Supuestos para desarrollo del flujo de caja

The interviews with students and staff revealed varying reports of familiarity with the expectations of written assignments in UK HE, conveniently addressing Research Question 2 insofar as they indicated the elements that teaching staff value and/or are perceived to value in students’ written work. The interviews also revealed varying levels of detail and support from staff members in completing these assignments. There appears to be a lack of recognition that approaches to academic writing and assignment completion are different among students from the wide variety of backgrounds to be

found within Business Management programmes. Hunter and Tse write that ‘subject lecturers are not intentionally keeping their expectations hidden, nor are they unwilling to articulate what they are looking for’ (2011, p. 228), and all staff members interviewed expressed a desire to help students to perform to the best of their abilities in their assignments.

Both the literature and research findings suggest that lecturers in a number of studies were unable to explicitly describe the features of a ‘well-structured’ or ‘well-argued’ student assignment (Lea and Street, 1998, p. 162). During interviews, staff members taking part in this study were asked about the features of a successful piece of writing. One staff member described an essay as ‘more free flowing so less structured’ (Tutor B), whilst another staff member contradicted this, describing ‘very good structure’ (Tutor A) as being of foremost importance in an essay. Several staff members mention the need to ‘be critical’, with few providing further explanation of exactly what they mean by this. These findings confirm that staff members may experience difficulty in accurately conveying detailed expectations to students when it comes to their written work. Perhaps predictably in light of the findings outlined above, students interviewed as part of this study perceived a range of difficulties associated with assignment submission. One student described the differences between the assessment requirements that his tutor conveyed verbally in class and those which the same tutor subsequently reported as lacking in his written work:

I still feel there is miscommunication between the lecturers and the students

[…] when we discuss about the question […] he will say “that’s right, you are right, this is how you are supposed to answer” but once you produce the

assignment with the same answer that we discussed in the class they will say

“you need to do more reading”. So what is the difference? In the class you say

correct this is what you are supposed to do whereas when we stick the answer in the assignment - exactly what he taught us in the class - he will come back

and tell us “no you need to do more reading”. (Student F)

This student’s negative experiences dominated the interview, and it is clear that he felt that there was a lack of clarity about assignment requirements. That which is implicitly obvious to a staff member with years of experience in UK HE may not be equally obvious to students from a variety of backgrounds. For staff members, the inclusion of theory taught during class time in combination with independent reading is obvious, but it cannot be assumed that students who have not previously constructed assignments in a similar context will share this awareness. Academic staff must be sensitive

to the needs of those who come from different academic cultures, being explicit in their expectations relating to student work.

Several students interviewed mentioned the ways in which their tutors provide detailed guidelines or sample assignments intended to help them to complete their assessments. In contrast to this type of guided approach, one staff member stated that he did not assign any guidelines to students for assignments. Tutor C reported that ‘students say “how do you want me to answer these tasks?” and I often say “I don't really mind” because quite often we want to be able to access the understanding of their knowledge in a range of different topics.’ Whilst this tutor seems to be making particular efforts to be flexible to the wide variety of student backgrounds and experience, it is reasonable to suggest that this lack of structure or guidance may not prove liberating, but instead somewhat intimidating to some students. Student K commented on the structure of assignments on his programme, stating that he preferred the less prescriptive approach to essay-writing in the UK when compared with his home country but that it was simultaneously more difficult for him, ‘because in the past there was only one step to follow but now I get so many things I can choose […] just like the more things to choose just the more difficulty you will meet.’ An enhanced awareness among teaching staff of assignment requirements and the varied approaches to and experience of assessments is required in order to make successful execution equally accessible for all students, regardless of educational background.

Language

The issue of language emerged frequently in connection with Research Question 2, among staff and student interviewees alike. Where language is concerned an issue in relation to academic literacies, there is a common misconception that this relates solely to non-native users, predominantly international students who are perceived to encounter problems with using English in academic environments. However, this is an unjust approach that fails to tackle the issues faced by many other groups, such as Home students ‘whose problems are not that obvious’ (Wingate & Tribble, 2012, p. 491). Tutor B mentioned that he was initially hesitant to correct grammar and language in his students’ work, but gradually changed his approach to include feedback on this:

[I]f I’m given a draft to look at or if I’m marking a piece of work and I can

see that the grammar is not quite there, my bug-bear is slang words so using

things like don’t and doesn’t, I’ll make a point of correcting the first paragraph

of the first couple of times I see it so I can then make a point of saying you

certainly pick out where it’s a problem and say that you need to focus on these

areas.

