The Academic Preparation of Transnational Students: An Analysis of Curriculum and Teaching Methods from Four International Systems

Abstract

General note to editors—we do NOT use the word international students. The reasons are explained in the body of the article but international—as defined in higher education–is actually more limited than the focus of this article. The term is being removed throughout. There has been a considerable increase in the number of international students over the past decades. Although much of the research on international students focuses on academic skills and the broader student experience beyond the classroom, less is known about how subject-matter preparation and the experience of student-centered teaching methods increasingly promoted in North American universities differ among students whose prior education was gained outside of North America. To build a better sense of the subject-matter preparation and teaching methods experienced in their prior education by students with prior education outside of North America, this article poses the following questions: What curriculum did students follow in their general education? What teaching methods were common? This paper presents the results of a scoping literature review, which aims to “map” key themes in a field of research to clarify complex topics and orient future inquiries. This review looked at the subject-matter preparation and teaching methods in four regions that send many students to universities in the English-speaking world: China, India, the Middle East and North Africa, and Latin America. The history of educational reforms in the 20th century informs the findings. Reforms brought much consistency in science and mathematics curricula across regions. However, there is less consistency in the coverage of other subjects, such as the humanities and social sciences. In terms of teaching methods, traditional instructor-centered teaching methods remain prevalent despite reforms calling for student-centered methods. Instructors benefit from awareness of the prior knowledge of their students so they can adjust their teaching plans to students’ knowledge base, something that varies by subject area. Instructors also benefit from recognizing that students may require time to adjust to participatory approaches to teaching.

Keywords

international students transnational students teaching in higher education prior knowledge subject-matter knowledge China India Middle East North Africa Latin America

Introduction

Policy on the recruitment and retention of international students over the past decades shows how important higher education is to the globalized world (McCartney, 2021), with universities and colleges in developed nations recruiting students from less developed nations. Several agreements and policies established by international trade organizations and governments facilitate this international movement of students.

One is the General Agreement of Trade and Services (GATS) negotiated among members of the World Trade Organization, which definitively established education as a service to be traded across borders and came into effect in 1995 (WTO, 1995). It lets education providers establish branches in other countries (such as branches of U.S. universities established in the Gulf nations, Hong Kong, and Singapore) and facilitates the recruitment of students from one country for programs in another.

Another is the Bologna Accords, a voluntary agreement among countries within Europe and other states (such as the US and Canada) (King, 2019). It attempts to standardize the structure of higher education programs, so that a bachelor’s degree in member country A will have about the same number of credits as one from member country B (Rasmussen et al., 2017). Countries signed onto the accord between 1999 and 2007, with additional countries signing on afterward.

The practical impact of these agreements has been an increase in the number of international students (those paying international tuition rates) in the countries actively recruiting them. For example, the number of international students in Canada increased from 142,170 in the 2010 to 2011 academic year to 388,782 in the 2019 to 2020 academic year (the last one before the pandemic) according to the website Studying in Canada (2022). That growth represents a 273% increase in a single decade.

Scholarly Interest in Internationalization

This resulting growth in the number of international fee-paying students in higher education from developing countries has spurred scholarly interest in the subject. Some of that scholarly interest focuses on broad issues of globalization and internationalization, including the specific strategies and policies about international study that have been established by governments, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), and higher education administrators (Altbach & Knight, 2007; Knight, 2002). Some of that scholarly interest focuses on the needs of international students studying in a new context (Brown & Holloway, 2008; Winchester-Seeto et al., 2014).

Notably absent from the discussions, however, is the issue of who is a student of interest in this environment. Within higher education institutions, international student has a particular meaning: students who are not citizens or permanent residents of the country and therefore, pay international student tuition rates, which are usually significantly higher than rates paid by citizens and permanent residents, especially in public colleges and universities. This technical definition of international student serves a practical purpose as it reflects an administrative reality. But this technical definition of international student overlooks the many students who completed most or all of their prior education in a home country, then became permanent residents or citizens of the country in which they are currently studying.

From a tuition and administrative perspective, institutions consider such students to be local or national. But educationally, these students resemble international students. We therefore use the term transnational to refer to all students who received a considerable part of their prior education outside of the current country, whether they pay international or domestic tuition rates. This term is inclusive of all such students.

A second issue missing from the discussion of international students is the perspective of classroom instructors. They play a limited role (if any) in establishing the standards that guide the international movement of individuals, but they are the main point of ongoing contact for many transnational students, at least in academic subjects. Furthermore, a study of instructors who teach a large percentage of transnational students found that these instructors must make assumptions about the prior knowledge and academic values of their students to prepare lesson plans and instructional materials (Price et al., 2023).

This leads to a third issue missing from the discussion of internationalization: What are transnational students’ experiences of actual classroom instruction, including specific subject-matter knowledge, and experiences around the academic values of their institutions, including teaching methods in their home country and country of study? For example, in some countries, mimicking the words of an instructor is considered appropriate academic behavior in some countries while in others it is viewed as plagiarism (Fatemi & Saito, 2019). Similarly, in some regions, student interactions with instructors are purposefully limited while in others, they are actively encouraged or expected (de Souza, 2010; Fabris et al., 2023; Lee et al., 2003). Instructors take the lead in creating the classroom experiences of students, but they do so in a context where institutions and the research on teaching and learning overlook the need to identify the prior knowledge of transnational students.

