In the ‘International Student Mobility’ report (Sussex Centre for Migration, 2004) the authors make some generalizations from the interviews they held with HE staff in the U.K. concerning the reasons why students do not choose the mobility option. Four categories of reason are given:
- financial problems - language barriers
- national and institutional constraints or obstacles - student attitudes
Other categories of barriers examined in this section are that of academic discipline and the socio-economic status of the students as these are also discussed in the literature.
Financial problems
The research carried out by Doyle et al. (2010) into New Zealand participation in study abroad discussed obstacles to mobility, including finance and a lack of ‘comprehensive, integrated institutional approach to internationalization by universities’. Woolf (2012) mentions finance (specifically in terms of how universities in the U.K. are funded), the structure of U.K. higher education, credit accumulation and transfer and languages as the main barriers to student mobility in the U.K.
Financial problems at an individual level involve not only a lack of money to undertake mobility but also fear of future indebtedness and the loss of student part-time jobs (which help students with the financial costs of studying). The issue of finance as a deterrent for mobility and possible connections to the socio-economic status of the students is considered
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by the authors of the International Student Mobility (ISM, Sussex Centre for Migration, 2004) report and also by Daley (2007), who infers that study abroad appears to be an option mainly for those whose socio-economic background gives them a certain financial stability.
Language barriers
Learning or improving language capability is an obvious and oft mentioned reason for studying abroad and indeed Goldstein and Kim (2006) found that students who had an interest in learning another language were more likely to study abroad (although they couldn’t show that there was a difference in foreign language competence between mobile and non-mobile students). The extent to which the U.K. education system has supported the development of language learning at all levels of education in recent years is questionable, indeed Woolf (2012) calls the failure of U.K. HE institutions to teach other languages effectively ‘lamentable’, and so U.K. students tend to be at a disadvantage when it comes to choosing to study in non-English speaking countries. Although it doesn’t refer directly to language competence, the Wilson Review (2012) does state that, while the U.K. is second only to the U.S. in terms of receiving international students, it is ranked 34th internationally for degree mobility and also states that the number of U.K. students undertaking an Erasmus work placement abroad is below half that of France and Germany. The ISM report (Sussex Centre for Migration, 2004) talks about foreign language competency as sometimes being a barrier to mobility, i.e. a lack of knowledge, confidence or ability in a second language leads U.K. students away from the mobility route.
National and institutional constraints or obstacles
Institutional and academic constraints include how flexible, pro-active and supportive a home institution is towards mobility, the discipline studied (some disciplines ‘travel’ more easily than others), the recognition of study abroad credits or a work placement at the home institution and the promotion of opportunities by the HE institution. Once again, the inference within the ISM report (Sussex Centre for Migration, 2004) is that the U.K. HE sector as a whole is not supportive of mobility, partially because of the rigid nature of many U.K. degrees and the perceived difficulty of quality assurance in the mobility experience. The Broadening Horizons report (British Council, 2013b) found that…
“…the biggest barrier (to studying abroad) was the absence of information on the possible sources of funding, government scholarship programmes, the level of foreign language ability needed to study in some destinations and how to begin the process of applying to study overseas” (p19).
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Woolf (2012) states:“In an increasingly globalized labor market, universities in the United Kingdom are doing very little indeed to create opportunities for their home students and that is a shameful neglect of intellectual responsibility” (p60).
In many cases it would appear that a U.K. student who wishes to undertake mobility has to overcome a number of tangible and intangible barriers in order to do so. An interesting research question would be to what extent the overcoming of such barriers could be considered as a potential indicator of entrepreneurial tendency in an individual as individuals may need to display a certain level of determination, motivation and perseverance and often be willing to overcome adversity, even before they embark on mobility.
Academic discipline
With regards to academic discipline, study and work abroad students can come from a variety of disciplines, although as stated above, some disciplines transfer more easily than others into other study programmes (e.g. medical and education students are sometimes constrained in mobility by national and/or professional requirements). A report into the current state of mobility in the U.K. (Carbonell, 2013) found that 42% of U.K. Erasmus students were from the field of Languages, 15% from Business and 8% from the Social Sciences and 7% each from Art and Design and Law. Disciplines displaying very low levels of mobility included Agriculture, Education and Health (Medicine, Nursing, etc.). Work placement students often come from the business and management fields (Presley et al., 2010) but Language students (working as language assistants abroad) also constitute a large portion of U.K. work placement mobility (Carbonell, 2013). Accordingly, some academic disciplines are more conducive for mobility than others.
