Tensions and Rewards: Behind the Scenes in a Cross-Cultural Student

Abstract

In the domain of “internationalization of the curriculum,” this article introduces the rarely incorporated dimension of “engaging students as partners” (SaP) to address and explore challenges of increasingly diverse universities. The aim of this qualitative research was to explore engaging international students as partners in a modest and targeted internationalization innovation, which was specifically designed to address the needs of Chinese international students at a prominent Australian university business school. The innovation involved embedding WeChat, a prevalent Chinese social media platform, in a postgraduate learning module to form a cross-cultural bridge to better connect academics and learning support staff at the Business School with their Chinese international student cohorts. Staff and partnered Chinese international students in this small-scale cross-cultural partnership have coauthored this article, which reports on the identified tensions and rewards behind the scenes in this partnership. Findings mostly align with existing SaP literature; however, some unique benefits also emerged from having an explicit cross-cultural focus for the partnership.

Keywords

internationalization of the curriculum engaging students as partners WeChat higher education international education Chinese international students

Introduction

In the domain of “internationalization of the curriculum” (IoC), this article introduces the rarely incorporated dimension of “engaging students as partners” (SaP) to address and explore challenges of increasingly diverse Universities. The article then explains the aim of this study, which was to qualitatively explore engaging international students as partners in a modest and targeted internationalization innovation, which was specifically designed to address the needs of Chinese international students at a prominent Australian university business school. The innovation involved embedding WeChat, a prevalent Chinese social media platform, in a postgraduate learning module to form a cross-cultural bridge to connect teaching-focused academics and learning support staff in the Business School with Chinese international students. The third section provides explicit details of the research site, so that practitioners and theorists understand the cultural and institutional context in which this partnership was established and scaffolded. In the section following, the qualitative methodology of the study is outlined, which was modeled on a recent students as partners study in Canada (Marquis et al., 2016). The article then explains that from the data, findings revealed tensions and rewards in a cross-cultural student–staff partnership, through five emergent themes: university community readiness and capability for transformation, knowledge gaps and cross-cultural insights, partnership values, individual development, and partnership resourcing. It is revealed that some of the findings align with existing SaP literature; however, the inclusion of an explicit cross-cultural focus for the partnership provided unique benefits. Limitations are discussed and suggested future research directions are provided, which include methodological recommendations for how to capture the complex and layered experiences of student–staff partnership in internationalizing the curriculum innovations. An epilogue closes the article, which provides insight into trajectories beyond the partnership.

Background and Motivation

IoC

Since the unprecedented increase in international students in Australia, many academics have prioritized and problematized different aspects of an increasingly diverse higher education context (Knight, 2004) and related cross-cultural issues. Researchers have considered international students themselves, domestic students, institutions, educators, and governmental policy makers as being affected by, and responsible for alleviating, challenges that have arisen from this transformation in higher education. A body of literature around “internationalization of the curriculum” (“IoC”) is offered as an approach for effectively preparing university students for the globalized workforce and, in doing so, harnessing the diversity at universities by creating an inclusive and productive environment for all students and staff from different backgrounds. IoC is a complex, multifaceted domain that is interpreted by researchers and enactors in various ways (see Knight, 2012). Leask (2009) describes the broader benefits of an internationalized curriculum being able to “. . . engage students with internationally informed research and cultural and linguistic diversity. It will purposefully develop their international and intercultural perspectives as global professionals and citizens” (p. 209). Although designed with well-meaning intentions, in practice IoC can sometimes adopt “. . . pedagogic approaches which emphasise ethnocentric-Western didacticism—encouraging assimilation or socialization of international learners to the learning approaches and theoretical perspectives advocated by the host university . . .” (Welikala, 2011, p. 15). This approach is at risk of sidelining existing cultural, linguistic, academic, and social capital of international students, which could instead be harnessed by educators and students to develop intercultural competency and broaden global perspectives. Furthermore, it is challenging to design and implement holistic IoC innovations for universities where all students are equally catered for, so IoC innovations are at risk of marginalizing some groups. With these challenges of ethnocentricity and inclusivity, researchers are exploring the practicalities of IoC and the extent to which this intercultural engagement (Leask, 2009) and cultural adjustment (Andrada, 2006) can be achieved in Universities.

Furthermore, these IoC efforts are set against a backdrop of reported sociochallenges at Australian Universities, including international students grappling with language barriers, contrasting and conflicting learning styles, dysfunctional cross-cultural interaction with their peers and educators, dissatisfaction with their educational experience abroad, and depression and difficulties in securing employment postgraduation (Zhang, Xia, Fan, & Zhu, 2016). With the rapid influx of international students, universities have an increasing economic reliance on this international student cohort, with international student fees growing substantially year on year (Department of Education and Training, 2017). International education activities contribute a substantial AUD$28 billion per annum to the Australian economy and around one third of international students are now coming from China (Department of Education and Training, 2017). As such, there are both economic and social motivations for understanding more about the issues in the globalized higher education sector in the 21st century. It is timely to reflect on how an inclusive and appropriately internationalized curriculum can be implemented, to counter and alleviate aforementioned issues in increasingly culturally and linguistically diverse cohorts. What is rare in IoC literature is the consideration of “engaging students as partners” to address challenges of internationalized higher education and to harness the talents and insights from international students themselves.