The current study aims to address this gap by asking the following question: What should instructors know about the prior knowledge and academic preparedness of transnational students? Specific research questions are: (1) What curriculum do students follow? (2) What teaching methods are common in students’ preparation? In an endeavor to keep the scope of the paper manageable, we limited the focus of our scoping review to four regions of interest: China, India, the Middle East and North Africa, and Latin America, the countries of origin for most transnational students in our context.

This paper is organized as follows. The next section situates the study in the broader literature. The following section describes the methodology we used to search the literature on regional curricula and teaching methods. The next section reviews the themes and patterns identified in the literature on the four regions of interest. The closing section discusses implications of these findings, as well as limitations of the study and suggestions for future research.

Literature Review

The general education curriculum provides the basis for students’ formal education and therefore formalizes the skills and knowledge that students can and cannot be expected to have mastered prior to graduation. Prior knowledge for university students, especially undergraduates, is therefore largely determined by the curricula at the elementary and secondary levels. This section focuses on exploring the processes of negotiating curricula among various stakeholders, the evolution of curricula in the 20th century, the role of teachers in curriculum reform in K-12 systems, and the importance of prior knowledge on teaching and learning.

Curriculum Is a Product of Culture, History, and Future Aspirations

There is an array of factors that inform the development of any curriculum. These include cultural heritage and history, as well as the aspirations for the future of society (Flinders & Thornton, 2017). This latter factor is most clearly seen in the different political ideologies and educational philosophies that guide education (Kliebard, 2004). Given the multiple factors that go into curriculum development, it is natural for stakeholders with different views to clash. The final curriculum is therefore the result of a negotiation.

One way to conceptualize this negotiation is as a competition among educational philosophies (Power, 2019). One of the uses of an educational philosophy is to determine the main purpose of formal, school-based education. For example, an essentialist conceptualization might claim that students need to master certain minimal social and academic requirements to be a functioning citizen. A religious conceptualization emphasizes the importance of education to students’ spiritual development and integration into a spiritual and social community. A progressive philosophy aims to shape students into members of an evolving society (Christou, 2017; Flinders & Thornton, 2017; Kliebard, 2004). These philosophical differences are far more than simply political; they reflect underlying value and belief systems and as such, can be deeply and personally held among stakeholders (Apple, 2018; Miles, 2021). As a result, these stakeholders might find themselves in conflict with those holding different and similarly personally held views.

The Move to a Global Curriculum During the 20th Century

Over the course of the 20th century, the view that seemed to gain the most adherents was that of an administrative-focused approach to curriculum. This perspective is aligned with a neoliberal political approach, which puts market forces and a middle-way at the forefront of a successful curriculum (Fan & Popkewitz, 2020).

An undercurrent of the educational philosophy debates in the US, Canada and other nations has been the tension between local and global approaches to curriculum. The 20th century saw the normalization of formal primary schooling around the world—a departure from the past where children were often taught at home (Meyer et al., 2017). Perhaps due to its neoliberal political economics, the 20th century curriculum was also globalist. An analysis of the global primary curriculum in the 20th century shows how there was an alignment of the curriculum over time throughout many countries (Meyer et al., 2017). Some examples of the effects of the globalist view of curriculum were the formalization of certain subjects. Science courses became ubiquitous in primary education and subjects such as history, geography and civics, instead of being taught as separate disciplines within the primary curriculum, were combined under the umbrella of social studies (DeBoer, 2011; Meyer et al., 2017; National Research Council, 2012).

There were exceptions to the homogenization of curriculum in some areas: one major exception to the rule was seen in the teaching of religion and language in the Middle East and North Africa (described in more detail below) (Benavot & Braslavsky, 2007).

The perceived need for greater standardization across curricula was not limited to primary education. Secondary education was also increasingly standardized (Stacey et al., 2018) and mandatory (Benavot & Braslavsky, 2007; Wikipedia Contributors, 2025) in countries throughout the world. In addition, a series of UNESCO agreements in the 1970s provided a policy basis for the international recognition of diplomas and certifications from higher education institutions (UNESCO, 1974, 1976, 1978, 2011, 2014). As such, reforms worldwide aimed to provide students with formal schooling through secondary education and beyond that would “travel.” Although these efforts, mostly led by stakeholders in academia, government and NGOs, provided the blueprint, the building was left to others closer to the ground (Meyer et al., 2017). This left local institutions and teachers to implement the new curricula, and the differences in implementing curricula could be considerable depending on the players (Roehrig et al., 2007; Thompson et al., 2013; Wang & Cheng, 2009).

