Lappeenranta University of Technology Department of Information Technology
Expectations and Experiences of International Students in Information Technology Department
The topic of the Thesis has been confirmed by the Departmental Council of the Department of Information Technology on ________________
Author Tanya Petrova
Examiners Professor Jari Porras M. Sc. Satu Alaoutinen
Supervisors Professor Jari Porras M. Sc. Satu Alaoutinen
ABSTRACT
Lappeenranta University of Technology Faculty of Technology Management Tanya Petrova
Expectations and Experiences of International Students in Information Technology Department
Master’s Thesis 2009
81 pages, 9 figures, 23 tables and 3 appendices
Examiners: Prof. Jari Porras and M. Sc. Satu Alaoutinen
Keywords: expectations, experiences, culture, students, satisfaction, teaching quality
Education in Finland plays a significant role. International students are becoming an essential part of Finnish Educational system. The study was meant to examine their expectations and experiences in a Finnish University. As a case, Lappeenranta
University of Technology (LUT) was chosen and, in particular, Information Technology (IT) Department. The main objectives of the study were to examine students’
satisfaction of their study experiences, their evaluation of the teaching quality of courses and last but not least the cultural impact on those. Data for the study were mainly collected with the help of three Internet surveys from a sample of 50 students – currently studying at LUT or already graduated. Response rate from questionnaire to questionnaire varied, however, still close to average and was considered as good and relevant enough. The study was initially meant as qualitative, however, a number of quantitative data analysis methods were used as well. Most of students’ expectations appear to become true, majority of students are satisfied with their experiences. Results show that teaching quality in LUT is evaluated as ‘good’. Nevertheless, students prefer particular courses to the other ones. In conclusion, it can be said that culture does affect
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Writing Master’s Thesis is a long process, sometimes seems like an endless journey, however, once completed a mixed feeling of relief and sadness appears.
I have learnt a lot during my two years of studying and while writing my Master’s Thesis I had the chance to use in practice what I have learnt. All this would not be possible without the Scholarship from Lappeenranta University of Technology and Grant from Tukisäätiö, for which I am thankful.
I would like to express my thanks to all people involved in International Master Degree Programme in Information Technology for giving me a chance to study in Lappeenranta University of Technology. Special thanks to Riitta Salminen, for being always very kind and helpful.
I am very grateful to my supervisors Professor Jari Porras and Satu Alaoutinen for giving me an opportunity to write such an interesting and challenging thesis and for valuable support during the whole process.
I would like to express my thanks to my friends Matylda Jabłońska and Lidiya Ropay for their contribution and support. I really appreciate all they have done for me.
Special thanks to my boyfriend Rustam Jemurzinov for supporting me and believing in me during my studies.
Last but not least, I am very thankful to my family for their love, support and belief in me, especially in the last few months.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 INTRODUCTION... 7
1.1 Purpose of the Study ... 7
1.2 Research Questions ... 8
1.3 Theoretical / Conceptual Framework... 11
1.4 Definition of main concepts ... 13
1.4.1 Culture... 13
1.4.2 Target country expectations ... 13
1.4.3 Expectations versus Experiences ... 14
1.5 Studying at Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT)... 14
1.6 Research Methods ... 15
1.7 Related Work ... 16
1.8 Structure of the Study... 16
2 THE ROLE OF CULTURE... 18
2.1 Elements of Culture... 18
2.2 Classifying Culture: Conceptual Dimensions ... 19
2.2.1 Hall's culture factors... 19
2.2.2 Hofstede's culture dimensions... 21
2.2.3 Trompenaars' and Hampden-Turner's cultural dimensions... 24
2.3 Cultures in This Study... 27
2.4 Facing Cultural Differences ... 30
3 CONDUCTING THE RESEARCH ... 31
3.1 Research Process ... 31
3.2 Data Collection Methods... 34
3.3 Questionnaire Planning Process ... 34
3.4 Present Study Questionnaires... 38
3.4.1 Questionnaire I ... 38
3.4.3 Questionnaire III ... 40
3.5 Internet Surveys ... 41
3.6 Face-to-face Interview ... 43
3.7 Observations... 43
3.8 Data Analysis Methods ... 44
4 RESULTS ... 45
4.1 Response Patterns ... 45
4.2 Respondents Profile ... 46
4.3 Descriptive Analysis of Data ... 50
4.3.1 Expectations versus experiences ... 51
4.3.2 Study plan and time schedule... 52
4.3.3 Contact with professors, teachers and assistants... 54
4.3.4 Courses – compulsory and elective... 56
4.4 Qualitative Data Analysis ... 68
4.4.1 Face-to-face interview... 69
4.4.2 Expectations and experiences ... 69
4.4.3 Culture... 71
4.4.4 Teaching quality... 73
5 CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK ... 74
REFERENCES... 77
APPENDICES ... 81
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
BA - Business Administration CBU - Cross – Border University CE - Communications Engineering CHE - Chemical Engineering
CS - Communications Software
CSA - Communication Software Architecture CRV - Computer and Robot Vision
FRIT - Fenno – Russian Master Degree Programme in Information Technology IC - Intelligent Computing
ID - Individualism IDV - Individualism Index
IMPIT - International Master Programme in Information Technology IMVML - Introduction to Machine Vision and Machine Learning IP - Information Processing
IT - Information Technology
LCI - Languages, Compilers and Interpreters LTO - Long- Term Orientation
LUT - Lappeenranta University of Technology MAS - Masculinity
MVDIA - Machine Vision and Digital Image Analysis NDTE - Network Design and Traffic Engineering NP - Network Programming
PC - Parallel Computing PD - Power Distance PDI - Power Distance Index PR - Pattern Recognition RM - Research Methods
TM - Technomathematics UA - Uncertainty Avoidance UAI - Uncertainty Avoidance Index USP - Unix and System Programming WSE - Wireless Service Engineering
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1 Hofstede’s scores for cultures in the study [15]... 28
Table 2 Response rate ... 45
Table 3 Major and Minor subjects of respondents... 50
Table 4 Expectations vs. Experiences ... 51
Table 5 Study plan and time schedule... 52
Table 6 Affect of changes in programme on studies ... 54
Table 7 Contact with teachers ... 55
Table 8 Teachers’ attitude evaluation ... 55
Table 9 Using teaching office hours ... 56
Table 10 Course material for compulsory courses... 57
Table 11 Requirements for passing courses... 58
Table 12 Course material evaluation for elective courses ... 59
Table 13 Attendance of courses ... 60
Table 14 Descriptive statistics results for teaching methods for different courses... 61
Table 15 Descriptive statistics for course material for different courses... 61
Table 16 Good and bad features of NP ... 62
