Students worldwide are increasingly turning to international education opportunities: that much is for certain. And while my research into this topic area was both interesting and rewarding, the process itself was immeasurably more informative.
As a qualitative research project, I aimed to collate comprehensive data through personalised email interviews. I reasoned that by sending out interview questions and giving respondents time to reflect and review their answers, I would receive more quality answers.
Effective in theory, but unfortunately not so effective in practice.
I implemented a two-step process: the first step involved recruitment via an online survey, and the second step obtained the substantial research content by way of an email interview. Different questions were sent out depending on whether the respondent was an international student, a domestic student who hadn’t studied overseas, or a domestic student who had studied overseas.
I have learned that by using a two-step process, I increased the opportunities for people to reject my requests to participate in my research.
People had to first see, and then agree to participate in my initial survey – and then to again commit to participating in my further research via email correspondence. And then they had to actually return responses.
I had only 17 responses to my initial online survey, but remained optimistic. Of those responses, only five agreed to answer further questions, and as a final twist of the sword, only three of those five returned responses (sad face!). I had to directly recruit the remaining participants in class. Some of those class recruits also did not return any responses (crying face!).
Ultimately, from the 17 online survey responses, only three contributed towards my research, and I obtained another three from class recruiting. In total I had four responses from domestic students who have not studied abroad, and two each from international students and domestic students who have studied abroad. I had aimed to obtain three interviews per category, so for the latter two, this was below my target quota.
The positive side of this fairly morose result is that I have learned that by implementing a two-step process, people were less inclined to participate in the second (and most important!) step. Even though the initial online recruitment survey was so simple, and would not have taken more than a minute to complete, people may have deemed their original contribution sufficient and I suspect they feared committing to anything that sounded substantial.
To avoid this outcome in future research, I could either:
- Deliver the research questions directly in the initial online survey;
- Ask participants to provide their phone number as opposed to an email address so that I can engage them directly (this should eliminate many of the respondents who initially agreed to participate in further research but who then did not return any responses); or,
- I could recruit participants directly in-class only, and organise face-to-face interviews to conduct the research.
I believe that each of these alternatives would be more effective research tactics, as they would ‘lock in’ participants rather than giving them several opportunities to bail.
Regrettably, only one respondent to the online survey indicated that they were not interested in studying overseas, and they did not agree to be contacted for further enquiries. It is unfortunate that I was not able to further investigate this angle, but ultimately this obstacle related to my recruitment issue.
The only other substantial issue in my research emerged as I was compiling and analysing all of my data. I realised that I should have enquired more about how the international students are financing their studies in Australia, as the cost of education clearly became a focal point of my research. Although a fairly private issue, it would have been useful to understand the financial circumstances of the international students I interviewed, as they all commented on the financial hardship they were experiencing in Australia as students.
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