01. PhD Thesis

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Browsing 01. PhD Thesis by Subject "adaptation"

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    INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS IN KAZAKHSTAN: A NARRATIVE ENQUIRY ABOUT HUMAN AGENCY IN THE PROCESS OF ADAPTATION
    (Graduate School of Education, 2017) Mukhamejanova, Dinara
    Kazakhstan has taken considerable steps to improve the incoming mobility of international students; however despite these measures the number of international students studying in Kazakhstan is still very low. Research indicates that in order to attract and retain international students it is necessary to build a thorough understanding about their experiences in the host country. This narrative research was designed to gain a better understanding about international students’ experiences in Kazakhstan by exploring how they exercise their human agency while adapting to the academic and socio-cultural life in Kazakhstan. I used a purposeful criterion sampling to select six international students from Afghanistan, Great Britain, Russia, South Korea, Ukraine, and the United States studying at Kazakhstani universities to participate in this research. The primary data collection was semi-structured in-depth interviews. Supportive methods included a demographic questionnaire and a researcher journal. The data was analyzed in two steps. The first step was to develop the participants’ individual accounts. These individual accounts were composed around the main foci which emerged from the interviews and manifested the complexity and interconnectedness of the international students’ experiences in Kazakhstan. The second step was to conduct a cross-account analysis of the international students’ individual accounts to compare and contrast their experiences and to contextualize them in a broader academic discourse. The cross-account analysis findings were organized according to the research questions and on the analytical categories based on the study’s conceptual framework: push and pull factors that motivated the international students to study in Kazakhstan; academic, socio-cultural, and financial-practical challenges the international students had to face in Kazakhstan; and positive aspects of studying in Kazakhstan in the form of growth and change, social support, academic support, navigating host culture, and sense of belonging. I explored the interrelation between the analytical categories and the exercise of human agency by the international students in the process of adapting to the life in Kazakhstan through the lens of Albert Bandura’s (2001) social cognitive theory. This research revealed that the international students actively employed their human agency to negotiate their studying and to adapt to their life in Kazakhstan. They did not simply adjust to the host environment, but also learned from it and attempted to transform it according to their circumstances and goals. These results suggest that to increase the number of international students and by doing this to raise the quality of their research and teaching practices and to gain socio-cultural and economic benefits in the form of diverse learning environment and revenue, the Kazakhstani host universities are implied to improve these students’ experiences in Kazakhstan. The theoretical approach employed in this study allowed me to conclude that international students’ experiences in host countries might be improved by providing them with opportunities to exercise their human agency.