International student satisfaction at English-medium graduate programs in Japan

The adoption of English-medium instruction degree and non-degree programs in non-Anglophone universities has grown dramatically over the past 15 years. Japan is not an exception. In the Japanese context, a growing number of research works have addressed the implementation of English-medium degree pr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Higher education 2020-01, Vol.79 (1), p.39-54
Main Authors: Rakhshandehroo, Mahboubeh, Ivanova, Polina
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Academic Support Services
Anglophones
College Administration
College campuses
College students
Colleges & universities
Education
English (Second Language)
English as an international language
Foreign Countries
Foreign Students
Graduate Students
Graduate studies
Hermeneutics
Higher Education
Infrastructure
Japanese
Language of Instruction
Medium term notes
Mixed methods research
Monolingualism
Program Implementation
Satisfaction
Second Language Learning
Student Attitudes
Student Personnel Services
Student Satisfaction
Students, Foreign
Supervisors
Tutoring
Tutors
Universities
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Summary:The adoption of English-medium instruction degree and non-degree programs in non-Anglophone universities has grown dramatically over the past 15 years. Japan is not an exception. In the Japanese context, a growing number of research works have addressed the implementation of English-medium degree programs at the undergraduate level; however, little has been done to address this implementation at the graduate level, especially from a bottom-up perspective. This study addresses this gap in the research through a mixed-method study of two Japanese leading universities. Results revealed a fairly good on-campus satisfaction of English-speaking graduate international students. However, it showed that the current university support system has been mainly relying on the informal support of supervisors, international student support office staff and/or student tutors, while there has been a lack of formal university support, especially regarding the monolingual and monocultural (Japanese) administrative infrastructure. Through a double hermeneutic interpretation of the study data, possible rooms for on-campus support improvements are discussed. Results show that, with the ongoing increase in the number of English-speaking graduate international students in Japanese universities, more systematization and formal support would be needed.
ISSN:0018-1560
1573-174X
DOI:10.1007/s10734-019-00395-3