International Student Accommodation Services When Studying Overseas Education Essay

The increasing a number of those students whose are studying abroad to gain a better education. Basically, the students are unfamiliar with their new environment. Students are used to be more rely with the overseas education agent service centre that are managing those international students in form of school placements and accommodations services while they are studying overseas so they can gain the information in detail regarding to that country they are going to.

In form of the accommodation, those international students are tending to find the accommodation according to their accessibility, comfortable regarding their individual needs. The information’s that the students most likely to find out are regarding to the facilities, environment of the resident, and the guardian attitudes. The purpose of this research is to investigate an understanding of the overseas accommodation services standard and the quality on managing the students. Through this research paper, the researcher can gain more information in depth on overseas accommodation services to improve the quality of the services to provide the student’s good home stay.

In the other hand, those overseas agents are expected to taking a good care of those students who are under take by their accommodation sector. The accommodation/ hostel are granted a guardianship services to those students to control and monitoring them. The guardians have a responsibility to concern into those students well being and academic progress to lead them and to encourage them on those students’ studies.

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Literature Review

As the increase the number of international students, some of the major changes in the program that impacted on the standard and quality services of the accommodation for students. According to Richardson,K. (2003), the language of the communication may cause some effect and the difficulties of the student to communicate to each other due the cultural differentiations. The accommodation provider has to concern more in depth about the quality of the accommodation and care services that provided to their students. Furthermore, overall the level of the accommodation satisfaction is decreases as it increases their cost (Sauer, S., CreationWorks Director and Brian Robb., and AFS NZ National Director., 2006) and offering wide-ranging of living standards for student’s accommodation. Moreover, the accommodation provider lowers their standard requirements to gain adequate homes to provide the essential accommodation needs of the home stay. A number of the young students are requiring the adult/ guardian to taking care of them (Richardson,K., 2004) while they are studying abroad. The students are most likely to choose to live close to their institution for their own convenience and safety due they are unfamiliar with the information regarding the surrounding suburbs and transportation options (Smith, S., 2007).

Furthermore, according to Smith, S. (2007), the management of the accommodation facilities regarding the distance between the accommodation and their institute are not monitored well by the agent. Most likely the problems that those students are facing currently is regarding to the cultural problems, cuisine, and the suitability and the sufficient living environment. Moreover, the accommodation provider are insufficient provide the services which are expected by those students (Richardson, K., 2004) so it may cause the decreases of the satisfaction level. The less communication between the providers and the students cause the problems within the home stay services as well. The communication between the providers and the students is the most important key to improve the satisfaction level of the services on the accommodation.

Brown, G. and Lin, Tzu-Ching. (2010) stated that gaining income was not as important as a desire to offer the student and to assist the student with their educational development. The study increases understanding of the complex relationship that emerges during extended service encounters. Most important in the context of educational home stay although the way they are operationalized reflected the distinctive characteristics of the service setting. The findings are of direct relevance to a service centred approach to marketing in which relationships. The process for students begins in their home country, usually by referral from an education agent. It is also becoming increasingly common for students to request a home stay as compared to hostels. Communication between the home stay provider and the student is perceived as one of the most important aspects of the home stay experience. The major concern expressed by accommodation providers was communication difficulties because of language barriers between the students and the hosts.

Research Design

According to Copper,Donald R. and Schindler,Pamela S., (1998), Research design is the plan and structure that investigate and to obtain the result to research questions and it also express the issues of the research and basically it can be used to obtain the evidence of the problem in the research paper. The researcher has conducted a schedule of the research proposal. The effectiveness of this approach is to assist the researcher to control and manage the finding progress to complete the research report punctually.

Schedules of the research proposal.

The table has shown below is the planning of the researcher by conducting the time table to manage the researcher’s research paper in order to show the sequences of the efficiency of the finding progress.

Date

Detail

20th December 2010

Registration and discussion of the research report topic with the instructor.

21st December 2010 – 22nd December 2010

Researching information regarding the research proposal topic.

23rd December 2010

Designing and investigate the questions of the survey.

30th December 2010

1st draft check with the instructor regarding the questionnaire survey.

31st December 2010 – 2nd January 2011

Preparing the research proposal and modifying the questionnaire survey paper.

3rd January 2011

2nd draft check and confirmation with the instructor regarding the format of the questionnaire survey

4th January 2011

Sending out the survey papers to the respondent.

5th January 2011

Collecting back the survey papers from the respondents.

6th January 2011

Analyzing the survey papers.

7th January 2011 – 9th January 2011

Preparing and modifying the research report.

10th January 2011

Final draft check with the instructor regarding the entire research proposal.

11st January 2011- 13rd January 2011

Modifying the entire research proposal.

14th January 2011

Submission date of the research proposal.

Figure 1: Schedule of the research proposal.

Research Method

The researcher is using the quantitative research method to conduct this research paper which is conducting a questionnaire survey it always involves the numerical on the analysis data section (Johnson, P. and Harries, D., 2002). The questionnaire survey was used to investigate the quality and the standard of the services. The focus group was conducted to gain information into the issues which are concerned about the accommodation services. The researcher is doing the survey to improve the quality and the standard of the international student’s accommodation services by conducting the literature review section which is to study in more detail regarding this topic issues.