Teachers and the Implemented Curriculum

Over the course of the 20th century, there were shifts in beliefs about how much input teachers should have in curriculum reform and design (Ben-Peretz, 1980; Connelly, 2006; Hargreaves, 2006; Kennedy, 1996). Today, top-down curriculum reform is common (Poulton, 2020; Ryder & Banner, 2012; Ullman, 2019) providing limited input from teachers. Despite the fact that teachers often have relatively little say over the development of curricula or reform, they remain central to its implementation (Harris & Graham, 2018; Winter, 2018). Implementation depends on the physical and human resources (teachers) available in each country or region, and importantly, on how the people on the ground interpret the curriculum (Al-Daami & Wallace, 2007; Öztürk, 2011; Priestley, 2011; Tatto, 2006). As such, the intended curriculum (what is stated on paper) can often diverge from the implemented curriculum (what is taught in the classroom).

The implemented curriculum—and not the curriculum-on-paper—ultimately shapes classroom expectations and serves as the basis for prior knowledge. Even in cases where teachers are happy to implement a curriculum that is handed to them by higher-ups, it will not necessarily be implemented in the same ways in all regions covered by the curriculum. For example, circumstances of a particular location might limit certain curriculum prescriptions, such as incorporating information technology into teaching in regions that have relatively low penetration rates for internet or IT (De ibarrola, 2007; Öztürk, 2011).

The Importance of Students’ Prior Knowledge in Teaching and Learning

The investigation into the topic of the current paper is the result of a study on of the everyday needs of full-time college and university faculty in Canada (Price et al., 2023). That study showed that these Canadian instructors were under-informed about the academic preparedness of transnational students, which created challenges in teaching. It also showed that many of the instructors, themselves, had received some or most of their education outside of Canada.

Prior knowledge is an essential topic in the design of instruction. Student background knowledge matters to instructors who are designing and developing course lectures, evaluations, and learning objectives. Our prior study (Price et al., 2023) also found that assumptions that instructors will assess student prior knowledge is incorrect; most guess the optimal level to pitch their coursework without information on prior knowledge, at least in the institutions represented in the study. The study did find that, with time and experience, many instructors figure out how to teach to the reality of students’ prior knowledge. But, until instructors do so, the onus is on students to meet instructors’ expectations.

The problem of prior knowledge is not the same as that of a lack of awareness of multicultural and multinational diversity. Classrooms have been internationalized for many years (Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada [AUCC], 2001) and countries like Canada have a proud tradition of successful immigration. A large segment of the population has close ties to friends and family multinationally, which provide insight into and experience with ethnic, linguistic, and cultural diversity. In our country of Canada, at least, many instructors (nearly 40%) were themselves transnational students (Canadian Association of University Teachers, n.d.). However, it does not follow that they are professionally equipped to teach to a class with diverse educational experiences and backgrounds, given that many of these instructors enter higher education without formal training in pedagogy and instead cultivate their teaching expertise through experiential learning and professional practice (Price et al., 2023).

Prior educational experiences are important to the design and delivery of instruction. Educational experiences set up students’ expectations: How will the lecture be conducted? What are the appropriate ways of interacting with other students and instructors? What will assessments look like? The instructor’s knowledge of what students’ experiences are can help them design their courses and plan for potential pitfalls: What is the level of language proficiency to be expected of the group? What will be the expectations around group work and class participation? Should any background reading or extra support be suggested? If so, to whom and when?

Methodology

This section covers how the research methodology was selected, how data was collected and analyzed from the sources reviewed, and steps taken to ensure the trustworthiness and credibility of the results.

Selection of a Research Methodology

Because we asked our research question in the context of previous scholarship, a literature review seemed the most appropriate approach to answering the research questions. The literature on curriculum and teaching methods internationally includes academic peer-reviewed books and articles (qualitative and quantitative studies, reflections), as well as other reports and publications. As such, meta-analysis (which explores effect sizes from experimental studies) and meta-syntheses (which integrate findings from quantitative and qualitative studies) were eliminated as methodological approaches. We therefore chose to conduct a scoping review (Arksey & O’Malley, 2005; Levac et al., 2010), as an inclusive approach that would provide insight into the broader context of the general education systems in key regions. A scoping review aims to “map” a field of research, identifying key themes in order “to clarify a complex concept and refine subsequent research inquiries” (Levac et al., 2010, p.1).

How Data Were Collected and Analyzed

Arksey and O’Malley (2005) suggest a five-step approach to a scoping review, with an optional sixth step. These are:

Identify the research question.

Perform the literature search.

Select relevant literature.

Chart the data.

Collate, summarize and report the results.

Consult with stakeholders to inform or validate study findings (optional).

In the current study, the first five steps were completed and are described below.

Identify the Research Question

The research questions were determined at the beginning of the study and followed from the previous study (Price et al., 2023): What curriculum did students follow? What teaching methods were they exposed to?

The prior study also informed the selection of the regions of interest to this review. We identified four key regions—China, India, the Middle East and North Africa, and Latin America—because these regions contribute large numbers of international students to Canadian higher education.

