Intercultural peer group interactions, integration and student persistence between Nigerian students and students from other countries at a university in the Western Cape
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Date
2018
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of the Western Cape
Abstract
As a Nigerian, I became interested in investigating how Nigerian students, from
different cultural backgrounds are able to integrate and persist in their academic
programmes. I used Tinto‟s (1993) Longitudinal Model of Institutional Departure as a
foundation for my conceptual framework. I adopted a qualitative research approach as
this provides opportunities for interpretations by both participants and the researcher.
I purposively selected 20 Nigerian students who were at different stages of their
Master‟s programmes at a university in the Western Cape province of South Africa,
but only 12 students were available and interviewed. The data reveals a significant
relationship between intercultural peer group interactions, formal social integration
and student persistence, while there was no significant relationship between
intercultural peer group interaction, informal social integration and student
persistence. Furthermore, informal social integration was partially related to formal
academic integration and student persistence. Finally, it emerged that informal
academic integration was also strongly linked to social integration and academic
success. Due to the limiting nature of a research paper, the research has been
restricted to the Nigerian experience to allow an insider perspective.
Description
Magister Educationis (Adult Learning and Global Change) - MEd(AL)
Keywords
Social integration, Academic integration, Interactionist model, Academic success, Student persistence