Engaging SaP

The theory and practice of “engaging students as partners” (“SaP”) provides a potential avenue to meaningfully explore and address challenges of internationalized higher education contexts. Matthews (2016) explains that true student partnership distinguishes itself from the “. . . broader, blanket, and often opaque terminology of student engagement. . . . Students as partners discourse focuses on student-academic partnerships as a process for engaging with rather than doing to or doing for students” (p. 2, emphasis added). Although scholars debate the definition, language, and underlying principles of student partnership, Healey, Flint, and Harrington (2014) highlight that “. . . boundaries are useful in framing and fostering debates” (p. 14). Through these debates, there is consensus that the process can be rewarding and transformational, for both the individual, disciplinary, and higher education institution levels (see Matthews, Dwyer, Hine, & Turner, 2018), and that there is an inherent complexity with engaging SaP in higher education (see Bell, 2016). This is evident in Mercer-Mapstone et al.’s (2017) systematic review of 65 scholarly works on SaP between 2011 and 2015, where they conclude that “. . . SaP as a theory, an ethos, and a practice is as complex, nuanced, and multifaceted as the educational institutions within which partnerships unfold” (p. 19). Some of the current conversations in SaP literature will be raised in the context of this research project (see Section 3. Research Site), including issues of accessibility and marginalization in involving students in SaP and the scale of partnerships (Matthews, 2017).

Overall, given the overlap between IoC and SaP foundations and intentions, which includes democratizing education and promoting diversity and inclusion, it was determined that SaP might help with positive transformation at the “individual, disciplinary and institutional levels” (Matthews, 2017, p. 6) in terms of realizing improved cultural-competence and IoC goals in a university context. At the literary intersection of engaging SaP and IoC, the aim of this study was therefore to qualitatively explore, engaging Chinese international students in a targeted IoC innovation at a prominent Australian university business school.

Research Site

Mercer-Mapstone et al. (2017) recommend that future SaP research “. . . might focus on describing the context of SaP initiatives and their institutional settings more fully to help others adopt the range of innovative practices shared across the literature” (p. 19). This criticality of context also aligns with IoC literature where every institution and IoC innovation is unique and needs to be tailored accordingly (see Green & Whitsted, 2015). This section therefore aims to address this criticality of context by providing details of the research site, specifically the institution, IoC innovation, and the partnership.

The institution and disciplinary context for this research was a prominent Australian university business school with international student enrolments averaging 64%. The University has initiatives in place to develop staff and students’ cultural competency through a dedicated department and online learning modules. Cultural competency is one of the graduate outcomes, and diversity and inclusion are key foci for institutional and faculty strategic plans. The university had some existing strategies to support SaP initiatives including a cross-disciplinary Special Interest Group (SIG) on “Engaging Students as Partners” for researchers and practitioners inside and outside the University. The curricular location of the SaP innovation was not graded, defined by Mercer-Mapstone et al. (2017) as “. . . outside of the graded curriculum as extra-curricular (non graded) activities . . .” (p. 10). In terms of IoC, Caza and Brower (2015) and Leask (2009) draw attention to different levels of the curriculum being informal and formal. Leask (2009) explains that both the informal and formal curricula can be used to “encourage and reward intercultural engagement” (p. 205) and make appropriate “cultural adjustments” (Andrada, 2006). The intention of enacting this innovation outside of the graded curriculum, is aligned with the value Leask (2009) places on the informal curriculum and Caza and Brower’s (2015) view of the informal curriculum as “. . . a likely powerful influence on learning outcomes” (p. 109). Enacting the IoC/SaP innovation outside of the heavily regulated formal curriculum also enabled a light and swift implementation.

The targeted IoC innovation was developed in the context of a National Teaching and Learning Fellowship that focused on engaging SaP in global learning. The innovation involved embedding WeChat, a popular Chinese social media platform, in a postgraduate learning module to form a cross-cultural bridge to connect teaching-focused academics and learning support staff at the Business School with Chinese international students. In this sense, the IoC innovation was not intended to benefit the entire student cohort with a broad brush, but was rather a more modest and targeted intervention, a pedagogy as part of IoC, which was specifically designed to address the needs of Chinese international students. The motivation behind this targeted intervention was twofold: (a) Chinese international students were the largest international student population at the University and (b) from making a foray across one cross-cultural bridge to this group of students, the academics and learning support staff would equip themselves with knowledge and experience to then be able to enact a broader mission, beyond solely Chinese international students, to understand more about the diverse international student needs on campus.