Perform the Literature Search

Databases searched included Google Scholar, ERIC, Education Source, and the internal database of our university library.

Search terms included “general education OR curriculum OR reform” in combination with “internationalization” or the names of the regions of interest “world OR Asia OR Arab OR North Africa OR China OR India OR Latin America”. Where these search terms did not yield sufficient literature of interest, the scope was broadened to “world” or a continent (“Asia”) or narrowed to be more specific (“China”, “Mexico”, and others). We also reviewed reference lists to identify further relevant sources. This search initially returned over 8,000 results, requiring the establishment of inclusion and exclusion criteria.

Select Relevant Literature

The initial criteria for inclusion were that the literature be published in English between 2007 and 2019, and that it had a focus on the general education systems in the regions selected (structure, history and reforms, student and instructor perspectives on the curriculum or on teaching). Literature included books, book chapters and articles. Relevant conference papers were considered though not preferred.

Exclusion criteria included literature that was too narrowly focused (for example, which addressed the percentage of the population in various countries that completed a given level of formal education) or that focused on issues that applies only to specific aspect of education (for example, a sole focus on vocational training).

Initial reviews of titles and abstracts were used to identify literature that met our inclusion criteria: focused on the general education system, the history and impact of recent reforms, or student and instructor perspectives on the curriculum or on teaching.

As a result, 31 articles, book chapters, and other sources of literature such as conference papers and other gray market literature were included in the initial review. In addition, we checked up on certain issues to verify that patterns identified were still current and added more recent resources as needed.

Chart the Data

The resulting readings were first summarized in structured abstracts, which have distinct sections and summarize the key points in each section of the article (Carliner, 2015; Hartley, 2004). Next, the following characteristics were tracked as part of the summarizing process: bibliographic information, type of source, type of study, geographic region or country, and discipline, key characteristics of the curriculum, key subjects covered, key teaching techniques addressed (if any), other key features, key challenges in implementing the curriculum, and researcher notes.

Collate, Summarize and Report the Results

Recurring themes in the literature were identified using thematic analysis (Dixon-Woods et al., 2004). These themes were separated into information relating to the (1) background of the educational system (including reforms), (2) the curriculum and (3) the teaching methods that are common in each region.

Assuring Credibility and Trustworthiness

Because we did not have external stakeholders outside of the research team, we did not conduct the sixth and optional task in the Arksey and O’Malley (2005) methodology: Consulting with stakeholders to inform or validate study findings. That meant that we had to redouble efforts to ensure the credibility and trustworthiness of the results. To do so, the first author took the lead in choosing literature for the study and similarly took the lead in reviewing and classifying the literature. However, to minimize the effect of the bias, all decisions were reviewed by the second author to ensure an additional opinion (Creswell & Creswell, 2022). When assessments of the literature differed, we discussed the differences until we reached consensus on decisions.

Results

This section describes the literature on how students are prepared in the regions of interest and then synthesizes the literature to answer the research questions: What curriculum do students follow in different regions? What teaching methods are they exposed to?

How Students Are Prepared in China, India, Middle East and North Africa, and Latin America

This section reviews the broad context of the educational systems and the general education curricula of China, India, the Middle East and North Africa, and Latin America. It also reviews the teaching methods that are common in those regions.

China

This section describes the background of the educational system, the curriculum and the teaching methods described in the literature about China.

Background

In the mid-20th century, the educational system in China shifted strongly as it adopted many of the approaches of the Soviet educational system. A massive national reform of the curriculum in China began in the 1990s following the fall of the Soviet Union. Initially, a series of reforms were implemented in Shanghai, a major economic hub. In following decades, a nationwide reform was progressively extended to all other regions of the country (Yin, 2013; You, 2019).

The national reforms were a major undertaking. The reforms were intended to be both broad and deep; aiming at a considerable reconfiguration of the educational system away from a model adapted from former Soviet states and that focused on technical training, towards a model that looks towards the future (Yin, 2013; You, 2019). The reforms were implemented carefully, region by region, with some modifications being brought at different points along the way in response to the reactions of teachers and students (Yin, 2013).

One feature of the reforms has been dialogue within China and between China and Western countries about the educational system (Ma, 2018; Marginson, 2011). Part of this conversation included debates about some of the questions of reform (focusing on teaching methods, discussed below). Another part of this conversation is a move to reclaim the ancient Chinese traditions and integrate them into current system, especially in the liberal arts (Lu & Xu, 2018). And a third part of this conversation involves a resurgence of ideological influence on undergraduate studies through some compulsory courses (Huang, 2017).

What Curriculum Do Students Follow?

Due to the reforms, the curriculum that students from China follow is one that has made a deliberate move to emphasize 21st century skills. In particular, the curriculum emphasizes topics like problem solving and collaborative learning. As such, the classroom can emphasize learning activities and methods in which problem solving and collaborative learning are incorporated (Pilz et al., 2016). The curriculum also emphasizes personality traits like perseverance and the use of interactive technology (Pilz et al., 2016).

