ABSTRACT

The gender and ethnicity attainment gap among undergraduate students in UK higher education is well documented. However, there is very little research examining the international attainment gap despite many universities acknowledging that international students achieve lower grades than home students. Furthermore, evidence for international postgraduate students is almost missing from the literature. This study analysed data on 705 students registered on an online distance learning (ODL) postgraduate programme to explore demographic characteristics and educational experience in relation to grade point average (GPA). The research shows that the strongest predictor of student outcome on this Master’s programme was ethnicity and while there was an additional effect of region of birth, classifying students on the basis of ‘home’ or ‘international’, is seriously misleading when examining student performance, at least for this postgraduate programme. Postgraduate ODL programmes in the United Kingdom may need to develop additional support to enable particular groups of learners, including international black and ethnic minority (BAME) students to get the most out of their learning experience.

摘要

英国高等教育本科生之间的性别和种族成就差距有据可查。然而，尽管许多大学承认国际学生的成绩低于本国学生，但很少有研究检查国际成绩差距。此外，文献中几乎没有关于国际研究生的证据。本研究分析了注册在线远程学习 (ODL) 研究生课程的 705 名学生的数据，以探索与平均绩点 (GPA) 相关的人口特征和教育经历。研究表明，这个硕士课程的学生成绩的最强预测因素是种族，虽然出生地区有额外的影响，但根据“家庭”或“国际”对学生进行分类，在检查学生表现时严重误导，至少对于这个研究生课程。英国的研究生 ODL 课程可能需要开发额外的支持，以使特定的学习者群体（包括国际黑人和少数民族 (BAME) 学生）能够充分利用他们的学习经验。