Foreign Students in Engineering Education J. Snippe & W. Jochems Version of record first published: 02 Aug 2006.

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2 European Journal of Engineering Education, Vol. 20, No. 4, Foreign Students in Engineering Education J. SNIPPE & W. JOCHEMS SUMMARY Institutions for higher engineering education encourage the admission of foreign students, mostly for economic reasons. Data from the situation of foreign students at Delft University of Technology, however, show that admitting foreign students will be profitable only if the students are carefully selected in the country of origin. Furthermore, language proficiency must play an important role in the procedure of admission in the host country. Foreign students' academic achievement has proven to be sufficient although the students appear to suffer from starting problems. Offering social and educational support at the beginning of their stay abroad may help to overcome problems of adjustment. As yet, any possible positive effects of the presence of foreign students on the quality of education or on the general education of regular students in the host country have not been empirically established. They seem to depend highly upon the amount of interaction between foreign and regular students. 1. Introduction The introduction of European exchange programmes such as COMETT and ERAS- MUS has offered many students the opportunity to spend some time studying abroad. Besides this group of 'exchange' students, there is also a growing number of students who spend their entire student career abroad. Since the labour market for graduate engineers has become increasingly internationalized the value of moving beyond national educational boundaries has come to be considered increasingly important in the field of engineering education in particular. This may be one of the motives for pursuing foreign study. Other motives can be more private and personal. Technical universities in host countries welcome foreign students for a number of reasons. In many cases, they even actively recruit foreign students. The arguments in support of, and the empirical basis for, these policies are in general rather limited or weak. Universities claim that positive effects result from the admission of foreign students, but since there is little empirical evidence for these effects it would be more appropriate to speak of 'supposed' positive effects [1]. It is far from easy to conduct a cost-benefit analysis on the subject of foreign student enrolments [2]. Still, since the problems accompanying the admission of foreign students are quite numerous, the motivation for universities to stimulate this aspect of internationalization should be rather high. It is therefore relevant to present a review of what is known about the motives which lead students to study abroad, and which lead institutions to encourage foreign student enrolments. We will use the situation at Delft University of Technology (DUT) as a case study to illustrate a few things. DUT had a foreign student enrolment of about 12% in the academic year We will start in Section 2 by providing some background information on this university. Next, in Section 3, we will briefly present /95/ European Society for Engineering Education

3 440 J. Snippe & W. Jochems TABLE I. Foreign students at DUT by faculty Faculty Faculty of Architecture Faculty of Electrical Engineering Faculty of Technical Informatics Faculty of Chemical Technology Faculty of Mechanical Engineering Faculty of Civil Engineering Faculty of Aerospace Engineering Faculty of Technical Physics Other Percentage individual and personal motives of students for taking up study abroad. Then we will focus on host countries' motives for stimulating internationalization by admitting foreign students (Section 4). We will examine whether or not these motives are based on empirical evidence (Section 5). In this case, we will confine ourselves to the situation in which students spend their entire study period abroad. Next, we will discuss some problems that arise when institutions for higher technical education admit a substantial number of foreign students (Section 6), and provide some suggestions for solving the problems discussed earlier (Section 7). 2. Foreign Students at DUT: An Illustration DUT is an institution for higher education in the Netherlands. There is a long tradition of foreign students coming to Delft to study engineering. Foreign students have to master the Dutch language, since all courses are in Dutch. The university offers the opportunity to follow language courses in Dutch to prepare for the language entrance test, which all foreign students have to take. In the preparatory phase before starting the study students can also follow courses in mathematics and physics to prepare for the entrance examinations. These examinations are not compulsory for students coming from countries that are signatories to the European Treaty. Once the foreign students have passed the necessary examinations and have been admitted to the programme they follow the same curriculum as the Dutch students. The number of foreign students at DUT is increasing: in the past year, for instance, about 11% out of the 2600 first-year students in Delft came from a foreign country. Table I shows the faculties in which these 296 students were registered. It appears that the Faculty of Architecture and the Faculty of Electrical Engineering are most popular among foreign students. Most of the foreign students come from non-european countries. A substantial number of the students come from Indonesia, a country which has strong historical ties with the Netherlands. Turkey and Morocco also supply students, followed by Germany and Norway. Since a rather substantial number of students is involved, several studies have been conducted over the years into the personal circumstances and study achievements of foreign students. The results of some of these studies will be referred to in this article.

