New Arrival Students: Mitigating Factors on the Culture of the Computing Learning Environment

Over the past decade Australian and New Zealand educational institutions have experienced a rapid increase in the numbers of "New Arrivals" - immigrant and international students who leave their home country and study abroad. Studies have found that many of these students encounter problems adjusting to living and studying in their host country as well as experiencing difficulties in their learning environment. A significant number of New Arrival students enrol in computing programmes and have traditionally formed a minority subgroup in their learning milieu. Females are another minority subgroup in computing and research shows that the culture of the computing learning environment has been influential in many of them feeling alienated and contributing to the disproportionate female representation and retention in tertiary computing programmes compared with males. At the same time that New Arrival students are coping with living and studying in a new culture, they will also face adjustment to the computing culture. What are their perceptions of their learning climate? This paper reports results of semi-structured interviews that examine how New Arrival tertiary students studying first-year programming perceive their computing learning environment. The study was conducted at three tertiary institutions in Wellington. It was found that the majority of students perceived their learning milieu positively. They were satisfied with the personalised teacher-student relationship and made favourable comparisons of their New Zealand learning milieu with that which they had experienced in their home countries. The maturity and experience of these students, together with the context within which computing was taught, appeared to be positive mitigating factors on the culture of the computing learning environment. However for the few younger students who did not enjoy the same personalisation and had difficulties with the English language and culture, there are implications for educators and administrative staff of institutions interested in providing a positive learning experience for New Arrivals.

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