Table 17 Good and bad features of NDTE... 63
Table 18 Good and bad features of CSA ... 64
Table 19 Good and bad features of RM ... 65
Table 20 Good and bad features of PC ... 66
Table 21 Good and bad features of PR ... 66
Table 22 Good and bad features of LCI... 67
Table 23 Good and bad features of IMVML ... 68
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1 Conceptual framework of the study... 12
Figure 3 Jenkins’ model ... 32
Figure 4 Research design of the study ... 33
Figure 5 Questionnaire Design [20]... 36
Figure 6 Respondents by year for the first questionnaire ... 47
Figure 7 Respondents by year for the second questionnaire... 47
Figure 8 Respondents by Nationality for the first questionnaire ... 48
Figure 9 Respondents by nationality for the third questionnaire ... 49
1 INTRODUCTION
“Finland is a country that believes in the power of education and research”[1]. Finland has 21 universities and 30 polytechnics and education “has always been a high priority for Finland”[2]. International students, both degree and exchange, who study in the Finnish universities and polytechnics are about 5% of the total student enrolment in these institutions [2]. The aim of the Finnish educational system is to attract more international students encouraging them to get their scientific knowledge in Finland [2].
A great variety of study programmes taught in English helps in developing this initiative [2]. Providing education in English language is just a part of the whole spectrum of conditions a university should establish for the students in order to attract their attention. A student has a certain idea about his/her life in another city or country prior to his/her arrival there. The opinion is formed on the basis of the information a person receives from various sources. Once the student has arrived though, his/her unique experience is the one which plays leading role in his/her wish to continue the studies he/she has enrolled for or to obtain new degrees. Every person’s experience can contribute to finding the weak points and the strengths in the way the Finnish education process for foreigners is organized and managed. Thus conducting periodical researches on students’ impressions is substantial for the university’s activity of winning new students.
1.1 Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this study is to examine the expectations and experiences of the international students in the Information Technology (IT) Department of Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT). Since these students are an important part of study
life in the IT department, their point of view is very valuable. The present research aims to examine students' satisfaction of their study experience, to find out what kind of problems exist in the current education arrangements and how to solve them.
The main objective of the study is to learn more about the life of the students, coming from different parts of the world – how they imagined their life in Finland, how the studies would take place, how they would integrate in the Finnish society, the friends they would acquire, etc. Therefore, it is essential to learn how the reality differs from their initial idea.
Another issue to be studied is what kind of problems these students have met during their education in Finland. Apart from the rest this study investigates how students assess teaching methods in Finland, contact with professors, as well as quality of the course materials. The Department will be able to decide what kind of improvements it needs after reviewing the students’ opinion about the quality of teaching.
When speaking about people from different cultures studying together, one has to keep in mind the cultural differences. Every student has a unique cultural background and perception of the other cultures. Cultural shock has a certain effect on the studies.
Specific goals of the study are presented as research questions in subsection 1.2.
1.2 Research Questions
The main purpose of the study is to examine expectations and experiences of the international students in the Information Technology (IT) Department for their two-year studies for Master degree in technology at Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT). The following research questions were made to lead the research:
EXPECTATIONS
What were the expectations of the foreign students in the IT Department?
The idea is to find out what overall image different individuals had about Finland, Lappeenranta, university, etc., before their arrival. Following sub-questions were created to help answer this general one:
• What was their motivation to choose Finland as a country for their education?
This question aims to find out what has motivated students from different countries to come exactly to Finland to get Master degree. What they knew about the country and what made them prefer Finland to other countries.
• What were their expectations about living and studying in Finland?
This question aims to find out what different students knew about living and studying in Finland before arriving and how they imagined it.
• What were their expectations about Finnish people – culture, attitude, communication with them?
This question concentrates on the cultural aspect – what the foreign students think/know about Finnish people. How they thought Finnish people would treat them. How they imagined communication with Finnish
• What plans did they have after completing their studies in Finland?
This question aims to find out what were the plans of the international students after
same field in Finland or they were planning to go back to their home countries and use their experience and knowledge to support their homelands.
EXPERIENCES
What are the experiences of the foreign students in the IT Department?
This is the second main part of the study, intending to examine international students' experiences in the IT department. The following sub-questions were created to support the investigation of what kind of experiences international students have in their two- year studies of Master degree:
• How do expectations differ from the reality in terms of living and studying in Finland?
This question aims to find out how expectations differ from the reality.
• What is the students' opinion about Finnish people – culture, attitude, communication?
What do international students think about Finnish people and their culture after having contacted them for longer time? Did their first impression change and how, in positive or negative perspective?
• How did the cultural difference affect students' studies?
The question aims to find out whether the culture difference influenced students' studies and how, if yes.
• What is their feedback about university, country and people?
The question in oriented to get information about international students' opinion about university, country and people after spending some time in this environment, and whether they would recommend LUT/Finland to their friends.
• Did students' initial plans for their life after completing studies change?
This questions verifies whether students' plans for their life after completing studies – living and working - remained the same or changed and in which direction.