4 Foreign Students in Engineering Education Personal and Individual Motives for Study Abroad: Students' Point of View Individual motives for students to take up study abroad include the perceived value of a foreign diploma, better chances for a prosperous life and immigration benefits [3]. There may also be capacity problems in the home country which have led to restrictions in the admission of students to certain disciplines. Students who are excluded from the discipline of their choice may leave the country for that reason. In some cases, students have political or religious convictions that are not appreciated in the home country and this may force them to leave the country and go abroad for study [4]. These refugees come to the host country by accident rather than of their own free will. In order to make the best of their stay abroad they start to study. We investigated the motives for studying abroad in the population of foreign students in Delft. In September 1994, a questionnaire was sent to all foreign students who had entered the university in September At that time, they had been studying for one year. Of these students, 44% (n = 63) responded to the questionnaire. These students were asked about their motives for starting to study abroad. The answers show that 59% of the students who responded (n = 37) came to Delft for personal reasons that had little to do with goals of internationalization of education. These reasons included being married to a Dutch (wo) man, having close relatives living in Holland, a lack of study facilities in the home country, or suffering from a bad economic or political climate in the home country. In these cases, students were looking for some solution to their own personal problems. Of the students, 8% (n = 5) came to Delft to study for reasons that had to do with internationalization. One of these reasons was the alleged surplus value of a foreign diploma above a diploma in their own country (n = 2). Another had to do with wanting to broaden personal cultural horizons (n = 3). The reasons why the remaining students (33%; n = 21) came to Delft to study are unknown. Overall, at least 16% of the students who came to the Netherlands did so for reasons connected with immigration («= 10). These students indicated that they wanted to stay in the Netherlands after finishing their study to find a job. From the figures presented above we can conclude that for the majority of foreign students motives other than those concerning internationalization of education were the driving force for studying abroad. These motives appeared to be highly dependent on the personal situation of each individual student. 4. Motives for Admission of Foreign Students Universities' motives for encouraging the admission of foreign students fall into three broad categories: economic motives, educational and pedagogical motives, and motives connected with providing aid to developing countries. 4.1 Economic Motives Universities today face gradually decreasing enrolment figures. Foreign countries are a potential new market in this respect. Stimulating the admission of foreign students leads to increasing numbers of students, which means increasing income from fees: more students means more money. Furthermore, university facilities are seldom being used to their maximum capacity. It can be both profitable and efficient to increase the number of students who make use of the facilities belonging to the university, thus ensuring the maximal use of these facilities. Another economic motive for admitting, or even actively recruiting, foreign students has to do widi the idea that investing in the

5 442 J. Snippe & W. Jochems education of foreign students may be a long-term investment to the host country. Since the students of today will be the decision-makers of tomorrow once they have returned to their country of origin, it is very likely that this may lead to cooperative projects between the two countries. 4.2 Educational and Pedagogical Reasons Foreign students are considered to have a positive influence on the quality of higher education. This alleged spin-off effect on the quality of higher education in the host country has not yet been investigated [5]. A pedagogical factor is that it is thought to be beneficial for host country students to come into contact with students from other, different cultures. It can broaden the horizons of both groups of students by offering an extra opportunity to learn things that are not strictly included in the curriculum but can just as well considered to be of importance in the general knowledge of students. These supposed learning effects, however, cannot be supported by empirical evidence. The beneficial effects of having a group of foreign students within the institution depend highly on the frequency of interaction between foreign and regular students. In reality, foreign students very often stick together in their own group. They would rather share their problems and experiences with other foreign students who are in the same position than with regular students from the host country. So mutual acquaintance with each others' cultures can be considered to be fairly minimal, or should at least not be overrated. In the words of Tierney [6], "experiencing a country is more than observing clothing differences". 4.3 Admission of Students from Less Developed Countries The provision of educational facilities for foreign students especially for students who come from less developed countries may be looked upon as a form of developmental aid. In such countries institutions providing certain types of higher education may not exist, or the capacity of those that do exist may not be sufficient to meet demand. There may also be some less visible motives that have more to do with economic motives. Educating students from the less developed countries can be in the national interest of the host country, since in this way it remains possible to exert some influence in Third World countries. This may particularly be the case where former colonies are concerned. Whatever motive lies beneath the effort to increase the enrolment of foreign students, the practical effect will be that more students enter institutions of higher education and this will have a positive effect on the economy of the host country, as mentioned in Section 4.1. S. Pros and Cons of the Admission of Foreign Students The economic impact of the admission of foreign students can considered to be positive only under certain conditions. For Dutch universities the way in which these institutions are being financed by the government determines the economic impact of admitting foreign students. The extent of their public funding is determined partly by the number of students who enter university and by the output, i.e. the number of