At the higher levels, the curriculum focuses on intercultural knowledge, defined as the ability to “communicate their disciplinary knowledge across diverse linguistic and cultural contexts” (Wang, 2014, p. 126). Many students who have received a large portion of their education in China therefore have a framework to think of their perspectives in comparison to those of students from other countries.

What Teaching Methods Are Common in Students’ Preparation?

One of the important aims of the reforms was to shift away from instructor-centered teaching methods to student-centered teaching methods. Although this shift seems to have been made, there was some resistance on the part of teachers. One example was a public discussion that took place between a mathematics professor and the government in which the professor defended traditional approaches to teaching in his discipline (Yin, 2013). Ultimately, this feedback prompted some shifts in the government’s views (Yin, 2013).

Furthermore, although the importance of student-centered teaching is widely accepted, its implementation can vary depending on available resources. As such, in practice, many learning activities remain “content-focused, norm-referenced and teacher-designed and initiated” (You, 2019, p. 104).

India

This section describes the background of the educational system, the curriculum and the teaching methods that are described in the literature about India.

Background

The educational system in India is vast and complex (Khare, 2014). India is a geographically large and culturally diverse country, with numerous religious, ethnic and linguistic minorities. Unlike in China, the educational system in India is under the jurisdiction of both central and state governments. As such, education is largely controlled at the regional level, not the national level. Although this has allowed regional governments to set up targets and institutions that are adapted to their jurisdictions, India also has had to struggle with problems related to regulatory capture in education, where the political leadership makes decisions that are in the best interests of certain of the elites rather than of the population at large (Carnoy & Dossani, 2013).

Educational reform became prominent in India during the second half of the 20th century. Reform was led by national governments that shifted the educational system away from the one established during British colonization (Carnoy & Dossani, 2013). Early efforts in the mid-20th century saw the national government push for the creation of elite national institutes despite the decentralization of the educational system. Subsequent reforms aimed at increasing access to education among less-privileged populations (Carnoy & Dossani, 2013).

What Curriculum Do Students Follow?

Given the complexity of the Indian educational system, the curriculum that students follow may be quite fragmented. For example, students attend institutions in large networks of private and public secondary schools and higher educational institutions (Carnoy & Dossani, 2013). Some of these institutions offer high quality education, while others might not, resulting in a high degree of variability in quality depending on the actual institution.

Elite institutions have long provided top-notch educations. However, in institutions that have more modest means, teachers face challenges in meeting student needs. In these institutions, teaching is often oriented to reference disciplines (Pilz et al., 2016), which are those that do not change over time and provide the intellectual bases of other disciplines, such as math, language, and history. In such cases, teachers might acknowledge the need for the curriculum to focus on subjects such as business and economics, but the teachers themselves do not feel equipped to teach these subjects, among other barriers. The secondary curriculum is often designed as a pathway to higher education, with teachers hoping that their students earn a degree in a discipline like engineering, which will allow them to move into better socioeconomic circumstances. But that focus might not meet actual student needs and the literature notes a need for a greater focus on vocational training in Indian higher education (Khare, 2014).

What Teaching Methods Are Common in Students’ Preparation?

According to one report, the teaching philosophy in much of the country remains traditional and instructor centered (Pilz et al., 2016). In many institutions, theory and established knowledge might be emphasized over new research and practical skills (Vijayakumari & Dhenakaran, 2017). Teachers often “teach to exams” in the hopes of moving students along to higher education (Azam & Kingdon, 2015; Gopinath, 2015). Reports also note that the size of classrooms can be large, which makes implementing many student-centered activities challenging for practical reasons. Class size is less likely to pose challenges in elite institutions (Datta & Kingdon, 2021).

Middle East and North Africa

This section describes the background of the educational system, the curriculum and the teaching methods that are described in the literature about the Middle East and North Africa.

Background

Although this is a very vast region with many ethnic, cultural and linguistic differences, the literature revealed several common themes in several Middle Eastern and North African countries. For instance, the legacy of European colonial education systems endures, and these were the basis of formal educational systems throughout a large part of the 20th century (Zia, 2007). Subsequent reforms have often meant that colonial influence made way to other forms of political influence, which manifests itself in the form of NGOs and governmental political interests that drive educational policies. As such, reforms have often been perceived by instructors and by students as being heavily top-down and politically motivated (Karami Akkari, 2014).

What Curriculum Do Students Follow?

According to one major analysis, the curriculum in the Middle East and North Africa is similar to that in the Western world (Benavot & Amadio, 2004, as cited by Zia, 2007).

However, there are some exceptions in the treatment of certain subjects. First among these is religious and moral education. In contrast to Western approaches, which study religion from a distance, instruction is seen as something that is done “for and through religion;” as part of religious duty and activities (Zia, 2007, p. 120).

A second point of notable divergence is in the treatment of the humanities (Dallal, 2017). Even when a canon of Western literature is the subject of study, these texts are studied out of context, without ties to local contexts and understood and interpreted differently than in Western contexts.

What Teaching Methods Are Common in Students’ Preparation?

