2021 Fiscal Year Annual Research Report
Determinants of International Students' Educational Mobility: a Comparative Study of Japan and Germany
| Project/Area Number |
21H00838
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Research Institution | Waseda University |
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Principal Investigator |
FARRER GRACIA 早稲田大学, 国際学術院(アジア太平洋研究科), 教授 (70436062)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
杉村 美紀 上智大学, 総合人間科学部, 教授 (60365674)
黒田 一雄 早稲田大学, 国際学術院(アジア太平洋研究科), 教授 (70294600)
加藤 丈太郎 早稲田大学, 総合研究機構, 研究助手 (80897596)
Asada Sarah 共立女子大学, 国際学部, 准教授 (90806978)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2021-04-01 – 2025-03-31
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| Keywords | International student / student mobility / international education / Japan / Germany / study abroad / determinants / motivations |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
In FY 2021, the main research goals were literature review, researching policy regarding international education, and collecting published statistical and interview data among international students in Japan and Germany.
Through the collaboration with Professor Karen Shire, our German counterpart at the University of Duisburg-Essen, the team, with the assistance of 5 research assistants, managed to collect over 120 in-depth interviews with international students in Japan and in Germany. At the same time, we collected policy documents and statistics of international students in Germany. The team set up the qualitative data base for interviews using MaxQDA.
Because of the travel restriction due to COVID, we were not able to do field research overseas. Instead, the field work, combined with an international conference, took place in July, 2022.
The PI analyzed the data from the interviews with Chinese students, and presented the results at the International Conference on International Student Mobility in Fulda, Germany, titled: "The difficulties of an easier path: Chinese students’ educational experiences and school-to-work transition in Germany and Japan."
The presentation discusses Chinese students’ motivations and experiences of studying abroad in Germany and Japan and points out that the process of international education involves different stakeholders whose logics for student mobility might be conflicting. This presentation presents the concept of “socially constructed necessity” to describe the motivations observed among individual students.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
1: Research has progressed more than it was originally planned.
Reason
This project aims to investigate the determinants for degree-seeking students’
mobility choices. We ask: 1) What factors and factors are involved in students’ choices of destination countries, institutions and disciplines? 2. What are the process and temporal order of mobility decision making? 3. How do different
institutional actors interpret and envision their roles in facilitating and shaping students’ mobility outcomes?
In FY year 2021, our tasks were to review existing literature and collect interviews with international students. Although in the research plan we aimed for 100 students in total. In the first year, we already managed to collect over 120 recorded and transcribed interviews with students. This provides data for analysis.
In July 2021, with the data we already had, the PI presented the first research output at an international conference on International Student Mobility in Germany.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
In the FY 2022, we planned to complete the data gathering with students and carry out interviews with other stakeholders in international education. In particular, we want to increase the range (diversity) of the student sample and to achieve more balance between those in Japan and in Germany. Our goal was 100 in each country.
Due to the number of qualitative interviews with students, we consider not to conduct an independent student survey, and instead for the purpose of analyzing patterns of trajectories and determinants of trajectories, we could use JASSO survey data.
In 2022, we will also do policy analysis and analysis of published meeting minutes (議事録). We will interview university international offices or 留学生センター, as well as Japanese language academies because they advise students’ HEI choices. College students in Japan are from language schools than graduate students. We will start data analysis and generate themes for an international conference. We will come up with a code list for the project and use MAXqda to do the qualitative data coding. One task is to identify patterns of trajectories and determinants of such trajectories.
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