Cultivation or coddling? University teachers’ views on student integration

Abstract

Integration of new students into the university has been widely studied from both psychological and academic perspectives. Much less, if anything, is heard from the other party in the integration process – the teachers. At the heart of this study is the voice of university teachers. Staff from 12 departments in three faculties (n = 52) in one university were invited to discuss student integration in focus groups. Their views on integration ranged from integration being beneficial, appropriate and unavoidable to being unnecessary and even harmful. The disparities in views pertain to a number of factors, many of them beyond the departments’ control.

Acknowledgement

We would like to thank the staff at the participating departments for their valuable time and cooperation, as well as the students who attended our qualitative methods course and assisted us in the collection of this data. Comments from two anonymous reviewers were greatly appreciated.