Although reforms have encouraged new approaches to teaching, traditional methods still prevail. For example, memorization practices are ancient and highly prized in the region, and relate to Quranic memorization practices (Mazawi, 2008). Many instructors are not enthusiastic about reforms, and do not necessarily adapt to them willingly.

Students might also have different experiences with classroom discussions. Certain aspects of critical inquiry as it is understood in the West are discouraged, especially as it relates to religious material (Dallal, 2017). For example, it is not necessarily encouraged to challenge the teacher or to challenge the point of view being presented in the classroom, especially when that point of view is seen as political (Mazawi, 2008).

Latin America

This section describes the background of the educational system, the curriculum and the teaching methods that are described in the literature about Latin America.

Background

Latin America is a region with a high degree of social and economic inequality, which is a theme in the political life of the region. This inequality has been a primary target of educational reform in many cases (De Ibarrola, 2007; Vasquez-Martinez et al., 2018).

Different countries implemented strategies to increase access to secondary and higher education in the 20th century and now. However, these goals have to be balanced with the economic realities of the families and the country as a whole. For example, in Brazil, the push to increase access to secondary education had to include the provision of night classes, to accommodate families who need their children to work by the age of 12 (de Arruda Raposo et al., 2023; De Ibarrola, 2007).

When it comes to higher education, many countries do not have the resources to expand their infrastructure and networks. As such, they might heavily rely on economic partnerships, such as those codified through the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) (Altbach & Knight, 2007). That means many foreign universities operate branches in Latin American countries. These institutions typically serve a higher economic stratum of the population.

What Curriculum Do Students Follow?

A major analysis suggests that science and math curricula are largely aligned with those in the rest of the world (Soysal & Wong, 2007). The literature is less clear about the approaches to teaching the humanities and language. However, considerable regional differences exist within and among Latin American countries, depending on whether students come from more affluent cities or regions with less access to high quality teachers and technology, meaning that the extent to which they fully benefit from these curricula varies.

What Teaching Methods Are Common in Students’ Preparation?

Like other countries, Latin American countries have experienced the top-down influence of many globalized NGOs such as the World Bank on curriculum and teaching methods (De Ibarrola, 2007). The success of the reforms to teaching methods is difficult to evaluate. One of the reasons for this is that teacher contract issues affect the implementation of the student-centered teaching methods that are the focus of reforms. These contract issues present roadblocks at the level of the institution that can affect how reforms are implemented (known as “institutional inertia”). For example, if reforms require teachers to spend more time in course preparation to generate student-centered lessons and this time is not remunerated, the extra work may not get done and traditional approaches to teaching persist (De Ibarrola, 2007).

Answering the Research Questions

In this section we synthesize the results just presented. Are there commonalities in the curriculum and the teaching methods that transnational students from these regions have experienced?

What Curriculum Did Students Follow?

Seen broadly, the findings confirm the observations of other scholars (Meyer et al., 2017) regarding a continued effort throughout the regions studied to converge the curricula across the world. However, as these scholars have noted, curricular convergence has been uneven across disciplines. In mathematics and in the sciences, a degree of consistency exists in what is taught to students, at least in terms of what the intended curriculum prescribes, regardless of region (Soysal & Wong, 2007). But the curricula in social sciences and the humanities tell a different story (De Ibarrola, 2007; Wang, 2014; Zia, 2007). This is perhaps not surprising, as these disciplines are culture-dependent: the material of the social sciences and humanities is related to the social context, geography and history of a particular region (Dallal, 2017) and as such, it is more challenging to present the same material or to have that material understood in the same or similar ways across cultures. The next section expands on the challenges relating to expectations in terms of classroom dynamics and how these subjects are taught.

The literature also identifies the challenges involved in implementing novel curricular approaches. One such challenge is the uneven distribution of human and technical resources (Carnoy & Dossani, 2013; De Ibarrola, 2007; Karami Akkari, 2014; Mazawi, 2008; Pilz et al., 2016; Soysal & Wong, 2007; You, 2019). These resources include the availability of enough instructors to meet mandated student-instructor ratios; instructors’ qualifications for teaching the prescribed curriculum; and the availability of physical resources including space, high-speed internet, computers and tablets to meet curriculum mandates, and of financial resources to such infrastructure and related operating costs. The differential availability of resources translates into differential ability to implement curricular reforms within communities, countries, and regions.

Another challenge in implementing prescribed curricula is that teachers may be trained as teachers rather than as subject-matter experts (De Ibarrola, 2007; Pilz et al., 2016). Their licenses may be broad enough that regardless of their own expertise, preferences and subject affinities, they may be teaching subjects that they are not really trained to teach. For example, a kindergarten teacher may get assigned to teach high school math, to make up for a shortfall of qualified math teachers.

As a result of challenges like these in the regions studied, considerable variability exists in the experiences of students from major cities and those from more rural areas (Pilz et al., 2016). Students from economic and social capitals often have access to highly qualified instructors, technology, and other learning resources often unavailable to students from more rural and remote regions (Carnoy & Dossani, 2013; Khare, 2014). For example, in communities with limited internet access for computers and other large devices, students primarily connect to the internet technologies through a smart phone rather than a laptop and might have to complete assignments on mobile devices.