1.3 Theoretical / Conceptual Framework
Figure 1 illustrates the conceptual framework for the present study, showing the main concepts and relationships between them. The core of the study is international students with their background cultures, as the study examines their expectations and experiences in the university. Culture is essential for different students and it is assumed to affect their expectations and experiences. Cultural background of students is assumed to influence the way they imagine and expect to see the target country and university. It is also believed that culture affects opinion formation and has an impact on studies and communications of students. Inter cultural relationships as well as cross-cultural are discussed as important for opinion formation of the students.
Figure 1 Conceptual framework of the study
Students form an expected image about university (LUT), target country (Finland) where they are going to study, as well as have expectations about their life in the new place and have idea about communication with other people. Influencing factor for building image is their cultural background. Therefore, expectations differ from student to student depending on the culture.
Experiences of students in university are assumed to be affected by the teaching process taking place there. Students evaluate teaching process in different ways, based on the cultural perceptions. Thus, it is assumed that the culture affects evaluation of the teaching quality and plays significant role in the comparison between the expected image and the real experience.
1.4 Definition of main concepts
This section provides a brief explanation of the main concepts from the framework of the study.
1.4.1 Culture
Culture links an individual to the society but there are different views on how this happens. Culture defines people's behaviour and is a part of people's identity. It is a set of beliefs and behavioural patterns that people share [3]. People with different cultural backgrounds see and understand the same things in different ways. This is what is meant by defining culture as main concept of this study. It is possible that culture can affect people's expectations and experiences.
When talking about culture, there are different points of view – it can be seen as a regional culture or a national culture [3]. In this study culture is discussed at a country level, defined by the home countries of the international students. More detailed discussion about the culture is presented further in this study (section 2).
1.4.2 Target country expectations
People are used to imagine things and to build visions in their minds to interpret the world. Therefore the foreign students have some images about the target country and the university. In this case, the target country is Finland and the university is Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT). The concept of the target country expectations includes students' anticipation about Finland in general, the Finnish people, the university. It is interesting to find out what different students from all over the world
knew about Finland, why they chose exactly Finland as a country for gaining their education and how they imagined their two-year studies at LUT.
1.4.3 Expectations versus Experiences
The aim of these concepts is to examine differences between the expectations and the real experiences of the students. Expectations are formed beforehand and include visions of the country, the people, the university, studying and living, whereas experiences are the images students form afterwards - when they start living and studying in Finland.
Teaching quality is thought to have impact on experiences and is taken into consideration in the study. Cultural background of the students also affects teaching quality and their learning process.
1.5 Studying at Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT)
The case for this study is Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT), which is the only university of technology and economics in the Eastern Finland [4]. LUT is situated approximately seven kilometers from the city centre of Lappeenranta on the shore of Lake Saimaa [5]. The university had opened its doors in year 1969 for students, offering them valuable education. LUT is developing dynamically and rapidly and is getting more and more popular, attracting new students every year. Nowadays, there are eight departments functioning in the university. One of them is the Department of Information Technology (IT) which is of interest for the current study.
The IT Department offers various possibilities for Bachelor and Master degrees in Technology for the Finnish and international students from all over the world [6]. The
IT Department was the first department of LUT that offered international degree programme. That happened in 1998 and the first international programme in LUT was International Master Degree Programme in Information Technology (IMPIT). Since the foundation of the first international programme, there have been over 200 international students studying for Master Degree of Technology in the IT Department of LUT.
Currently, there are four degree programmes in the IT Department [6]:
• Master's Degree Programme in Information Technology
• International Master Degree Programme in Information Technology (IMPIT)
• Cross – Border University (CBU) Master Degree Programme in Information and Communications Technology
• Fenno – Russian Master Degree Programme in Information Technology (FRIT) – the newest one, started 2009 – 2010 academic year
1.6 Research Methods
The present research was held in LUT in the spring, summer and beginning of autumn of 2009. Participants in the study were international students presently studying or already graduated from IT Department of LUT by that time. The sample for the study consisted of 50 international students that started their education in the years 2005 - 2008. Data collection was done mostly with use of the Internet (surveys), an interview and observations.
The study was meant as qualitative. However, a number of quantitative methods were used as well in the data analysis stage. Narrative data from open-ended questions, interview and observations were analysed with different qualitative techniques – phenomenography [7], quasi-statistics (rough estimation of frequencies) [8], hermeneutical analysis [7], etc.
1.7 Related Work
There are various researches about expectations and experiences of students studied from different aspects. One of those is the study of Pithers et al[9], where the authors discuss the effect of university experience on student expectations.
The studies of Sutela [4] and Iirvanen [10] can be considered relevant to the present, being similar to each other. Sutela's study [4] examines factors related to the study success at LUT and she concentrates only on the Finnish students as a sample, while Iirvanen [10] discusses the role of the culture in image formation, using international students as a sample.
Another study that can be considered as relevant to present one is that of Mäntyaho [11], where she pays great attention to the culture and stereotypes using as a case German and Finnish students.
The current study uses the ideas and approaches from the previous ones, however, improving and adapting approaches to the present goals. The study focuses on a particular group of people in a particular case.
1.8 Structure of the Study
The structure of the current study is as follows:
Section 2: The Role of Culture
In this section the concept of culture is discussed in details. Culture is classified according to Hall, Trompenaars and Hofstede. Cultures in the present study are introduced, as well as some information about cultural differences is provided.
Section 3: Conducting the Research
This section explains in details how the current research is carried out, introducing data collection methods and data analysis methods.
Section 4: Results
This section presents results from the data analysis process.
Section 5: Conclusions and Future Work
In this section final conclusions from the results are made and possible future work is discussed.
2 THE ROLE OF CULTURE
The aim of this section is to bring proper understanding of the role of culture on people's expectations and experiences. A starting point in the discussion is to agree on a definition of culture. Researchers present different definitions of culture having their own reasons and arguments for them.