Student B, a ‘traditional’ Home student, discussed the way in which she had benefitted from the type of feedback that Tutor B reported giving to his own students. Student B highlighted her struggles with adapting to the academic written conventions of Higher Education, commenting that when compared with her experiences of GCSE and A-level work, ‘university writing is a lot more… superior almost, like you’ve got to write a lot clearer […] and there’s different styles of writing. It was a bit intimidating at first.’ Upon receiving feedback she had been able to address concerns raised by her tutor, stating that ‘I can’t really remember writing any different, but I know I did.’

In spite of the often-neglected issues faced by Home students outlined above, which are key to an understanding of academic literacies as a broad and varied field of study, the multilingual nature of Business Management classrooms featured heavily as a topic for discussion during interviews, with English language proficiency being a topic that several students and tutors were keen to discuss from various perspectives. Some international students interviewed described their own difficulties in adapting to academic English language conventions. Student K, an International student from China, commented on his perceived connection between English language proficiency and intelligence, stating that students admitted to the university with the requested IELTS levels had ‘simple logic’ and would not be accepted at more prestigious institutions. During interview, Student K acknowledged his own difficulties with language throughout his studies. He talked at length about the group work element of his programme, and the ways in which working in mixed groups with Home students did not work, in his view:

It depends on our kind of situation, if you do the group work with local student you cannot do that, and for the people who have very low English ability that means you cannot do the work. You just listen and for people who have higher English level you can do a good job but the normally you just support the other people. You cannot lead them, you know, or give a very interesting idea because it is a little bit different.

Student K’s comments during interview are unfortunate as they demonstrate the ways in which he has not always been fully able to partake in his programme of study due to issues relating to language. Unfortunately the experience described closely resembles that outlined by Student F, a student from South-East Asia, who provides an additional perspective on events. He

reported dissatisfaction at what he perceived to be his fellow International students’ inadequate proficiency in English to perform to the required standard on the course, including partaking equally in group work and passing written assignments. In their research, Volet and Ang (1998) discuss a general lack of goodwill from both Home and International students in terms of making themselves understood and making efforts to understand one another in mixed nationality groups. A study by Wicaksono (2012) found that successful interaction between Home and International students required communicative adjustments on behalf of both the native and non- native English-speaking students. This research indicates that both parties involved in the interaction held responsibility for overall successful communication, contradicting the commonly held assumption that students speaking non-local varieties of English are responsible for adjusting the ways in which they communicate. In spite of these findings, interviews such as that with Student F suggested that many students were unwilling to make such adjustments to those students speaking varieties of English that they considered to be less prestigious, or had simply not felt that it was their responsibility:

[I]f I get a proper students and proper group mates, it’s fine. If you get mingled with Chinese students who doesn't speak proper English… for us to work with

them is going to be a bit difficult because they don't understand grammar and vocabulary so how can we explain it to them? So, that's one part in which we are facing difficulty. I don't think only me, I think most of us are facing these difficulties, when it comes to that. Other than that if our group mate is fine we don't have to seek help from the lecturer, because if we don't understand certain things we can just ask our fellow classmates or fellow group mates. But if, let's say the full group is like, only you understand proper English and the rest don't understand English, that's going to be a problem for you.

Student F made frequent mention of what he perceived to be the additional difficulties of working with Chinese students, distinguishing between students he describes as ‘fine’ and ‘proper’ due to their linguistic background and/or perceived proficiency in English, contrasting these students with their Chinese peers, who he claims ‘suddenly just pop into the Masters and the only language they know to speak in English is “OK” and “don't know”’. Perhaps surprisingly given his own different educational and cultural background, the student does not demonstrate an awareness of the differences in educational culture that may be at the root of attitudes to group work and participation in discussions. Several comparisons can be drawn with the published case study by Cathcart et al (2006), in which the researchers explore the lack of interaction, engagement and successful cooperation between Home students and their educationally mobile peers,

with a further stark divide observed between Chinese students and those from other countries. Volet and Ang describe the divide between Home and International students as ‘the most disturbing aspect of the internationalisation of higher education’ (1998, p. 5), and it is clear from the interviews carried out that various students feel their experiences are negatively impacted by the international, multilingual cohort, with no mention of the positive aspects of working in such a culturally diverse academic environment.