6 Foreign Students in Engineering Education 443 students graduating within the nominal study duration. Although foreign students form a new reservoir of students to be admitted, and thus a potential new source of revenue for the institutions of higher education, this line of reasoning will only hold if foreign students are able to complete their studies successfully and without much delay. Our knowledge of the academic performance of international students as compared to their fellow students in the host country is, at the moment, limited. The results of a research project comparing the study achievement of foreign students with that of their Dutch fellow students at DUT can be considered to be illustrative in this respect [7]. In the research project, the academic progress of foreign students at three faculties the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and the Faculty of Computer Science were compared to the study progress of the total group of students at these faculties. The sample consisted of 170 foreign students, distributed over the three faculties as follows: 83 students from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, 35 students from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and 52 students from the Faculty of Computer Science. From the study results, it appeared that the success rate of foreign students was much the same as that of the total group of students: the percentage of foreign students who passed the propaedeutic examination which is taken after one year of study was slightly lower than that of the total group of students but the difference was not statistically significant. Furthermore, it appeared that foreign students differed from Dutch students in the time they took to pass the propaedeutic examination: foreign students needed much more time to pass this exam. Compared to their Dutch fellow students, then, the foreign students were slow starters. The success rate of the foreign students who had to pass a selection procedure in the home country before they came to DUT appeared to be significantly higher than that of those who did not. Obviously, a selection procedure focusing on general ability and the mastery of science and mathematics should tend to improve the propaedeutic success rates of foreign students in engineering studies. There was also a tendency for the foreign students who had undergone a selection procedure to need less time to pass the propaedeutic examination than the foreign students who had not. Furthermore, it appeared that foreign students with high Dutch language proficiency scores performed significantly better than those with lower, but still adequate, Dutch language proficiency scores. So, increasing the admission of foreign students will be profitable in economic terms only under certain conditions. These conditions are the selection of students in the country of origin and an increase in the standard of language proficiency required. Both these measures will enhance the probability of admitting students who stand a good chance of completing the study successfully. Another way of stimulating the study success of foreign students and thus enhancing the economic benefit of their admission is by trying to diminish problems at the beginning of study. In the next section we will go more deeply into the problems foreign students experience when they go to the host country to study. 6. Problems Associated with the Admission of Foreign Students The problems associated with studying abroad may be educational, social, didactic, cultural or practical in nature. One of the first problems foreign students are confronted with is 'educational' by nature and has to do with their previous education and whether or not their diploma qualifies for the university abroad they are applying to. The host university has to assess the level of the certificate the student brings in to determine whether this level is sufficient to allow admission to the programme. In those cases