Culture can be discussed from different perspectives as well, such as sociological [11]
and psychological [12]. It can be defined by thinking about the particular solutions that people construct for universal problems. Firstly, there are common human problems and solutions to them. Secondly, there is a range of possible solutions available. Thirdly, all of the possible solutions are present in every culture but preferred differently [3].
People bring their culture along with them even though they do it unintentionally. The cultural background affects their way of interpreting the world around them. For simplicity of this study culture is discussed only at a country level, ignoring regional differences. One justification for this is the small sample size of the study participants.
2.1 Elements of Culture
Culture can be seen as a process with many elements. According to Usunier [3], there are four essential elements when discussing culture.
• Language – it has very important role in a culture. Language structures people’s behaviour, thinking and world-view.
• Institutions – individuals become a group of institutions, which can be either political, social or include family.
• Material productions – they form a diverse part of the culture. It includes the goods and services produced to meet people’s needs. There are different cultural attitudes to materiality. Some cultures appreciate spiritual harmony and some hard work and money.
• Religious and moral beliefs – significant part of every culture!
2.2 Classifying Culture: Conceptual Dimensions
2.2.1 Hall's culture factors
Edward T. Hall is a famous anthropologist having studied culture for a long time and he suggests three main culture factors to differentiate cultures one from another – context, time and space. However, he is mostly associated with and popular for his low and high context culture factors [13].
• Context – Hall differentiates two types of cultures in compliance with context – low and high context cultures [13]. Analogy of Hall's low and high context cultures are Trompenaars' [14] Individualism and Particularism and Hofstede's [15]
Individualistic and Collectivistic dimensions.
• Low context
Low context culture is such, where the information taken for granted is at minimum.
This requires providing more explanation which helps decreasing chance of misunderstanding [13]. In low context cultures information is transmitted mostly verbally, everything is explained in details so that the message could be interpreted adequately. The speaker carries the entire responsibility for correct interpretation of the message and information provided [16].
• High context
According to Hall, there are many contextual elements in high context cultures that help people to understand rules [13]. Thus information taken for granted in this type of cultures is much. “Communication in high context cultures is an emotional involvement rather than a mere transfer of information”[16]. In this group the responsibility for correct interpretation of the information is on the listener, not the speaker [16].
• Time – Hall differentiates time as monochronic and polychronic [13]. This classification is similar to Trompenaars' [14] - time as a sequence and time as synchronization.
• Monochronic time
Monochronic time or M-time “means doing one thing at a time”, which requires careful planning [9]. Monochronic people concentrate on the only thing they do at the moment and are very strict about when things should be done. Monochronic people are considered being low context and they would prefer a job to a relationship [13].
• Polychronic time
Polychronic time means “to do many things at once” [13]. In polychronic cultures, human interaction is considered more important and valued than time. Polychronic people are not that concentrated on the thing they do and can be easily distracted.
Important for them is not when something should be done, but what should be done. Polychronic people are considered being high context and they would prefer being in a relationships rather than doing job [13].
• Space – what can be meant by space has considerably big range – from personal space to space at home, in the office, at the parking, etc. [13].
• The need for space
Everybody has different needs of space, some people need more space, some less.
Personal space is the distance between people at which they feel comfortable while speaking, e.g. [13].
• High territoriality
Some people are more territorial than the others. Thus their feeling of ownership is highly developed. While ownership concerns only material things, the territoriality includes anything recognized as 'mine'. The more a person’s feeling for ownership is developed, the more important for this person becomes the matter of security.
Highly territorial people are considered low context [13].
• Low territoriality
People of low territoriality do not have strong demands for the surrounding space – the ownership of space is not so important to them. They will not hesitate to share their territory and ownership. Whereas for the highly territorial people the material ownership does matter, so does the feeling that someone 'steals' their personal space.
Low territorial people are considered high context [13].
2.2.2 Hofstede's culture dimensions
Geert Hofstede is a Dutch anthropologist who studied culture [13]. Hofstede is famous all over the world for his culture related studies, cited from many and criticised from
his five culture dimensions [15], which are explained further in this section. Hofstede has studied a large number of cultures and countries and rated them in each dimension using scale from 1 to 100.
Cultures in the present study are discussed mainly according to Hofstede's dimensions and Hofstede's scores for some of the countries are presented latter in Section 2.3.
• Power – Power Distance (PD or PDI)
Power Distance Index (PDI) measures how people in a society react to power. In low power distance (PD) countries members tend to feel equal, whereas in strong power distance societies superiors and subordinates feel separated from each other [3].
High PDI – main characteristics for cultures with high PDI are strong hierarchies, large gaps in authority aspect [17].
Low PDI – main characteristic for cultures with low PDI include higher equality between supervisors and employers in organizations [17].
• Self – Individualism versus Collectivism (ID or IDV)
The concept of individualism and collectivism is deeply connected to the concept of oneself and others. Individuals have more clear-cut view of where 'oneself' stops and where 'others' start, whereas collectivist persons have more blurry borders between themselves and the others. It is a problem across societies to define this border.
Collectivism is associated with traditional culture and individualism with modern culture. This division is strong but not simple; in individualistic countries people still belong to groups and in collectivistic societies, people still need to express their personal identity [3].
High IDV – cultures with high IDV tend to appreciate people's time and their need of freedom, people prefer working hard as they expect to receive a reward for this, and
“respect for privacy” [17].
Low IDV – people belonging to cultures with low IDV are more concentrated on building skills and becoming professionals They prefer to work for an essential reward, and for them harmony is put in front of honesty [17].
• Gender – Masculinity versus Femininity (MAS)
In a masculine society dominant values favour assertiveness, showing possessions and caring little for others. In a feminine society e.g. the welfare system is highly developed and there is openness to admit that people may have problems. In typical masculine societies weaker people find less support from society at large and so the people learn to admire strength [3].
High MAS – cultures with high MAS are characterized with clear distinction between what is considered as men's work and what is meant as women's work [17].
