Learner Profiles at a UK University: An Exploratory Study

In the academic literature and practice, there is often a perceived dichotomy between home and international students, with the focus on finding solutions to dealing with differences between those two students groups. This... [ view full abstract ]

In the academic literature and practice, there is often a perceived dichotomy between home and international students, with the focus on finding solutions to dealing with differences between those two students groups. This paper aims to explore if this focus on differences between students from diverse cultural backgrounds is helpful, or if instead a broader approach to looking at differences between students generally may be more useful. In this paper, the authors use the concepts of identity perception, self-efficacy as a learner, intelligence perception and learning motivation together with a choice of learning strategies and techniques are to establish student profiles using cluster analysis. The paper explores the differences between these student profiles and the extent to which cultural background impacts on these profiles. Five distinct groups of students are identified. The findings show that whilst some of the groups are dominated by one nationality, all groups are multinational. This implies that cultural specific behaviour amongst students can hide the fact that actual learning strategies, techniques and motivation are very varied between students from one nationality. Rather than thinking in terms of international and British students, identifying students as a type of learner may be more appropriate.