The rationale for WeChat as an IoC innovation is outlined herein. Through anecdotal experience at the Business School, it was becoming apparent that many students were active users of a popular Chinese social media platform, WeChat (Weixin 微信 in Chinese). Similar to combining Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and other social media platforms, WeChat “. . . . encompasses more than just text, voice, and video chat; it includes a rich set of features such as gaming, mobile payments, and ride hailing, which make it more of a lifestyle platform than a mere chat app” (Ruan, Knockel, Ng, & Crete-Nishihata, 2016). WeChat was created by China’s tech-giant, Tencent, and has almost 850 million users (Peng, 2017). Zeng, Deng, Wang, and Liu (2016) report that it is a powerful technology that many Chinese international students are using frequently in their daily lives. The platform’s functionality, popularity, and mystery motivated staff in the school to find out more through investigating the use of WeChat in a Western educational context. They found that, overall, the quantity and quality of published research into WeChat as an educational tool was limited, particularly in English. The staff proposed running a pilot to explore WeChat as an opportunity to form a cross-cultural bridge to connect teaching-focused academics and learning support staff with Chinese international students in a space already familiar to these students. The pilot that eventuated involved embedding WeChat in a postgraduate Work and Organizational Studies learning module. The pilot utilized WeChat as a multidirectional communications platform. WeChat was used to send reminders to students, answer queries, direct students to learning resources, and hold an online consultation with the unit coordinator. There was a substantial 88% voluntary participation rate in the pilot (n = 64 students), including both international and domestic students. It is worthy to reiterate that the focus here was on Chinese international students, but not to the point of exclusivity. Domestic students and international students, with countries of origin other than China, who were enrolled in the learning module were warmly invited to partake in the pilot. More attention to these satellite student groups would be valuable for future studies. The scoping, design, and implementation of this targeted IoC innovation revolved around a student-centric approach, involving close collaboration with two student partners. This article is focused on the process of engaging SaP in this global learning context; however, the partnership aimed to author a article, more specifically on the results of piloting WeChat in a Western education context.

Details about the cross-cultural student–staff partnership are provided here for the benefit of future SaP/IoC research and praxis. With two student partners, Mercer-Mapstone et al. (2017) would define this particular partnership as “small scale”: one to five students (p. 8). The rationale behind recruiting only two students was a deliberately conservative approach, given it was the first time students were being officially partnered with in this context. This meant that staff could ensure adequate support for the modest number of students in the partnership. Staff reached out to their collegial networks at the university to help identify potential student partners. Given the snowball sampling for student partners, and the small number of students involved, the authors acknowledge that the recruitment strategy for this partnership strengthens the argument that only “strong students” (Marquis et al., 2016) get involved in these initiatives. In SaP literature, there is currently an important debate regarding issues of accessibility, equity, and marginalization around the involvement of students in partnerships. Matthews (2017) states,

Without reflecting on diversity and inclusion, a risk is that SaP may be biased in favour of “like students” partnering with “like staff,” which is particularly worrisome in paired or small group partnerships where students or staff are recruited through some selection process. (2017, p. 2)

Matthews (2017) uses Bourdieu’s (1988, 2003) lens of theorizing power structures, capital, habitus, and symbolic power in our social relations and interactions, acknowledging that a lack of consciousness around diversity and inclusion during the student selection process runs the risk of perpetuating the existing power structures in society, which SaP intends to challenge. Marquis, Jayaratnamb, Mishrab, and Rybkinab (2018), for the first time, investigate the perspectives of those students who have not been selected into partnership to understand more about relative inclusiveness of partnership opportunities. In this work, Marquis et al. (2018) echo Matthew’s proposition that it is common that “. . . partnerships involve only a small group of high-achieving students . . .” and that these students are likely to have access to certain capital and privilege. In this sense, this particular partnership offers a unique contribution to SaP work, in that the partnership is small scale, yet it is designed deliberately to involve the very students who are often marginalized from such opportunities: Chinese international students. This focus on including those marginalized in the university community is a common aim of IoC innovations and, as such, demonstrates the power in combining the IoC approach with SaP in an attempt to divert away from the default of further privileging the privileged.

Broad terms, such as “Chinese international students,” “Mainland Chinese,” and “Western” are necessary to communicate this research, however, these terms are used here with hesitation. It is worthy to note that international education scholars such as Lu and Singh (2017) have questioned the net value in such “ethnic labelling” and categorizing cultures in an education context. They suggest that the attempt to label and compare across cultures only affirms and progresses harmful “otherizing” in a university community. Instead, rather than generalize cultures, they highlight globalization’s fluidity of nation states, borders, and diasporas, and focus on the unique situations and individuals, and the more nuanced “meeting” of those individuals in the intercultural, third space “. . . wherein the translation and negotiation of cultural meanings take place, resulting in new cultural combinations” (Bhabha, 1990, p. 38). Likewise, this fluid third space is the focus of our SaP/IoC research; however, some labels are required to explain who is coming into contact with the other in the third space. Bearing in mind this fluidity of cultures and borders, Abdallah-Pretceille (2006) claims “. . . every individual has the potential to express him/herself and act not only depending on their codes of membership, but also on freely chosen codes of reference” (Abdallah-Pretceille, 2006, p. 478), and as such, our students for the purposes of this study have chosen “Mainland Chinese” as their broad cultural frame of reference. One student was a postgraduate student from the Business Analytics Discipline and one was a higher degree research student from the Accounting Discipline. The staff partners, from predominantly “Western” cultural backgrounds, were cross-disciplinary and in student support functions: Commerce, Accounting, Work and Organizational Studies, and Academic Language and Learning Support; Student and Program Support Services; Careers and Employability Office; and Educational Innovation in Business.