Low MAS – people from cultures with low MAS believe that a woman is able to do anything a man can do and they tend to respect powerful and successful women [17].
• Predictability – Uncertainty Avoidance (UA or UAI)
Uncertainty Avoidance (UA) is related to common problem of how to deal with uncertainty. On one hand people just have to deal with it because it is in the nature of situations, or on the other hand uncertainty is bad and the society must do everything to reduce it [3].
High UAI – very formal business relationship with high number of rules and policies is characteristic for the cultures with high UAI, as well as “need and expect structure” and
“differences are avoided” [17].
Low UAI – for the cultures with low UAI informal business attitude is typical. People have a long term perspective not a daily success, “accepting risk and change” [17].
• Time – Long-Term versus Short-Term Orientation (LTO)
The ability of a certain group to be patient and persistent in struggling for results is its cultural trait [13]. Long-term orientation is opposite to the short-term orientation and can be described as “dealing with Virtue regardless of Truth” [15]. The Long-term values are prudent economy and steadfastness, while the short-term values are associated with respect for manners, social obligations and preserving a certain image [15].
High LTO – cultures with high LTO tend to put family as first priority and to respect parents and men more than young people and women, “strong work ethic” is characteristic for them [17].
Low LTO – in cultures with low LTO there might be observed more equality than in those with high LTO, as well as high creativity, individualism. People also tend to treat others in the way they wished to be treated by them [17].
2.2.3 Trompenaars' and Hampden-Turner's cultural dimensions
Fons Trompenaars alike Hofstede is another Dutch scientist studying culture. He contributed to Charles Hampden-Turner in the field of culture studying [9]. They categorize culture in compliance with the following dimensions [14]:
• Universalism versus particularism
Difference between universalism and particularism comes intuitively. The former treats each case only by existing rules not letting exceptions have their own rights and characteristics, whereas the latter for any unusual case makes a fresh judgment, individual for each situation. [13]
• Individualism versus communitarianism
In terms of individualism, one’s success or failure is let to oneself only and the group does not criticize individual achievements. Communitarianism treats the society in a collective way and favours any groups above the individuals. A person trying to be individual is considered as “selfish and short-sighted”. [13]
• Neutral versus emotional
The extend to which one’s emotions can influence one’s professional life, is claimed to depend strongly on culture. Northern societies, from both America and Europe, treat business relations instrumentally and focus mostly on reaching goals. The more Southern blood the businessmen have, the more emotions are acceptable for them.
“Loud laughter, banging your fist on the table or leaving a conference room in anger during a negotiation is all part of business.” [14]
• Specific versus diffuse
Whether a culture is specific or diffusive is determined by the level of people's emotional engagement with the others – both in different levels of live and single levels of personality, as these can be multiple at the same time. “Specific and diffuse cultures are sometimes called low and high context.” [14]
Diffuse strategy is known as 'circle around' – starting from general and getting to the specific, while specific strategy is so called 'getting straight to the point' – starting with specific and move to general [14]. This is illustrated in Figure 2.
• Achievement versus ascription
What is the base for people to assess the others is another issue. Achievement relates to one’s most recent work and experience. General social status or connections are not relevant in building career as long as one can prove his competence by current working results. Ascription favours the opposite. The more important people one knows and the better one’s social status is the more credibility one has. “In an achievement cultures, the first question is likely to be 'What did you study?', while in a more ascriptive cultures the question will more likely be 'Where did you study?'” [14]
Figure 2 Specific vs. diffusive [14]
• Attitudes to time - Time as a sequence versus Time as a synchronization
Building ones respect in a society is also dependant on what people rate more – the past or the future. In some groups future plans and aspirations are more valuable than past experience and achievements. [14]
If the time is seen as a sequence, then the items in time are looked at as following one another. The happening events are perceived as an organized order. Time as a synchronisation represents the events as parallel, but synchronised together. It finds order in coordination of multiple efforts [13].
• Attitudes to environment
A significant culture difference can be shown through the cultures' attitude towards the environment. Some cultures believe they are influenced from a major focus from the outside, thus the vice and virtue come from within the person. Other cultures think that the world prevails over the individuals. They fear the nature and try to emulate this [14].
2.3 Cultures in This Study
In this section a closer look at the cultures, presented in the current study, is taken.
Finnish culture is introduced as the target one and other cultures are compared to it and to each other.
International students, studying in IT Department, are representatives mostly of Asian and African cultures. Few come from the European countries. Majority of students come from Russia, China, Nepal, India and the minority includes countries such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Eastern and Western African countries, etc.
Hofstede’s cultural scores for his five cultural dimensions – Power Distance (PDI), Individualism (IDV), Masculinity (MAS), Uncertainty Avoidance (UAI) and Long- Term Orientation (LTO) for different countries [15] are used for comparison of the mentioned cultures. LTO is the newest dimension, added in 1990s and it is still under study. Therefore the score for this dimension is missing in the indices of most of the countries. Table 1 shows scores of Hofstede's dimensions for the cultures involved in the current study. Unfortunately, those scores are not available for all the countries presented in the study, thus only limited number is shown in the table below.
Table 1 Hofstede’s scores for cultures in the study [15]
country PDI IDV MAS UAI LTO
Finland 33 63 26 59
Arab World 80 38 52 68
Bangladesh 80 20 55 60 40
Bulgaria 70 30 40 85
China 80 20 66 30 118
East Africa 64 27 41 52 25
India 77 48 56 40 61
Iran 58 41 43 59
Pakistan 55 14 50 70 0
Russia 93 39 36 95
West Africa 77 20 46 54 16
Two variables were assigned to the scores for easier evaluation and comparison, low – 0 to 50 and high – 51 to 100.
Considering these, the results in case of Finland, show low PDI, high IDV, low MAS and high UAI, and LTO score is missing. These numbers and dimensions in compliance with literature show low PDI. In case of Finland it stands for higher equality between the supervisors and the employers in an organization. High IDV shows that Finnish people respect others’ time and freedom and work hard expecting a reward for that.
