas only one in seven U.S. MD applicants also applied to DO schools. Seventy-two percent of students in international medical schools did not apply to any U.S. school in the same year. After separating out repeat applicants, the authors found that 90% of all first-time applicants applied to a U.S. MD school. If all first-time applicants applied to U.S. MD schools, the pool of first-time applicants would be increased by only 11%. It may be necessary to recruit additional applicants to meet projected growth in the aggregate capacity of both U.S. MD and DO schools. Although the number and quality of applicants seem to be adequate for the near term, it will be important to continue to monitor these trends.

The Long Revolution of Raymond Williams: "Culture and Society" Fifty Years On

The scene was an Oxford lecture hall in the off-term, a gathering in the early 1970s of international summer school students. Among the many things I was clueless about that undergraduate summer is that I was catching my only glimpse of in a defining posture, physically close to the heart of the Oxbridge establishment but simultaneously working in the margins. This is where labored long after World War II, in what was then called extramural studies--literally outside the walls--and what has now morphed at Oxford and at my own institution from continuing to online and distance learning, a euphemism that I wish could have a crack at. I want to hold for a moment this snapshot of in extension education mode a block or two over from the Bodleian, because it epitomizes a number of oppositions in his career: the extramuralist who later held a Cambridge fellowship; the Welsh outsider who spent his career unpacking English culture; the socialist always working the edges of establishment criticism; the critic whose heart was increasingly in his fiction; the English faculty syllabus lecturer who insisted that television and other new forms of media were necessary objects of scholarship. One of the texts I was assigned that Oxford summer was Culture and Society 1780-1950, a book that was then only a teenager. Published in 1958, Culture and Society has now sold nearly a quarter-million copies as it has reached its early middle age, on the verge of its half-century mark. Regardless of the popularity of later works, Culture and Society remains Williams's signature book, a fact that did not especially please him. Here is in a 1979 interview gently complaining that the book circulated in the U.S. was the critical equivalent of alcohol-free beer: Still today many American readers say, oh yes, we agree with your position, we read Culture and Society and that sort of thing. And I say that is not my position. And they say well it's still a very radical book, and I say, well, first-stage radicalism. (Politics 110). After Williams's death in 1988, there was a flurry of assessment and debate about his career, and his legacy has now begun to settle into institutionalized forms such as a Blackwell Reader and at least one research institute in his honor, the Raymond Centre for Recovery Research at Nottingham Trent University, dedicated to archival resurrection of voices previously off the curatorial map. Not so easy to pin down, however, the name Raymond Williams can still ignite fierce intramural firefights about the aims and methods of cultural studies or post-Marxist criticism. I do not propose to intervene directly in those large and important conversations today. My more modest aim is the question of and Romanticism, to which I want to call attention by the still more limited horizon of the history of his 1958 book. To bring into focus the history of Culture and Society in Romantic scholarship, I borrow for a set of signposts what is probably Williams's most popular contribution to the toolkit of the English professor--the temporal trope of the emergent, the dominant, and the residual. My students are often puzzled when they consult the full text of Culture and Society, especially after being introduced to through excerpts from later texts in anthologies of literary theory or cultural studies. Rather than the expected firebrands of British radicalism, unearthed by recovery research, they encounter instead an opening chapter on Southey, of all people, and sustained engagements with the likes of Burke, Coleridge, and Carlyle. Here again is in his 1979 interview with the editors of the New Left Review, explaining how Culture and Society is located at several removes from radical culture: [T]he origins of the book lie in ideas of either explicitly conservative or contradictory thinkers in the nineteenth century--but conservatives who, at the point of irruption of a qualitatively new social order put many of the right questions to it but of course came out with the wrong answers--or people with whom I shared certain impulses, like Leavis, moving towards explicitly reactionary positions in the twentieth century (Politics 109). …

Phenomenology and Meaning Making: Student Voices and Understandings of Cultural Difference

The purpose of this study is to examine international school secondary students’ understandings of intercultural sensitivity and the life experiences they attribute as influencing their own development of intercultural sensitivity, including participation in four models of service programs offered at their school. With practitioners in the field of service-learning claiming that service-learning influences students’ personal development, this study uses semistructured interviews and qualitative analysis to gain insights from students’ perspectives about the influence of participation in service-learning programs and other life factors on their intercultural sensitivity. This study found that international school students have many formal and informal opportunities to experience difference; that although service-learning can influence the development of intercultural sensitivity, it does not necessarily do so; and that students are able to develop intercultural sensitivity through a variety of life experiences.

Belonging, identity and Third Culture Kids

This article is based on a multiple case study which examines the lives of a group of 11 former international school students who all attended an international school between 20 and 50 years ago. The research design was based on a review of the literature on third culture kids and adult third culture kids, covering emotional and relational issues such as sense of belonging, identity and the nature of relationships formed. Data were gathered through both postal questionnaires and indepth interviews and multi-dimensional pictures of the lives of the former international students have been generated. Links between the literature and personal experiences are explored.

The influence of service-learning on intercultural sensitivity

This quantitative study examines the influence of service-learning on levels of intercultural sensitivity of international school students in Hong Kong using the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI). IDI scores are found to correlate with a variety of demographic variables and variables related to four models of service programs. One service-learning model evidences statistically significant posttest gains in the Encapsulated Marginality stage.