What Teaching Methods Are Common in Students’ Preparation?

Large scale reforms have also targeted teaching methods. In most regions, traditional teaching methods have been instructor centered. While in the English-speaking world, the tradition of instructor-centered teaching has been shifting, sometimes slowly and sometimes rapidly over the past several decades and as a result of teacher initiative, the shift in many of regions is a result of top-down reform with less organic, bottom-up evolution (De Ibarrola, 2007; Mazawi, 2008; Yin, 2013).

This can pose a challenge to transnational students studying, for whom student-centered teaching involves an adjustment. For example, traditional instructor-centered methods, especially in certain regions where teachers are given a lot of authority over students, can often encourage mimicry and repeating a teacher’s words verbatim as a sign of respect (Marginson, 2011; Pilz et al., 2016; Yin, 2013; Zia, 2007). By contrast, student-centered teaching is meant to allow students to become more engaged in their own learning and to lead to a higher internalization of the material mastered. As such, in cultures where student-centered methods have been common for a long period of time, mimicry is more likely to be viewed as plagiarism and copying. Rather than respectful, such practices are seen as reprehensible and subject to academic sanctions.

The gap between prescribed and actual teaching methods is characterized as “institutional inertia” (De Ibarrola, 2007). Institutional inertia accounts for the many factors that create resistance to change in the regions studied. For instance, if instructors are required to spend more time preparing classroom discussions and problem-solving activities, and initial attempts at implementing these are unsuccessful, instructors may simply revert to established modes of teaching. But the problem goes beyond individual instructors: it often emerges from educational institutions. For example, student ratios matter. When a teacher has 50 to 70 students to teach, expecting student-centered teaching approaches is not realistic. Also, instructors who are not supported by their institutions in transforming instructor-centered materials into student-centered ones, much less not compensated for the extra work, do not implement these changes (De Ibarrola, 2007).

Beyond institutional inertia, underlying political tensions complicate certain approaches to teaching. Traditions of diatribe stretch back into Western history and are, to some extent, regulated by these traditions (Dallal, 2017). Students develop a sense of how to critique a text, for example, by watching different instructors and peers engage in this process during classroom discussion. This enables the classroom experience to set expectations and boundaries for these discussions. Research suggests that a dynamic around class participation exists even in English-speaking countries, where students might feel uncomfortable challenging their professors’ points of view (see Roehling et al., 2011). So, it is not surprising that instructors in regions that do not have traditions of student-centered teaching or may be uncomfortable with certain theoretical lenses will not create a classroom experience where students gain experience challenging ideas (Dallal, 2017; Mazawi, 2008; Yin, 2013). In other words, classroom norms for participating in activities vary across and even within cultures.

Conclusions, Limitations, and Suggestions for Future Research

The survey of curricula in the different regions presented above suggests that, despite efforts to converge curricula and teaching methods internationally, these efforts may be more successful on paper than in the classroom and work more effectively in certain fields like math and science and less effectively in fields associated with local culture, traditions, and political systems. The result is a richness and diversity of subject-matter knowledge and educational values and experiences that transnational students bring to their studies.

Implications for Instructors

This section describes the implications of our study to instructors in higher education and to broader theory and research on teaching in higher education.

Students’ prior subject-matter knowledge and educational expectations could substantially differ from instructors’ assumptions. That creates an imperative forinstructors to validate the entering knowledge and expectations of students to tailor the instructional experience to students’ actual knowledge and experience and identify students who might need to access institutional support services.

Implications to Designing and Teaching Courses

When designing higher education courses for students that might include transnational ones, instructors should address two fundamental issues: clarify whom the students are and verify assumptions about their prior subject-matter knowledge and expectations around teaching. By clarifying which students are taking their courses, instructors can begin to target material to the interests and prior knowledge of those students and adopt presentation strategies that recognize students’ experiences with teaching.

An awareness of their prior preparation in students’ home countries would help instructors determine where the course should begin and how to connect prior knowledge with the planned material for the course.

Depending on the province, students who completed secondary education in Canada might have completed provincial exams that assess learning in various subjects. Transnational students who completed secondary education elsewhere will not have completed such exams. Furthermore, most colleges and universities in Canada do not use standardized tests like the SAT or ACT for admissions, removing another source of assessing student prior knowledge. Instructors must therefore assess the prior knowledge of their transnational students.

That is admittedly a tricky proposition. Because anything instructors learn about student prior knowledge from this paper and similar literature reviews is necessarily broad (and as noted several times already, prior knowledge in any subject is likely to vary widely in any of the four regions studied), instructors need to specifically assess the entering knowledge and skills of the actual students in their classes.