The researcher conducting the questioning section it is because by using the questioning section is much more efficient but there are a weakness on the questioning section regarding the quality and quantity of the information are depends on the respondent’s ability and the willingness to participate the questioning survey (Copper,Donald R. and Schindler,Pamela S., 1998). The researcher conducting the questioning survey in the network home stays of the international to get all the outcomes. Those information have been collected can be carried out the trusted outcome in the end of the research.

Sampling

Sampling has define as the population that can draw a conclusion of the entire research paper topic focus area by using measurement through selecting some of the elements outcomes (Copper,Donald R. and Schindler,Pamela S., 1998). The researcher is using the single stage procedure of the sampling which by the researcher has access to the population and able to sample the respondents directly (Creswell, John W., 1994). The researcher is using the rating scale to measure the outcome of the survey and it provide an opportunity on extraction variance in the measurement (Copper,Donald R. and Schindler,Pamela S., 1998). The researcher conducted a survey and the target network is those students who are staying in the hostel to gain the information in furthermore and provide a valid and reliable outcomes. The sampling of this research paper is concern about the international student’s accommodation and definitely the researcher more target those students who studying overseas and staying in the hostel to participate on the survey to result the valid and reliable outcomes.

Limitation of data

The researcher has a good understanding regarding to this topic focus area and conducting a survey to gain the best results of the questions that has been asked by the researcher to write a research proposal and more focus on the main issue of the topic. The researcher facing some problem while conducting the research paper because of the limitation of the time to do the finding more in depth. Obviously, in this limitation of time it may cause the researcher may not be able to get good responses from the respondents regarding the questionnaire paper so probably the researcher is facing the difficulties to conduct the researcher because of the limitation of the data. Therefore, the researcher has to more concern about the understanding of the respondents regarding the survey questions and makes it easier for the researcher to get a better result on researcher’s finding.

Design of Questionnaire

According to Johnson, P. and Harries, D. (2002), the researcher conducting the questionnaire survey paper have consider the respondents abilities and information level to answers of the questions which are conducted by the researcher so the respondents able to answer the questionnaire adequately and participate the survey and able to give such a helpful answers to help the researcher to conduct the research paper.

In the other hand, the questionnaire that conducted by the researcher are more concern about the students accommodation accessibility, accommodation facilities and the guardianship of the students. The purposes of the questions which are conducted by the researcher in term of the accessibility to measure how good and important are the accommodation location according to those students who are staying in the hostel.

In term of accommodations facilities, the purpose of the researcher is focus on this area is to measure how good the quality of the facilities of the accommodation is. To gain the feedback from the respondents so that the agents could able provide a better facilities and to improve the usability of the facilities that the agent should provide for the students. To satisfy the students individual needs and make the students feel more comfortable of the accommodations facilities that have provided.

In term of the guardianship, the purpose of the researcher finding is to investigate how well is the guardian attitude while they are responsible on taking care of those students who are staying on the accommodations. The researcher conduct the questions focus on the communication between the students and the guardian, how well the guardian concern and monitoring their students personal well being and their academic progress and able to clarify any doubt that the students facing on.

After all the questionnaire survey has been done by the researcher, the researcher has conducted the rating scale to evaluate the outcome of the survey so that the researcher could able to measure the quality and standard of the services in furthermore. Moreover, through this research paper the researcher could able to give a recommendation to improve the level of the satisfaction of the students regarding to the homes stay quality and makes the accommodation more comfortable for those who are staying.

Data Analysis

Based on the research survey, numbers of volunteer totally 20 people. Among the 20 people 8 of them are male and the rest 12 of the people are female. The level of accommodation comforts to those international students is basically involved how accessible is the place and as well as security level. Accessible level of the accommodation is often considered by those students when they are finding the accommodation which is involved them convenient on their transportation, easy for getting daily stuff, and easy access facility around the area.

The level of comfort and accessibility

Figure 2 Measurement the level of the accommodation consideration

From the data gathered, it seems that most students prefer comfort over accessibility. Statistics show that 60% would rather have comfort within their accommodation location, rather than it being accessible.

Age

Figure 3 Comparison of age between female and male students

The above chart depicts the age group of my respondents. The chart shows that most of my respondents are females between the age of 15 to 25 years old.

The quality of guardianship

Figure 4 Measurement of the level of services and communication

Most students feel that the language barrier is not as difficult to overcome as compared to having a guardian who does not fulfil his or her responsibilities well. The students would appreciate if the guardian would constantly check in on their well-being and academic progress.

Conclusion and Recommendations

As a conclusion of this research report, the standard and the quality of accommodation services that provided by the agents are often unreliable. Nowadays, the agents tend to lower the quality and standard of the home stay and thus provide a low quality home stay service without much consideration towards international students.

The outcome of the researcher’s finding based on the students age, shows that 90 % of the students who are staying in hostel are in between 15 – 25 years old. These students who reside in hostel would much prefer home stay accommodation as compared to staying in a hostel, as they feel that home stay provides a more comfortable atmosphere for them and they are willing to forgo convenience in terms of accessibility of location, just for comfort’s sake.

To provide the comfortable accommodation for students, the provider has to consider the four main points which contributes directly to the comfort level in order to fulfil the student’s individual needs. The accessibility level of the accommodation is also considered important to the students but as mentioned, comfort is more important.

Moreover, the level of the guardianship in form of the guardian’s responsibility on monitoring, encourage, concern about their students’ needs and communicate well to understand those students’ needs is to improve their quality on providing the services and the standard of accommodation living.