The two Mainland Chinese international students were selected because of their cultural and linguistic expertise, as well as specific technical operational expertise with WeChat. It was expected that the cross-cultural collaboration in Bhabha’s (1990) third space might help to address some of the challenges of internationalization, such as isolation and linguistic barriers as identified by Zhang et al. (2016). Student partners achieved this through being “consultants,” akin to the role of students in Cook-Sather’s (2014) “Students as Learners and Teachers program.” Although the consultants were not inside the classroom consulting on teaching practice and enhancement, as with Cook-Sather’s (2014) program, the students in this targeted IoC innovation were behind the scenes consulting to academics and learning support staff on the role of WeChat in the learning module at strategic, operational, and technical levels of the innovation project. The students codesigned the approach for the WeChat pilot, provided consultation on best practice for WeChat communications with students, worked on data collection strategies, data analysis, project evaluation, and also conducted a review of WeChat literature published in Chinese.

At the very beginning of the partnership, once students had agreed to take part, the full team came together for an initial meeting to launch the project. One key focus of the initial meeting was to explicitly discuss the underlying values that might assist with operationalizing the partnership. The project lead invited Amani Bell to the project launch. Bell, an academic with extensive experience in the research and practice of student partnerships (e.g., Bell, 2016) and who was external to the project and faculty, facilitated a session with the team on student partnerships and partnership values (see underlying values in Higher Education Academy, 2015). By establishing scaffolds and operating values, this initial session set a strong foundation for the partnership.

Research Method

Participants

All project team members were invited, who also agreed, to take part in the ethically approved study regarding student partnership and global learning (n = 11). Participation was voluntary, and there were no incentives provided for taking part. Participants were classified as being core project team members (n = 5) or wider project team members (n = 6), and either students (n = 2) or staff (n = 9). In the core project team, there were two student partners and three staff partners. These core team members were involved in regular meetings and made sizable contributions throughout the “action research cycle” (Leask, Whitsted, & Green, 2011). It is this core project team that is the focus for this article.

Data Collection and Analysis

The central source of data collection for this cross-cultural staff–student partnership process was a survey designed using Marquis et al.’s (2016) self-reflection prompts. In that study, Marquis et al.’s (2016) student and staff participants collaboratively developed self-reflection prompts (p. 7) to capture the “. . . benefits and challenges perceived by individuals . . .” through the life of the partnership (p. 4) covering topics, such as

Expectations and experiences of the decision-making process in the partnership;

Whether participants felt responsible for project outcomes;

Challenges and ways of overcoming those challenges; and

How participants saw their role in the project.

In the present study, Marquis et al.’s (2016) self-reflection prompts were mildly tailored so their wording and tense were appropriate for two data collection points: a “pre” and “post” online survey. The presurvey was sent to participants in the first 2 weeks of the project, which was designed to record the expectations participants had about their involvement in the partnership. The same survey was then sent to participants at the end of one action research cycle, approximately 4 months later. The postsurvey was designed to record participants’ experiences of having been in the partnership.

For consistency, the approach to the data analysis of the online survey responses was also modeled on Marquis et al. (2016). Qualitative, inductive, “constant comparison” across and within cases was used (Merriam, 2009). Marquis et al. (2016), the first author of this article (who was one of the five core project team members but deliberately did not fill in the survey), conducted the initial qualitative analysis of the survey responses using NVivo. Emergent and common themes were identified across and within participants’ pre- and postsurvey responses. As in Marquis et al.’s (2016) study, “. . . preliminary results were shared with the rest of the research team for feedback and discussion” (p. 8). Creating distance between the researcher and the researched, through having one project member not fill in the survey and that same project member conducting the first level of analysis, was designed with the intention of addressing complex and inherent issues of researcher positionality (Nader, 1972) and membership roles (Adler & Adler, 1987) in qualitative research.

Findings and Discussion

Emergent themes from the qualitative analysis were as follows: university community readiness and capability for IoC and SaP innovations, knowledge gaps and cross-cultural insights within the partnership, partnership values, individual development, and partnership resourcing. Heeding to Mercer-Mapstone et al.’s (2017) review, highlighting the need to report on the “negative” outcomes of partnership for staff and students, specific mention is made of the tensions experienced in the partnership and project within the emergent themes, as well as the rewards.

