‘I understood the words but I didn’t know what they meant’: Japanese online MBA students’ experiences of British assessment practices

Abstract

We report on a case study of high Japanese student failure rates in an online MBA programme. Drawing on interviews, and reviews of exam and assignment scripts we frame the problems faced by these students in terms of a ‘language as social practice’ approach and highlight the students’ failure to understand the specific language games that underpin the course assessment approach. We note the way in which the distance learning and online context can make the challenges faced by international students less immediately visible to both students and institution.

Keywords:

• Assessment
• international students
• language game
• academic literacies
• Japan

Acknowledgement

We gratefully acknowledge the help of the students, tutors and other informants interviewed for this study and the open cooperation of the faculty members responsible for the reviewed programme. We also gratefully acknowledge the helpful comments of editor and two anonymous reviewers in improving the quality of the paper.

Notes

1. The second author speaks fluent Japanese.