Student attitudes to mobility
With regards to student attitudes, the ISM report (Sussex Centre for Migration, 2004) points out that:
“This is a nebulous area which covers a variety of explicit or nuanced feelings to do with lack of confidence, attachedness to home, fear about the unknown, worries over the academic impact of studying abroad and so on” (p33).
Daley (2007) also includes relationships with family, friends or partners in this list. The Broadening Horizons report (British Council, 2013b) found that 35% of the sample of U.K.
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students who were considering overseas study viewed leaving their friends and family as a main concern. However, a much lower percentage of those students surveyed who were not considering overseas study listed this particular concern as a deterrent to their mobility. The main deterrents for this group of students were cost and lack of language ability.
Spiering and Erickson (2006) researched students who attended information sessions at their universities on study abroad opportunities and who subsequently either did take up the opportunity or did not. The main reasons given by those who subsequently decided not to go included a) they felt that the process was too complicated and b) they felt that study abroad was incompatible with their study and career plans and did not view study abroad as beneficial to these plans. Interestingly, in this study the non-mobile students did not consider the financial costs involved in study abroad as a major factor, nor was there any indication that their academic ability was a factor in the decision not to go abroad.
Socio-economic status
The ISM report (Sussex Centre for Migration, 2004) hints that socio-economic status plays a role in the willingness and/or ability to be mobile: students from wealthier backgrounds who had travelled or had holiday homes abroad were more positively oriented towards a study abroad option. Wiers-Jenssen (2011) also states that both previous international travel and the educational background of parents can impact on the mobility decision. From their in- depth interviews with U.K. students Brooks and Waters (2009) talk of the influence of socio- economic status as a positive factor in determining which students would be mobile, i.e. those from more privileged backgrounds were more likely to take up the opportunity. This is not only because they are financially more able, but also because of the likelihood of familiarity with overseas travel and cultures gained through family holidays abroad and, in some instances, ‘their more geographically dispersed social networks’ (see Brooks et al., 2012; Findlay et al., 2006; Ong, 1999). The HEFCE report (2009) discusses the high rate of study abroad students in the U.K. who were from higher socio-economic classes, as does the British Academy Position Paper (2012) on valuing the year abroad, which indicates that academically able, white students from well-educated families make up a large proportion of mobile students. The European Parliament report (2010) on participation in Erasmus speaks of Erasmus students coming from privileged socio-economic backgrounds, particularly with respect to the parent’s educational background.
In 2010/11 77.8% of U.S. study abroad students were white (Institute for International Education Report, 2012), with 22.2% thus being from a racial/ethnic minority. Presley et al. (2010) discuss the demographic make-up of U.S. students who study abroad: predominantly
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white female, with highly educated parents, who have previously travelled abroad, who are academically bright and who come from the humanities/social sciences disciplines. These statistics suggest an over-representation of white students and an under-representation of ethnic minorities in the study abroad group. Brux and Fry (2010), in their study on U.S. multicultural students and study abroad, discussed a number of factors that could account for this relatively low (and only slowly increasing) participation rate among ethnic minorities, including fear of racism and discrimination, family concerns and attitudes, as well as finance and institutional factors.
From the above discussion about the differences between mobile and non-mobile students and perceived barriers to mobility a number of inferences can be drawn. Firstly, academic ability per se does not seem to be a defining factor in the mobility decision. Secondly, there is evidence to suggest that mobile students possess certain characteristics that mean they are positive about mobility and that these personality characteristics are either not present, or present to a lesser extent in non-mobile students. Thirdly, a number of factors can influence the mobility decision, including a student’s attitude, their socio-economic status and external factors, such as the HE institution’s attitude towards mobility. Therefore, the evidence as presented implies that the personality of a student could play a role in influencing the mobility decision but that antecedent or social influences are also relevant.