University Community Readiness and Capability for IoC and SaP

Survey responses demonstrated limitations in the readiness and ability of the “university community” (Matthews, 2017) to develop and implement IoC innovations, and carry out student–staff partnerships. For example, one student partner reflected that the Business School was slow moving in its actions toward exploring such a popular tool, which many of the Chinese international students were already using—“The project should have been a proactive rather than a reactive one to the phenomenon of social media by the Business School and for the Business School” (Student 2—Postsurvey). The same student partner also noted complex and lengthy ethics committee negotiations that affected the pilot study, as well as the difficulty in managing expectations and needs of the many and varied stakeholders at the research site—“Constrains of ethical research design and meaningful real life implementation. Negotiation and prioritization of divergent stakeholder interests” (Student 2—Postsurvey). Another tension that was raised in the survey responses was a staff partner acknowledging that negotiating “Unexpected behaviors and unintended consequences” (Staff 5—Presurvey) throughout the partnership and the use of WeChat, would present challenges and risks that would need to be managed carefully. This position reflects work by Bovill, Cook-Sather, Felten, Millard, and Moore-Cherry (2016), highlighting “. . . perceived personal and institutional risks of redefining traditional staff-student roles and relationships” (p. 199).

Survey responses also demonstrated that, for the university community, the process of SaP in the IoC innovation was meaningful and critical. One staff partner stated that he hoped that

. . . the value emerges in terms of developing an understanding of the nature of successful student partnerships in an educational space, developing the institutes’ understanding of student preferences in terms of communications and making improvements to the running of a Business School unit of study. (Staff 10—Presurvey)

By the end of the partnership, the same staff partner had strengthened his position on SaP in IoC from being valuable, to critical—“I now believe that student partnerships have a critical role to play in continuing to develop both institutional knowledge and educational excellence, but also inclusivity and community” (Staff 10—Postsurvey). This perspective was corroborated by students’ views, agreeing that this particular SaP/IoC project was beneficial to the Chinese international students in the university community:

. . . this pilot could help the majority of the international students in the Business School to have a better learning experience. They’ll have easier access to all sorts of learning materials, a platform for peer interaction, and online connection to teaching staff. Their learning experience is less isolated, for they’ll have the essential guidance they need in a convenient way and they’ll find it easier to reach out to the likely—mind [sic]. (Student 1—Postsurvey).

As Matthews (2017) points out, this sort of knowledge transfer across the university community, and resultant transformations at the individual and group level, can contribute to a more broader transformation of education.

Knowledge Gaps and Cross-Cultural Insights

In the survey responses, there were 16 instances of participants acknowledging the tensions and rewards with the different experience and expertise that individuals brought to the partnership and project. This result corroborates with findings in the literature regarding expertise, for instance, the conceptualization of SaP “. . . as an exchange of equally valuable expertise” (Matthews et al., 2018, p. 963). Staff partners expressed concerns with their knowledge gaps regarding the WeChat platform and the cultural norms associated with the platform, for example, “Personally, getting to grips with a new communication technology and the extent to which it may or may not operate within a learning and teaching space” (Staff 5—Presurvey). Likewise, one of the student partners expressed concerns around her ability to complete project research tasks—“Since it’s the first time I’ve tried to write a literature review, I am concerned about its quality and the mistakes I may make” (Student 1—Presurvey). At the end of the project, this same student partner considered this inexperience to have been her biggest challenge—“The biggest challenge I had is [sic] due to my inexperience” (Student 1—Postsurvey). The tensions of knowledge gaps, encompassing cultural and linguistic knowledge gaps, were synthesized by a staff partner:

There were some knowledge gaps between members of the project team. Many of these were technical. Usually within education (in situ) there is an explicit focus on knowledge transmission. Within our academic/student partnership, we had to focus on how to most efficiently develop required knowledge within existing skill sets often with project milestones and time restrictions as an additional dimension. (Staff 10—Postsurvey)

Alongside these tensions, the partnership provided a rewarding experience with regard to knowledge and cross-cultural insights. Survey responses demonstrated a sense of plurality in the partnership where “. . . all parties recognise and value the unique talents, perspectives and experiences that individuals contribute to partnership” (Higher Education Academy, 2015, p. 3). The project team expressed excitement at the prospect of partnering with students across a diversity of experience, knowledge, and cultural diversity, as well as becoming more confident in communicating across the student and staff divide. Student partners expressed their awareness of how their cultural and linguistic expertise and knowledge was making a strong contribution on behalf of the wider Chinese international student cohort. In line with this, the reflection below illuminates the role of advocacy experienced throughout the partnership:

My role as an academic language and learning facilitator and educator means that colleagues often come to me to develop their understanding of the behaviors, needs and capabilities of our Chinese students. I believe my involvement in this project can better position me to provide this facility. (Staff–10 Postsurvey)

The raw data illustrated that the student partners introduced the less literate WeChat staff members into the world of WeChat and, as such, the world of being a Chinese International student. Likewise, staff were able to provide valuable insights into how the higher education institution operates and research practices are normalized. This result is supported in other SaP studies, for instance, Peseta et al.’s (2016) finding that SaP encounters afford student partners insights into “. . . what academics and universities actually do” (Peseta et al., 2016, p. 60). In the case of this project, students gained a greater understanding around ethics and funding applications, research group presentations, and research communities. The partnership acted as a third space (Bhabha, 1990) between the two parties, which was a fluid and organic market of cultural and linguistic insights, and institutional and technical knowledge.