7 444 J. Snippe & W. Jochems where the educational systems of the home country and the host country are quite different one has to rely completely on the outcome of the assessment procedure. It may be considered a very difficult task to make a sound assessment and do justice to a student by making the right decision concerning admission. This assessment process which is really a recertification process may have disappointing results for some students. For instance, at the State University of Amsterdam half of the foreign students who seek admission drop out before they enter the preparation programme preceding the university programme. During the preparation period itself, a further third of the students drop out. These figures are more or less the same for DUT. The 'social' problems have to do with the fact that foreign students go to an unknown country, with an unknown culture, without the support of an established social network. In 1993, a questionnaire was distributed to all aspirant foreign students in Delft who had just finished their preparation period and were applying for admission to the university (n = 38). Several questions in this questionnaire dealt with social problems. It appeared that 20% of the students who responded considered that their social situation could be characterized as rather problematic. This meant that they did not know anyone in the host country to whom they could turn whenever they were in trouble, that they suffered regularly from feelings of homesickness and that they experienced feelings of loneliness in the host country. These students found themselves, socially speaking, in an isolated position. Especially for those students who had come to the host country on their own, building up a social network in an unfamiliar language was not a very easy task. Then there are 'didactic' problems, which have to do with the fact that every school system reflects the culture of the country. In some cultures, hierarchical relationships are fairly common and for an educational institution this may mean that a professor is an authority who may not be contradicted, under any circumstances. To argue with a professor is considered to be rude and impolite in such cultures, since it does not respect his/her status. In other cultures, however, this behaviour may reflect a critical attitude which is considered to be an essential quality of good students. Moreover, the way students study and socialize with fellow students, teachers and professors is a 'culturally' stated fact. Other problems have to do with the way the educational system links up with the system foreign students are used to in their country of origin. In some countries and cultures it is quite normal to learn large sections of text by heart. Testing involves reproducing those sections. In other mostly Western cultures, examination takes place by asking questions on the study material; students are not required to reproduce the material. Teachers think it is far more important that students learn to solve problems instead of reproducing pieces of the study material. A last category of problems to be faced by foreign students are the 'practical' problems. These include housing problems and other problems that have to do with daily life in a foreign country. Financial problems may be one of them. In the questionnaire for foreign students referred to in Section 3, some questions about the financial situation were asked. From the responses it appeared that 59% (n = 37) of the students who responded were supported financially by their families and 37% (n = 23) received financial support from the government or a future employer. On the whole, 81% of the students who responded (w = 51) indicated that they had no financial problems. Only four students indicated that they did not have enough money to pay for the cost of living. Considering these results, foreign students appear to have no greater financial problems than Dutch students.

8 Foreign Students in Engineering Education Possible Solutions to Problems Connected with the Admission of Foreign Students The question now arises as to what can be done about the problems discussed above. The answer to this depends upon the motives leading a government to admit foreign students. Of the motives that have been discussed in this article, the economic motive seems to be the strongest, or at least the most structural of motives. If the economic motive is the driving force for stimulating the admission of foreign students, then a government will concentrate on measures that are beneficial to the academic achievement of foreign students. In view of the problems we discussed earlier, it will be important to make sure that foreign students who come to the host country are likely to complete the study of their choice successfully. This means that some sort of selection procedure in the home country should take place in order to discourage students who are not equipped for a study abroad. The research results presented in Section 5 show that such a procedure can be a very useful tool for selecting students who are capable of studying abroad. In this respect, it is necessary to provide adequate information about different foreign studies in the home country. This may prevent students who are not properly qualified from applying for study in higher education abroad. In doing so, it may prevent disappointments on bodi sides: the students and the institutions in the host country. Once students are in their host country, it is important that they are properly taken care of. The host country should provide housing accommodation and other facilities. When we look at study itself it is important to help the students through the initial phase; for instance, by offering more support in the beginning phase of study or by giving some educational support to students who are experiencing difficulty in the initial phases of study. REFERENCES [1] WAGNER, A. & SCHNITZER, K. (1991) Programmes and policies for foreign students and study abroad: the search for effective approaches in a new global setting, Higher Education, 21, pp [2] THROSBY, C.D. (1991) The financial impact of foreign student enrolments, Higher Education, 21, pp [3] ALTBACH, P.G. (1991) Impact and adjustment: foreign students in comparative perspective, Higher Education, 21, pp [4] BERGHUIJS, G.K. (1992) Motieven van buitenlandse studenten om aan de TU Delft te willen studeren (Motives of foreign students for studying at DUT), paper presented at symposium, Delft zonder grenzen, Delft, 7 May. [5] PIKET, V. (1991) The internationalisation of higher education. Country report on the Netherlands, Higher Education, 21, pp [6] TIERNEY, W.G. (1994) Multiculturalism and studies abroad, paper presented at the conference of the American Educational Research Association in New Orleans, 4-8 April. [7] JOCHEMS, W., SNIPPE, J., SMID, H.J. & VERWEIJ, A. (1995) The academic progress of foreign students: study achievement and study behaviour, Higher Education, in press.