In addition to negative perceptions of fellow students’ language ability, one student specifically mentioned issues that she and her classmates had perceived around being taught by a ‘foreign’ member of teaching staff. She described the tutor as a non-native speaker and drew some worrying conclusions between the staff member’s variety of English and the significance of the course content:

But it didn’t help that our tutor, our lecturer, I don’t know if I can say this, we basically couldn’t understand him. English wasn’t his first language and I can understand him now, like having had a year of him I know what he’s saying but back then I didn’t understand what he was talking about, let alone the

content he was talking about. And I think he got frustrated with our class in

particular because we couldn’t understand him and we weren’t listening and

it was just like a circle. (Student B)

Comments of this nature raise concerns about attitudes towards non-local varieties of English, but also of attitudes towards non-local languages and cultures. Student B elaborated on the module in question, describing it as being of little importance and benefit to students. The lack of goodwill noted by Volet and Ang (1998) is evident here in the admission that students ‘couldn’t understand him and we weren’t listening and it was just like a circle’. Whilst the connection between her negative views of the staff member and the module may be coincidental, the dismissal of subject content and unwillingness to make adjustments to better understand her lecturer and the material being taught is a matter for serious consideration. Nyiransekuye and Manning (2010, p. 113) touch upon the experiences of non-native academic staff, with Nyiransekuye stating that ‘[p]eople already decide that they do not understand what I am saying because I speak with an accent.’ Nyiransekuye and Manning continue by stating that experiences have been such that non-native academic staff members are ‘viewed as having a deficiency in your thinking ability as well as a deficiency in English’. Much like Student K’s perceptions about his own and his peers’ ‘simple logic’ due to his English language competency, non-native members of the academic

community are also often considered by others to be deficient in various respects. The Business School at York St John employs a significant number of international and/or multilingual staff members, and this diversity is widely regarded as a great advantage to students at the university, who benefit from staff members’ varied backgrounds, knowledge and experience in business and academia on a global scale. Nonetheless, it is important that students are made aware of these benefits, in addition to their shared responsibility in facilitating successful communication with their international and local peers.

Conclusion

It is clear through analysis of the literature and project research data that academic literacy skills cannot be ‘fixed outside the discipline’ (Wingate & Tribble, 2012, p. 481), and in spite of assumptions that these skills primarily present issues for International students taking programmes in UK HE institutions, it is essential to recognise that various vital skills such as reading, writing and speaking in academic disciplines are challenging for native and non-native speakers alike. Analysis of both interviews and the literature demonstrate that students are often deterred from seeking extracurricular help from student academic support services through the fear of stigmatisation (Warwick, 2006, p. 7) or existing heavy workloads for credit- bearing subjects that cause a great deal of pressure for students (Chanock et al, 2012; Warwick, 2006). One potential and promising solution to this issue is the option to further embed academic literacies within the curriculum. This would reduce pressure on students, making these fundamental skills ‘part of the workload’ for the module or programme of study. This approach is also consistent with best practise according to the literature, supporting students in the process of ‘becoming academically literate as a situated developmental process’ (Dunham, 2012, p. 687).

Nevertheless, embedding academic literacy skills into the wider curriculum brings challenges and it remains the case that research into the field of academic literacies remains relatively limited. Whilst research thus far has highlighted existing inadequacies in many institutional approaches, the field of research ‘has not yet filled the existing pedagogical gap’ (Wingate and Tribble, 2012, p. 491). Just as the field of academic literacies requires further development, so too does the teaching of these skills in the Business School at York St John University. Teaching staff must effectively equip their students in order that they are able to achieve success, and this is only

possible through further research and development of materials and policy to address current shortcomings. It is hoped that the findings of this research might provide a model on which to base the development of embedded academic literacy skills into the Business Management curriculum, benefitting students and staff members through a more effective system of conveying essential academic skills to the diverse, growing cohort of students at York St John University and beyond.

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