One particularly strong contribution to the cross-cultural and cross-linguistic knowledge gap was one of the student’s Chinese literature review on WeChat in education.

By conducting the [Chinese] literature review, I found the major technological and pedagogical affordance of WeChat as a learning tool, which could act as an [sic] evidence of the potential usefulness of WeChat in engaging with Chineses [sic] students [in Australian Universities].” (Student 1—Postsurvey)

This translingual (see Garcia & Wei, 2014; Singh, 2017) element of the project was rewarding for the project team and others in the university community to discover more about WeChat outside of the English academic discourse, as well as demonstrating linguistic democracy as part of IoC. This knowledge transfer between parties is aligned with Holden’s (2002) metaphor of knowledge often being “embedded behind a language barrier, behind a veil of strange customs, behind a closed door” (Holden, 2002, p. 99). It is clear to see that when IoC and SaP innovations are combined, there are opportunities to open these once closed doors and experience productive cross-cultural knowledge transfer.

Partnership Values

Despite empowerment, inclusivity, and responsibility being pillars upon which the project was constructed, the survey responses identified tensions around staff members sharing responsibility with students due to managing risks around duty of care. Partnership values take time to be genuinely established. One of the staff partners experienced that decisions in the partnership were made “As far as was practicable—organic, bottom up and deliberative” (Staff 10—Postsurvey). From this reflection, it is clear that the desired goal was “organic, bottom up and deliberative” decision making in the partnership, however, there is a caveat also stated of “as far as was practicable.” This juxtaposition illustrates the tensions in creating an equal, inclusive, and shared playing field in a student–staff partnership within a traditional, often hierarchical, university context. An example of this is that one of the students was responsible for being the main point of contact in the WeChat channel, on the front line. Although the student, with his or her technical WeChat expertise, was more than capable of handling this on his or her own, it was not possible for the staff members to fully relinquish the responsibility to the student and instead made the decision to have staff be fully responsible as the main point of contact. Ultimately, the institution, and therefore those employed by the institution, are accountable for duty of care, which could not be “outsourced” to student partners without adequate training and legal documentation. Student partners were empowered to enact, but within constraints influenced by existing hierarchical frameworks at the university. This speaks to a key theme in SaP literature that “. . . institutional structures, practices, and norms typically present practical barriers to the kinds of collaboration and shared power involved in partnerships” (Mercer-Mapstone et al., 2017, p. 2).

Respondents did, however, express a sense of inclusivity and responsibility in the partnership, for example, “I feel that I have an equal stake in the outcomes along with our partners” (Staff 10—Postssurvey) and “I feel responsible for the project as I have been involved at the very beginning” (Student 1—Postsurvey). So despite these tensions of empowerment above, survey responses also demonstrated that the project team endeavored to create an inclusive working partnership as much as possible, and that this led to a shared responsibility and distribution of responsibility, where the power dynamics shifted and modified across the duration of the partnership (see Cook-Sather, 2014; Matthews et al., 2018). At the end of the project, one of the student partners used the partnership values in their definition of student–staff partnership:

. . . primarily a collaboration involving the participation of both students and staff on the basis of their expertise and experience, with equality, shared—responsibility and mutual trust as the most important value [sic]. (Student 1—Postsurvey).

These results align with Matthews et al.’s (2018) study of staff and student partners conceptualizing SaP as a values-based practice—as values being fundamental to partnership.

Individual Development

There were clear benefits to the individuals involved in the project, with various expressions of personal and professional development emerging frequently in the survey responses (>14 instances across the four participants). This speaks to existing literature regarding the benefits of SaP as providing opportunities for mutual growth and mutual learning wherein individuals can “. . . generate a shift in their identity and articulate themselves in new ways” (Matthews et al., 2018, p. 962). Reported rewards included broadening cultural insights, improving technical and cultural knowledge of the WeChat social media platform, better understanding of the ins and outs of the academic institution, project management techniques, and research techniques. One student in particular went through a transformative experience with his or her individual development. This was with regard to improving her autonomous learning and research capabilities, and her communications, presentation, and networking skills. “As a student, I learnt I should be responsible for my own learning, rather than waiting for others to tell me what to do, I should actively seek all available help and support” (Student 1—Postsurvey). This reflection supports Bovill et al.’s (2010) empirical finding that students can become more motivated to learn and be responsible for their own learning when engaged in SaP. Moreover, this broader emergent theme of individual development echoes the work of Marquis et al. (2016) regarding threshold concepts and also Ntem and Cook-Sather’s (2018) realizations from their empirical study regarding the resiliencies that students experience in a partnership. Ntem and Cook-Sather (2018) explain that there is “. . . the potential to forge positive outcomes from initial vulnerabilities and perceived incompatibilities . . .,” which speaks to the emergent theme in this study regarding individual development throughout the partnership (p. 92).

