Mandatory trialling of support services by international students: what they choose and how they reflect

Abstract

This paper evaluates a strategy to promote the uptake of support services by international students (ISs) at an Australian university. As part of their assessment, ISs completed a so-called ‘University Service Reflection Task’ (USRT) in a core first-year course. To complete the USRT, all ISs accessed one support service (e.g. language consultation, study skills workshop, careers guidance), then submitted a written reflection about the experience. Using responses to a questionnaire by 155 participants, the researchers investigated which services ISs attended for the USRT and patterns of prior attendance. Students' perspectives were explored by analysing 73 reflective essays. The results showed that two-thirds of the students participated in a service for the first time in order to complete the USRT and favoured services that had closest application to their coursework. Students expressed positive feelings about their experiences and reported learning gains, particularly in the areas of study skills and development of academic language.

Keywords:

• international students
• support
• academic language and learning
• reflection
• study skills
• socialisation

Acknowledgements

The USRT was jointly designed by Griffith University's ELEC management team: Ben Fenton-Smith, Pamela Humphreys, Ana Lobo, Rowan Michael and Ian Walkinshaw. We additionally thank Ian Walkinshaw and two anonymous reviewers for their advice on earlier drafts of this paper. We are also grateful to the office of Griffith University DVC (Academic) for providing financial and institutional support for this research project.