The Cultural Insight team's 18-19 project is highly commended for Paul Webley Award for Innovation in International Education!
Led by Dr Crystal Tsay, Dr Yang Yang, and Dr Jing Luo, and supported by two PhD students Jingwen Qu and Sen Wang, the Cultural Insight project team designed and delivered five bespoke workshops to develop Chinese Direct Entry (CDE) students' psychological and social capital, enabling them to use personal and social resources to cope with cross-cultural learning challenges, such as learning the UK Higher Education (HE) system, homesickness, isolation, and social integration.
The review panel commented:
"I'd also like to give a highly recommended to the Greenwich project which I think for me was probably the best read but also had some brilliant outcomes and realisations. It challenges sector, and indeed their own, assumptions that Chinese students need 'different' support and actually transitioning to HE is difficult for many students, including those from the UK "In retrospect, what the project team offered to CDEs was actually support for learners who attend the UKHE for the first time without sufficient skills and confidence to develop resources to become independent and resilient learners."
The project funder, UK Council for International Student Affairs said the project and the issues it dealt with is currently extremely relevant in the sector with the OfS, rightly, examining attainment and participation gaps between POLAR/IMD, BAME, disabled students and the importance of transition into HE. They were also delighted to see that the immediate impact of this project. That is, University of Greenwich supported the team this year to continue the bespoke workshop provision to a wider range of students, including students from all cultural backgrounds and at all HE levels.
Author: Dr Crystal Tsay