Formal pre-tests certainly offer one option. One challenge is that instructors need to assess all students if, for no other reason, than to avoid calling out transnational students. Another challenge with pre-tests is that they only assess knowledge that instructors are aware of. It is important for instructors to be open to an ongoing conversation with students that provides insights into prior subject-matter knowledge that might go beyond the instructors’ awareness. Instructors can also use other means of identifying prior knowledge such as student self-assessments and activities that require students to use assumed prior knowledge. After assessing prior knowledge, instructors also need a plan to address students who enter without assumed knowledge and skills, those who far exceed it, and how all of this links to the objectives of the course.

Implications for Supporting Students

Support services can promote student persistence (Holmes, 2021). Higher education institutions offer several types of support services. Academic services assist students with language, writing, math, and research skills, as well as learning disabilities. Psychosocial services support students by addressing their mental and physical well-being. Co-curricular programs develop job-related skills often not addressed in the classroom. Extra-curricular programs provide students with social, cultural, professional, and academic connections. And most immediate to students who pay international tuition, international student services assist students with their visas, integration, and other aspects of studying abroad and adjusting to the local context.

Through mentions in class and individual referrals, instructors are an important point of contact for students in accessing those services. To be an effective point of contact, instructors must be familiar with the available services and have the ability to connect individual students to the services that might address their particular needs.

Implications to Research and Theory

This study suggests three implications to research and theory. The first is definitional. Because the term international students technically limits the discussion to those paying international tuition, a broader concept that acknowledges that some students paying other tuition rates but who received the prior educations outside of the country is needed: hence, transnational students. Given the large rise in migration during the past decade and with several immigrants choosing to wait until they have residency or citizenship before continuing their educations, the distinction between international and transnational students becomes increasingly imortant.

The second implication to research and theory is that a new frame is needed to orient the research on transnational students. To support students in their educational journeys in a new country, instructors need an awareness of students’ prior subject-matter knowledge and which teaching methods they were exposed to. This should be an important lens in the study of the internationalization of higher education.

The third implication is related to the second. The literature on active learning processes, such as class discussions and discovery learning activities, suggests that transnational students are often reticent to participate in class. Some scholars have suggested that this may be due generational effects (Roehling et al., 2011) or to the need to model class discussions so that students better understand the expectations of their professors (Bruss, 2009). But other scholars have noted that cultural differences between students and instructors can complicate participatory teaching (Predmore et al., 2017). This research does not directly address the question of the link between students’ prior subject-matter knowledge in a class and with participatory teaching methods. The current study suggests that if a large proportion of the class is transnational, then it might be necessary to adapt participatory teaching techniques that reflect the prior experiences and expectations of transnational students in the classroom. Thus, research on teaching and learning must consider students’ subject-matter knowledge and prior experience with active learning.

Limitations

Most studies are limited by the time and place in which they are designed and written. Studies, like this one, that focus on regional and cultural differences in political and educational philosophies, especially so. Another generation may find the movement of people and international students flows from West to East. Changes to the global political organization will affect future reforms. We hope, however, that this study stands as an attempt at understanding how students’ prior educations in one geographic and cultural context shapes their expectations in another geographical and cultural context.

Another limitation concerns the literature on comparative education. This body of work is not focused on teaching and learning issues. As mentioned above, many reforms have been top-down. The literature reflects the broader viewpoint of the macro-level forces operating on educational systems, rather than studies performed in classrooms and school systems observing what and how students are taught. When such studies are performed, they are not necessarily written with the broader policy context in mind (such as, Bruss, 2009) and therefore, were not part of this study.

We also note that teaching and learning issues are often only raised in the comparative education literature to the extent that they are part of the reform process. A corollary to this is that the literatures on the different regions explored in this paper are not parallel. Given the varied histories of their educational systems, and the different challenges that they face, they do not always emphasize the same points of interest.

As authors, we were on the “outside looking in” at the literature on the different regions. The study is also limited by the fact that the literature we examined was in English. Doubtless we would have learned more had we been able to examine publications in the regional languages.

Another important limitation is that, while North America and most Western countries have large numbers of transnational students, this study only focused on four regions and treated these regions broadly, even though each region is comprised many countries or provinces, each of which have their own cultures and policy priorities.

Suggestions for Future Research

We have several suggestions for future research. First, similar studies can be performed on other regions’ general educational systems. These studies can focus on the questions of what students from these regions are learning (subject-matter knowledge) and the teaching methods they exposed to.

Research can be performed with university instructors to determine which adaptations they make (if any) when teaching transnational students. What are instructors doing to validate and address the prior knowledge of their students? How do they react or adapt their teaching or materials when they notice differences between their expectations and the realities of their students? Design-based research can also be performed to design and develop tools or training that would support instructors in better anticipating the prior knowledge and learning experiences of their students.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study was supported by funding from Entente Canada-Québec.

ORCID iD

Saul Carliner

Author Biographies

Nadine Bekkouche, PhD, is an Instructional Designer and Educational Systems Researcher at the Université de Montreal. She holds a PhD in Education from Concordia University.

Saul Carliner, PhD, CTDP is a Professor of Education at Concordia University in Montreal. He is a Fellow of the Institute for Performance and Learning.

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