Journal of Academic Development and Education JADE Issue 8 | Page 34

34 | JADE
ARTICLE #3 | 35
DR. KEITH WALLEY, SANDRA TURNER, DR. GILLIAN WRIGHT & FENG TAN
regulation is onerous (British Council, 2013), China is supportive of
TNE as a means of capacity-building especially with regard to the
professional development of teaching and research staff (British
Council, 2013). There are now more than 1,000 TNE programmes
formally registered with the Chinese Ministry of Education. 800 of
these are based on undergraduate courses and with 25% of these
involving UK universities (HEFCE, 2014b) it would appear that UK
universities are often a partner of choice.
With international collaboration and overseas students demonstrably
so important to UK universities and TNE the preferred form of
international engagement for many, it would seem apposite to
consider some of the lessons learnt from a long-standing and
successful TNE collaboration between Harper Adams University
(HAU) and Beijing University of Agricultural (BUA) that was initially
established with the signing of a Memorandum of Agreement in
March 2004. The TNE collaboration is based on two courses: BSc
/ BSc (Hons) International Business Management and BSc / BSc
(Hons) Food Quality and Retail Management which have now
collectively produced around 740 graduates. The structure of the
two courses is very similar (see Figure 1) and is based on a 3+1 model
(ie 3 years are delivered in China and one year is delivered in the
UK). The entire four-year programme is formally recognised by the
Chinese Ministry of Education while years 1-3 constitute the HAU
validated course. Students who meet all the normal entry criteria
for HAU relating to academic attainment, language proficiency
and visa requirements may transfer to HAU at the end of Year 2
so that they may study for the final year at HAU. Students who do
not meet the entry requirements complete their studies on other
courses at BUA. The Year 1 and 2 modules are delivered in China by
BUA staff supported by a HAU Link Tutor and online material that is
made available via a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). In addition
selected modules receive direct teaching input from HAU through
the use of flying faculty. The modules supported by flying faculty
change year-on-year to reflect student need, staff availability, and
a desire to keep the curriculum fresh. The program received a very
positive review by the QAA in 2012 (QAA, 2012).
Methodology
The study was based on action research which is “a systematic
approach to investigation that enables people to find effective
solutions to problems they confront in their everyday lives” (Stringer,
2014). Unlike more traditional approaches to research it seeks to
combine an understanding of specific complex situations with
transformational action through intervention of the researcher. It is
DESIGN AND MANAGEMENT OF HIGHER EDUCATION TRANS-NATIONAL EDUCATION
(TNE) PROVISION: TEN LESSONS FROM AN ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT
Year 0
Taught at BUA
in China
Year 1
Taught at BUA
in China
Year 2
Taught at BUA
in China
Year 3
Taught at HAU
in the UK
Module 1 (Flying faculty) Module 1 (Flying faculty) Module 2 (Flying faculty) Module 2 (Flying faculty) Module 3 (Link tutor) Module 3 (Link tutor) Module 2 (HAU)
Module 4 (Link tutor) Module 4 (Link tutor) Module 3 (HAU)
Module 5 (Link tutor) Module 5 (Link tutor) Module 4 (HAU)
Module 6 (Link tutor) Module 6 (Link tutor) Module 5 (HAU)
Module 7 (Link tutor) Module 7 (Link tutor) Module 6 (HAU)
Module 8 (Link tutor) Module 8 (Link tutor) Module 7 (HAU)
Module 1: Honours
Research Project (HAU)
Chinese curriculum
Figure 1: Course Structure
particularly relevant to the professional practitioner who has a desire
to improve their own practice (Whitehead and McNiff, 2006) and
so it is becoming increasingly popular as a method of enquiry in
professions such as education (McNiff, 2013; McCoy, 2015; Keskin
and Kuzu, 2015; Norton, 2009; Dajani, 2015). The general approach
involves the action research practitioner in planning, acting, observing
and reflecting (McNiff, 2013) or some similar cycle (Coghlan and
Brannick, 2014) and in many instances where the cycle is repeated
the process is referred to as either a spiral of cycles (Coghlan and
Brannick, 2014) or a sequence of cycles (McNiff, 2013).
In the context of this study, preliminary research undertaken to
investigate apparent culture shock (Lysgaard, 1955) in the early
days of the TNE collaboration identified various issues which
required attention and so the work was quickly reframed within
the action research paradigm. A questionnaire was developed from
the literature on acculturation as well as discussions with staff and
students, and since 2007 this has been completed by all students on
the two courses four times during their final year of study in the UK.
The data generated by this regular surveying of students is used to
identify issues which are then addressed as soon as possible in order
to achieve increasing levels of student satisfaction. It is tempting to
think of each year or cohort as being the action research cycle but
this would be inaccurate as the cycle is actually completed with each
and every survey round.