Low MAS shows that Finnish people believe in the equality between the men and
women. They think there is nothing that a man can do what a woman would not be able to do, they respect powerful women. High UAI characterizes very formal business relationships with a lot of rules and policies.
With respect to the PDI, all countries have higher values than Finnish – high PDI, meaning in the remaining countries there are strong hierarchies and large gaps in terms of authority.
With respect to the IDV, the rest of the countries have lower values – low IDV. People from these cultures are more concentrated on building skills and becoming professionals. They do not expect reward for the job done, however, they contribute to the company or organization. These people are most likely to put harmony in front of honesty.
Concerning MAS, Finland has the lowest score among all presented countries and the others have higher than Finnish values, but still close to average (above or below).
Pakistan, Arab World, Bangladesh, India and China appear to be with high MAS, which means that in these cultures there is a strict and clear distinction between what is considered men’s work and what is considered women’s work and men are more respected than women. Russia, Bulgaria, East Africa, Iran and West Africa appear to be with low MAS, however the scores are significantly higher than Finnish one.
With respect to UAI, Iran appears to have the same value as Finland, while China and India have lower values than Finland does – low UAI. This means that the Chinese and Indians appear to have informal business attitude with long term perspective. Moreover, for them risk and change are acceptable. The rest of the countries in the list appear with UAI higher than the Finnish one.
Undoubtedly, China has one of the highest scores from all the countries regarding LTO.
Their respect for parents and men is greater than the respect for women and young people. Bangladesh, East and West Africa appear as low LTO - in these cultures one can observe equality, high individualism and people tending to treat the others in the way they would like to be treated.
2.4 Facing Cultural Differences
People understand and evaluate the world around them in their own way, guided by the culture. Different cultures have different views on cultural values [18]. People tend to see everything in the way have used to see it in their own culture. They evaluate and judge in compliance with the cultural rules of theirs. It is more than expected that when people of diverse cultural backgrounds meet at the same place, cultural differences will appear.
Thus when facing cultural differences first of all people should be aware of the fact that these differences exist. Second, they should respect the other culture and, reconcile them [14]. A person in a multicultural environment should remember that cultural differences exist and he should respect other then even though the foreign culture might seem strange or illogical to him. The most important is to remember that there is no superior culture and all people should be respected [3].
Comprehending other cultures is essential for people who want to avoid the embarrassing situations. A special attention should be paid to verbal and non-verbal communication. Some cultures use a large number of gestures when communicating and misunderstanding the gesture may lead to unpleasant situations [3].
People should also be aware of stereotypes. They should be careful with them and try not to let the stereotypes to influence their opinion formation.
Before getting in touch with other cultures, it is advisable to make a basic research on them in order to avoid embarrassing situations due to misunderstanding.
3 CONDUCTING THE RESEARCH
The survey about expectations and experiences of international students in IT Department was made in spring, summer and beginning of autumn 2009. Information was collected with the help of Internet questionnaires. All participants were contacted by e-mail and directed to the place with questionnaires where they could answer the stated questions. For the analysis of questionnaires some statistical and qualitative methods were used.
3.1 Research Process
The research process for the current study followed up to some extent the sequential model of Jenkins [19], which is illustrated in Figure 3. Every research problem starts with an idea. After literature review the research problem is formulated. The next step is to choose research approach. The empirical part includes data collection and data analysis stages. The final step is publishing the results, as no research is worthy if its results are not published.
The research problem for the current study has been formulated as following:
Expectations and Experiences of International Students in IT Department. Thus the purpose of this study is to examine the above mentioned. Research questions were formulated to guide the research to the right direction and they are presented in Introduction Section 1.2.
Figure 3 Jenkins’ model
The next step is the research design. Churchill [20] defines it as a framework for a study, “used as a guide in collecting and analysing data”. According to him there are mainly three types of research design depending on objectives of the studies:
exploratory, descriptive and casual. The main objective of the exploratory research is building hypotheses and defining process more precisely, while descriptive research concentrates on the frequencies, with which something happens, and other characteristics. The causal research concentrates on the “cause – and – effect”
relationships. As the research design is dependent on specific problem, there is not only one possible way to move forward in the design process. The research design for the current study is shown in Figure 4.
idea
Library research Research topic
Research approach/strategy Experimental design
Data capture Data analysis
Publish results
Figure 4 Research design of the study
The next step is the data collection. Using questionnaire is one of the methods for collecting data for the current research. Questionnaires can be conducted in different ways – as a personal interview, by mail, by telephone, by Internet [20]. The method for conducting the survey and structuring the questionnaire is up to the researcher.
Questionnaire design is discussed in details further in this section.
The questionnaire for this study was decided to be presented to participants via Internet.
This way was found to be the most convenient and effective in terms of fast data retrieval. Other data collection methods, such as interviews and observations were applied as well.
After the data collection comes the data analysis stage. Here the collected data are analysed and interpreted in compliance with the research problem. The last step in the research process is publishing or, in other words, putting everything together.
Research design
Descriptive research
Cross - sectional
Sample survey
3.2 Data Collection Methods
Methods, chosen for the current study are Internet questionnaires, interviews and participant observations. Three questionnaires were used for collecting data. At the beginning of the study one general questionnaire with different sections was created and was sent to the participants. After reviewing first answers, the idea of creating two more detailed questionnaires appeared. Concerning interviews, international secretary Mrs Riitta Salminen was interviewed. She is a person who works closely with the international students during the major part of their study time.
3.3 Questionnaire Planning Process
Designing a questionnaire is not as easy as it might seem to be, since it requires careful planning. Numerous things should be taken into account, such as respondent time, willingness to answer, etc. A questionnaire should be tested as well [21].
Length of the questionnaire is significant, as it may influence the response rate, thus it deserves a special attention. A good questionnaire should consist of simple, understandable and unambiguous questions covering all research problems. Questions should be written clearly in such a way that all participants will be able to understand them in the right way [21].