Partnership Resourcing

Managing resources was a major tension in this project and partnership, particularly around funding and compensation for contributions to the project. Fortunately, some funding was secured to remunerate the students for their contributions to the project. Similar to Peseta et al.’s (2016) partnership arrangements, the student partners in this project were paid for their participation as a way of recognizing “. . . that their time in the scheme may have been time spent away from their usual employment or from their studies” (p. 64). However, this pay was minimal and did not cover all of the student and staff resourcing costs, which is also similar to the results of Peseta et al. (2016). Students reflected on this issue in survey responses—“We also volunteer to do work” (Student 1—Postsurvey). Staff ensured there were ample nonmonetary rewards for students, including mentoring, assistance with writing CVs and job applications, networking, and presentation opportunities. Staff described this additional workload as being hard work at the surface level (Staff 10—Postsurvey), but the intrinsic rewards were worth it. For staff, extensive time was spent on establishing new processes and systems to develop scaffolding for an effective partnership that could be both recognized by the school and the students. This is because they were pioneering SaP in the faculty. The time required to do that, and support students alongside maintaining momentum with the project, was a major challenge. However, the agility demonstrated by the project team to deal with resourcing, time, and efficiency challenges was also raised in the survey responses. “I think we responded to these challenges by working in an agile manner” (Staff 10—Postsurvey). This hard work but rewarding outcomes links back to Marquis et al.’s (2016) threshold concepts and Ntem and Cook-Sather’s (2018) resilience, whereby you often have to go through an awkwardness of crossing an uncomfortable or challenging threshold to grow from the experience.

Conclusion, Limitations, and Future Research Directions

In conclusion, our findings revealed tensions and rewards behind the scenes in a cross-cultural student–staff partnership. This was evident across five emergent themes in the survey data, university community readiness and capability for transformations in IoC and SaP, knowledge gaps and cross-cultural insights, partnership values, individual development, and partnership resourcing. Some of these emergent themes supported findings in existing SaP literature; however, the inclusion of an IoC focus for the SaP provided unique benefits. One benefit included the transfer of cultural knowledge across diverse groups (Holden, 2002). This was encapsulated in the SaP/IoC “third-space” (Bhabha, 1990), enabling a meaningful praxis of border crossing between the Mainland Chinese culture and Western academics and learning support staff. Another benefit was that through empowering those often marginalized, Chinese international students, in the partnership and harnessing their cultural and linguistic capital, the partnership diverted away from the default of further privileging the privileged. This demonstrates the power in combining the cross-cultural IoC approach with SaP. Moreover, this focus on Chinese international students as partners, and harnessing their cultural and linguistic assets, challenged the ethnocentric approach of expected assimilation of international students to the Western campus (Welikala, 2011). The third space also enabled small, yet incremental, steps toward understanding more about international students’ communication preferences. For instance, the WeChat and the SaP innovation in the informal curriculum (see Caza & Brower, 2015; Leask, 2009) dismantled traditional communication barriers and provided a less isolating and nonthreatening channel for Chinese international students to connect with academic staff and learning support staff in a constructive and positive way. These insights and progress were only possible through the involvement of the student consultants and a partnership founded on values of plurality, authenticity, honesty, inclusivity, reciprocity, empowerment, trust, courage, and responsibility (Higher Education Academy, 2015). A productive student-centric design solution for IoC innovations, as necessitated by student partnership theory, has been shown to be achievable within the range and scope of this project, and it is the authors’ position that the pursuit of cross-cultural student partnerships is a worthwhile and rewarding “academic theory, ethos and practice” (Mercer-Mapstone et al., 2017, p. 19). Moreover, the authors hope that these insights make an incremental and scholarly contribution by having brought together two often isolated literatures of IoC and SaP.

With regard to limitations, this article represents only one thread of a greater and complex narrative unfolding from our SaP/IoC foray. Although the findings from the survey responses provide insight for future research and praxis, the structured data collection instrument tended to be inadequate for capturing the holistic and complex layered experiences of individual participants in this research. This became evident through the survey data analysis and subsequent team discussions. The discursive record created in the course of this project (including student debriefs, project emails, meeting notes, presentation material, and project team discussions) are rich sources of data that fell outside the scope of the ethical clearance for the research project in its current iteration. Future SaP and IoC research could benefit from the inclusion of these discursive records (see, for example, the triangulation of three methods used in Li, 1999 cross-cultural investigation), or ethnographic techniques, to allow for a rich description and a contextualizing body of insights in the analysis and publication of research.

Finally, based on these findings and limitations, additional future research directions would be encouraged that incorporate SaP into IoC. This could involve studies that increase the size of the partnership without compromising the cultural diversity, and therefore accessibility and inclusivity, and studies with a more diverse student and staff grouping, rather than only “Western” and “Mainland Chinese.” The consideration of the intersectionality of culture with other factors, such as age, gender, status, and tenure at the institution, would also be an important avenue to explore given that our cultural frames of reference are fluid and interdependent. We hope that this study will feed-forward to ongoing scholarly debate, research, and praxis at the junction of student partnerships and global learning.

