2.7 STUDENT SUPPORT
2.7.9 S TUDENTS ’ EXPERIENCES , LECTURERS ’ AND ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICERS ’ PERCEPTIONS
that students’ experience difficulties that relate to academic aspect of learning in higher education institutions, such as struggling to adapt to instructions given in classrooms, feeling unfree to participate in group and classroom discussions as well as thinking back and forth about what is anticipated of them by the lecturers. Bewick, Koutsopoulou, Miles, Slaa and Barkham (2010) and Julal (2013, p. 414 and 416) postulate that students who experience higher level of psychological grief have low effective problem-focused adjusting panache and are, therefore, likely to utilise available support services. An array of stressful factors that students experience in academic settings can result in low academic immersion and performance (Harding, 2011) and foremost effects in their academic experiences, which embrace maintaining their personal relationships, getting financial assistance and finding employments (Julal, 2013, p. 414).
Other experiences of students in intercultural and multicultural higher education institutions, as per the views of Vergara et al (2010, p. 1499), involve as sense of weirdness originating from disparities in cultures, values, and language, finance, and among other aspects of life. Although domestic students recognise the significance of engaging into communication with the international students, they are often not prepared to integrate with them (Leask, 2009, p. 207). Vergara, et al (2010, p. 1503) posit that in the international domain, students with social and emotional skills and who are able to adjust with acculturation-related difficulties are likely to successfully cope in new cultural changes. The research international students’ experiences undertaken by Russell, Rosenthal and Thomson (2010) reached an analogous finding that international students who have received adequate social companionship support are characterised by enhanced positive effects of learning internationally as well as the decreased cultural stress, resulting from a feeling of successful social assimilation.
Students’ experiences on support services derived from being a participant in a student organisation mirror multifarious stances. The findings reached in by Simmons (2013, p. 70) in an analysis of factors of persistence for the African American men student populace in a Project Empowerment organisation, demonstrated that student membership in student-oriented organisation affords them a constructive academic experiences.
Students’ low level of language proficiency is also described as an area that needs to be improved. Poyrazli, Kavanaugh, Baker, and Al-Timimi (2004) theorise that students
with higher level of language proficiency adapt swiftly to the new academic life whereas those with lower language proficiency level encounter a negative experience during the transition to higher education institutions. To support students who are experiencing acculturative stress which relates to, for instance, low language proficiency, social, academic and emotional needs, Vergara et al (2010, p. 1503) proposes that higher education institutions need to fortify their counselling tactics by adding support programmes that will promote students’ emotional intelligence and capability to adjust to new cultural and academic life.
Understanding students’ learning experiences and their needs requires a holistic approach that involves the participation of the administrative and academic staffs.
While administrative officers are accountable for executing counselling tasks and the delivery of other forms of support services such as aiding students to register online using a particular technology and interacting with students on various matters, academics are expected to provide support in their teaching pedagogies, communicate to students through constructive feedbacks and to hold support-oriented sessions, among other core roles.
Studying the academic counsellors’ perceptions of student support services of Open University of Sri Lanka (OUSL), Sandhya, Doluweera, Biswas, Somarante (2012, p.
46) revealed that there were no perceived differences between the faculties excluding the interactive engagement and enrolment guidance of students in the day school as well as the scope of the summative assessment tool. Sandhya et al (2012, p. 48) further established that the perception of the academic staffs on student supports, such as instructional materials, practical aspects of learning, tutor clinics and project work as well as teaching in face-to-face modes were different at an individual and subpopulations levels. The study undertaken by Leask (2009, p. 2017) reports that academic staffs experience an agitation and difficulties in bringing local and international students together to embark on collaborative learning. Bailey’s (2013, p.
143) exploratory study on lecturers’ perceptions of academic student support at both institutional and interpersonal levels of teaching and learning involvement and their attitudes towards it discovered that recent pedagogical studies insufficiently examined lecturers’ experiences and hugely covered students’ experiences phenomenon. Bailey (2013, p. 147) further found that academics ordinarily have limited conceptions and experiences of the intricate characteristics of student support if viewed from outside
the curriculum continuum. An inquiry into the use of student support by the faculty with dicey online students revealed that the reasons for their failure to communicate support services to their students is because they were not cognisant of the collection of support interventions existing or that they did not comprehend their worth (Rosalie and Russo-Gleicher, 2013, p. 1). Rosalie and Russo-Gleicher recommend that to diminish this concern the onus be upon college administrators to create a greater awareness of the student support services available and motivate faculty to use and refer students to such services.
2.7.10 Challenges in implementing student support intervention