The questionnaire should be constructed so that respondents will not be afraid their personal information might be used in improper way. Therefore there should be a section in the beginning that explains how the obtained personal information will be used [21].
The questionnaire planning process for this study was done according to Churchill's guidelines [20] for questionnaire design. He suggests seven-step model for creating a questionnaire, which is illustrated in Figure 5.
STEP 1: Specify What Information Will Be Sought
The first step is to define what kind of information is needed. The starting point is defining well the research questions as they will guide the rest of the study.
STEP 2: Determine Type of Questionnaire and Method for Administration
Questions can be structured or unstructured, methods of administration vary as well [20].
STEP3: Determine Content of Individual Questions
According to Churchill [20], several issues should be considered when determining content of the individual questions. Is the question really necessary? Should several questions be used instead of a single one? Do respondents have sufficient information to answer this question and will they provide the necessary information?
According to Churchill [20], having information does not mean sharing it with others.
He considers respondents’ willingness to answer dependent on the amount of work it takes and the ability to understand and answer sensitive questions. He gives some pieces of advice for managing such types of questions, e.g. ask them later in the questionnaire or hide them among the easier to answer questions. Another option to manage these kinds of questions is setting up categories so that respondents can choose the best for them.
STEP 4: Determine Form of Response to Each Questionnaire
According to Churchill [20], questions can be fixed or open-ended. Fixed questions can be divided into different categories as well depending on the type of information needed
opportunity to write down their opinion in their own words, the so-called narrative data [22].
Figure 5 Questionnaire Design [20]
Step 1: Specify What Information Will be Sought
Step 2: Determine Type of Questionnaire and Method of Administration
Step 3: Determine Content of Individual Questions
Step 4: Determine Form of Response to Each Question
Step 5: Determine Wording of Each Question
Step 6: Determine Sequence of Questions
Step 7: Determine Physical Characteristics of Questionnaire
Step 8: Reexamine Steps 1-7 and Revise if Necessary
Step 9: Pretest Questionnaire and Revise if Necessary
STEP 5: Determine Wording of Each Question
Churchill [20] gives some general suggestions for building questions. Firstly, questions should be written in simple and unambiguous words. Secondly, it is advisable to avoid using leading questions which might influence the answer. Churchill [20] also suggests also avoiding generalizations and estimates.
STEP 6: Determine Sequence of Questions
It is a good idea to start the questionnaire with easy questions and then step by step go forward. The background information should be placed at the end of the questionnaire to avoid negative feelings [21]. Logical order of questions should be followed.
STEP 7: Determine Physical Characteristics of Questionnaire
According to Churchill [20] physical characteristics of the questionnaire affect precision of the obtained replies as well as the respondents' reaction to the questionnaire. The questionnaire reflects the importance of the study. Thus the cover letter plays a significant role. The main objectives of the cover letter are to introduce the purpose of the study to the respondents and to convince them to participate.
Another important physical characteristic of a questionnaire is its length. Usually, shorter questionnaires are preferred to longer ones. The less time it takes to answer, the more responses will be received. Questions should be numbered – this helps both the respondents and researcher when processing the data [20].
STEP8: Reexamine Steps 1-7 and Revise if Necessary
According to Churchill [20] the questionnaire should be checked very carefully for avoiding mistakes, leading questions, confusions, etc.
STEP 9: Pretest Questionnaire and Revise if Necessary
Pretesting is applied to ensure that everything has been done properly and working well
so that it can be fixed before sending it to participants. A non-functioning questionnaire will have a negative impact on the response rate and will cause a delay in the research process.
Questionnaires for the present study were tested by 5 volunteers from the IT department. They were given the chance to comment and give opinion. After revising the comments, changes were made accordingly. The final version of questionnaires was the revised and tested again before sending to participants. It took about 10 to 15 minutes to the test respondents to fill in each of the questionnaires.
3.4 Present Study Questionnaires
This section gives details on the questionnaires, used in the present study to examine expectations and experiences of international students. As mentioned above, data for the present study were collected via three questionnaires. All of them were generated y the Webropol system for web surveys [23]. The link to the questionnaires was e-mailed to all participants and they could access it through a web browser. Answers were kept in the Webropol and later exported to an Excel spreadsheet for easier managing and evaluation. The importance of participants’ responses was mentioned in the beginning of each questionnaire. The e-mail informed the students about the confidentiality of the information provided by them.
3.4.1 Questionnaire I
In the beginning of the study one detailed questionnaire with five sections covering all aspects of the study was created.
• BACKGROUND INFORMATION
This group of questions asks about participant’s nationality, year of starting studies and major and minor subjects. The aim of these questions is to provide criteria for later analysis of the data.
• EXPECTATIONS
This group of questions asks about reasons of choosing LUT for studying and expectations about living and studying in Finland.
This part includes multiple-choice question with several statements participants could choose if they suited them, as well as option for adding their own reasons in a text box.
The rest of the questions were designed as open-ended to give a chance to the participants to express in their own words their expectations and feelings. Another reason for choosing open-ended type of questions was to avoid leading the respondents to any predetermined direction.
• REALIZATION
This group of questions asks about studying issues and problems related to them. It is divided to sub-groups of questions for easier interpretation:
• Beginning of studies – for issues happening in the beginning of studies
• The study process – issues during the actual study This part consists mostly of fixed questions, five-scale type.
• COMPULSORY COURSES
This group of questions asks issues related to compulsory courses for different majors and aims to find out benefits and problems with them. Analysis of these questions
Moreover, this part includes different types of questions, fixed and open-ended as well.
Fixed questions are scaled or yes/no type with option to add own comment in text box after the answer.
• ELECTIVE COURSES
This group of courses asks issues related to elective courses that students choose freely and aims to find out how effective and useful these courses are.
This part, similarly to the previous one, includes open-ended and fixed questions of different type.