Epilogue—Beyond the Pilot

This pilot has resulted in further opportunities for internationalization of the formal and informal curriculum, university wide. The WeChat pilot lent itself to larger scale projects at different levels of the institution. Seedlings of further WeChat innovations are now emerging in international student support services, peer to peer student support programs, non-credit-bearing academic language and literacy units, library services, and the potential and politics of WeChat is being discussed at management level. This progression is an important and valuable step toward understanding more about dynamic and diverse universities in the 21st century.

In this particular context, scaling up the student–staff partnership to involve more students and more staff, or to formalize and normalize student–staff partnerships at the faculty or institutional level, is not straightforward. Blockers include limited SaP literacy among academics and management as well as inadequate funding opportunities to support staff and students working on such innovations. In saying that, our SaP work has certainly contributed to momentum of the university’s cross-disciplinary SIG on “Engaging Students as Partners.” Our student partner presented at that forum and also at a national symposium on the topic. The involvement in these forums has assisted in incrementally increasing SaP literacy at our university and has resulted in SaP continuing to be a part of the partnership members’ ethos and modus operandi beyond the project, as well as having established valuable research and employment networks for the student partners.

Beyond the pilot, challenges remain of how our “consultants” can be further credited for their contributions to date, and how they can continue to feed into these innovations and be compensated for their time doing so. There is also the issue of how long students will be involved with a university, particularly as they are visiting international students. As SaP/IoC champions, we continue to address these issues in research and practice.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

Sincere thanks to the following individuals and teams who have contributed to this paper and the research behind it; first and foremost – the expert guidance and contributions from our reviewers; Dr Wendy Green and her National Teaching and Learning Fellowship; Dr Mick Healy; Dr Beth Marquis and her team at McMaster University; at our university - our wider project team and the Educational Innovation in Business team; Trudy Aiken of Victoria University of Melbourne who shared insights into a WeChat related trial in 2016; Dr Stephanie Wilson, Dr Mythily Meher and Dr Celeste Rossetto for their input into reviewing this paper; Dr Amani Bell for support throughout the project and beyond; and finally, Dr Jim Rooney, for continuous support in many forms, including enabling the WeChat pilot to take place.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

Bonnie Rose Stanway

Yiyuan Cao

Tony Cannell

Yihui Gu

Author Biographies

Bonnie Rose Stanway is a lecturer and tutor at the University of Sydney across the Linguistics and Business School Faculties. She is also a Higher Degree Research student in the Discipline of Strategy, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship in the University of Sydney Business School. Bonnie’s research explores the intersection of sociolinguistics, identity and power relations, and organisational studies, and is focussed on improving policies and practices to encourage the success of both international and domestic students. She has received commonwealth scholarships, internal innovation grants, and support from a National Teaching and Learning Fellowship for engaging students as partners to solve the issues that have arisen from global learning.

Yiyuan Cao is a higher degree research student and tutor in Accounting across the University of Sydney Business School and the University of New South Wales. She holds a Master of Professional Accounting from The University of Sydney. Prior to her study at the University of Sydney, Sara worked as an accountant in a medium-sized company for two years. Her research interests focus on the risk perception of institutions with different culture biases by utilising Douglas and Wildavsky’s cultural risk model.

Tony Cannell is an educator with over 20 years’ experience in TESOL (ESL/EFL) instruction, learning design and education administration. Tony currently works as unit coordinator for the primary academic language and learning support program for postgraduate commerce and accounting students at the University of Sydney Business School. Since moving from the universities Centre for English Teaching in 2015, Tony has been active in developing and promoting task based and agile approaches to academic language and learning, including receiving an Association for Academic Language and Learning (AALL) grant to co-convene a 2017 forum exploring ways of being and working in embedded academic literacy programs. Tony is also contributing to innovative projects exploring the development of student partnerships, the use of Augmented Reality in mobile assisted language learning and the deployment of social media platforms for student communications.

Yihui Gu graduated from The University of Sydney with a Master of Professional Accounting (2017) and a Bachelor Degree in Commerce (Hons) and Arts (2012). James is now an Analyst in Deloitte’s Assurance and Advisory team. James’ research interests are digital communication, emergent leadership and application of Big Data.

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Tensions and Rewards: Behind the Scenes in a Cross-Cultural Student–Staff Partnership

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

Background and Motivation

IoC

Engaging SaP

Research Site

Research Method

Participants

Data Collection and Analysis

Findings and Discussion

University Community Readiness and Capability for IoC and SaP

Knowledge Gaps and Cross-Cultural Insights

Partnership Values

Individual Development

Partnership Resourcing

Conclusion, Limitations, and Future Research Directions

Epilogue—Beyond the Pilot

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Funding

ORCID iDs

Author Biographies

References