3.4.2 Questionnaire II
Variety of answers to first questionnaire gave an idea for creating other two questionnaires – more detailed and focused on more specific issues for getting better results. One of the additional questionnaires was about Courses.
The questionnaire starts with a question about the starting year of the students’
education at LUT, which is important considering the annual programme changes. Then the questionnaire continues with questions about some of the most popular courses in IT department. For each course there is a group of questions asking about evaluation of teaching methods and course material and opinion about good and bad things in the courses according to students.
3.4.3 Questionnaire III
The third questionnaire is about Culture, it aims to examine cultural differences between international students and Finnish students in everyday communication and in study process, as well as how the culture difference affects students' studies.
This questionnaire is designed in open-ended type, to let participants share their opinion freely in their own words.
3.5 Internet Surveys
Data collection through Internet is considered faster and cheaper in comparison to other types of data collection [24]. According to Aaker et al. [25], Internet can offer many advantages to organizations regardless of their size. Nevertheless there are still many restrictions when using Internet as a research tool, Internet surveys are developing rapidly.
Internet as a research tool is considered as not valuable. According to some people it is too slow and is hard to find quality information. Another problem is that on one hand information can be gained easily and on the other there is lack of certain type of information [25].
Conducting Internet surveys is considered to be cheaper and faster in comparison to other methods, such as mail survey, telephone or personal interview. By Internet, response rate is higher because more people can take part in it simultaneously and respondents can answer in time suitable for them.
Using Internet surveys can be helpful for the researcher in collecting data, decreasing human errors in the process of data entry. It is possible to control quality of the data as well. Aaker et al. [25] suggest building logic checks to avoid nonsensical answers.
Internet surveys have some disadvantages as well, one of them is that it is hard to control information gained. It is difficult to prevent one person giving answer twice or submitting an empty questionnaire [4].
When constructing a web questionnaire one should keep in mind characteristics of the respondents. All participants should have equal opportunity to receive and answer the questionnaire. The limitations of the equipment – such as browsers and connection should also be observed. Technical problems or too slow responding may decrease the response rates. Thus the form should be made simple and suitable for basic instrumentation [26].
Using principles for planning a web questionnaire, suggested from Dillman et al. [26], the researcher can elaborate a form encouraging the respondents to be accurate in their answers. These issues were taken into consideration in the present study.
The questionnaire should start with simple questions – easy and understandable, fully visible on the first screen. The first questions are the most important ones – they show to the participants the easiness of the research, thus motivating them to take part in it [26].
In order to facilitate the respondents, the questions should be presented in the same way in which the participants have used to see them – the structure of a web questionnaire should be the same as the one in the paper forms. For the same reason the lines should be short enough for it is noticed that people skip words easily if the lines are too long.
The questionnaire should contain substantial information about the actions, needed from the respondents to complete the questionnaire. Instructions should be part of each question [26].
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3.6 Face-to-face Interview
The current study includes one face-to-face interview with the international study secretary of the IT department of LUT – Mrs. Riitta Salminen. She was chosen to be interviewed as a person involved in the study process in the IT department and communicating with international students on a daily basis. Riitta Salminen is a professional in her job and is admired by students. The international students discuss the study matters and the difficulties they meet with Riitta Salminen. She is the one, to whom they turn to if they need help.
The interview was revealing
• name, position and time on the current position
• main responsibilities and duties
• how well does she know international students in IT department
• whether they share with her their problems and ask for her help and advice
• what are the most common problems students discuss with international secretary.
3.7 Observations
Observations are the another technique used for data collection in this study. They include researcher's observations about international students' behaviour and an overall view on the situation. In the particular case of this research observer acts also as a participant [27]. Since the researcher is closely connected with the participants in this study, his/hers observations might be relevant and have positive impact on the survey.
3.8 Data Analysis Methods
Literature is full of guidelines and techniques how to analyse collected data for a study.
Methods offered vary in compliance with type of data to be analysed – whether it is quantitative or qualitative data [27].
The current study includes both types of data, where to quantitative data were applied a number of statistical techniques [28] and [29] and for the qualitative data analysis a number of qualitative methods were applied [8]. Tables and graphs were used for visualization and analysis of the data.
Data analysis for the present study started with checking responses, then data were sorted dividing quantitative from qualitative and open-ended questions were classified.
Analysis of qualitative data was done following researchers' guidelines from literature [22] and [30]. Even though qualitative data analysis is unique depending on the data to be analysed, researchers propose a rough method consisting of several steps: get to know the data, classify and categorize data, identify patterns within categories and finally interpret the data.
The most used methods in the data analysis of the current study were phenomenography, quasi-statistics and hermeneutical analysis. They were considered as most suitable with respect to goals of the study. Phenomenography examines people’s experience of something in qualitatively different ways [7]. Quasi-statistics is a rough estimate of frequency, counts the number of times something is mentioned in field notes [8]. Hermeneutical analysis or simply hermeneutics which means “make sense of written text” is a method for finding meaning of text for particular people in a particular situation [8].
4 RESULTS
4.1 Response Patterns
The research sample for the present study was chosen as 50 students studying or having studied at IT Department of LUT for the past 3 years: 2005 – 2008. Total amount of students studying at IT department for that period is approximately 100. The reasons to choose half to participate in the present study were various. Some of the already graduated students were difficult to contact and they were less motivated to participate in the research.
After the sample size was chosen, invitations for participation in the research were sent to all participants. One person accepted paper variant of one of the questionnaires as it was more convenient. From those, 21 responded to first questionnaire, 24 to second and 11 to the third one. Only 2 of the responses were not suitable for analysis, the reason was that students submitted empty questionnaires.
Response rate was calculated according to Churchill's [15] formula and is shown at Table 2.
Table 2 Response rate Questionnaire
Answers,
N Percent, %
Q I General 21 42
Q II Courses 24 48
Q III Culture 11 22
