Article Critique

The qualitative study that I read was "Positive Aspects of International Student Transitions: A Qualitative Inquiry" by Lisa Moores and Natalee Popadiuk (2011).

This article focused on the positive critical incidents reported by seven international students at a Canadian university. The researchers interviewed each student seven times (semi-structured). They used a technique called the Critical Incident Technique (CIT) and combined it with aspects of positive psychology. The authors state that the unique gap that their study fills in the literature is that it focuses on the positive aspects of international students' experiences rather than problematizing them. The researchers categorized the critical incidents reported into eight groups: Growth and/or change, Social support/building relationships with peers, learning to navigate the host culture, enjoyable activities outside of schoolwork, previous experience/preparation, supportive faculty and staff, persevering through hard times, and sense of belonging. The researchers further refined these categories into four themes: connecting with others, maintaining a foundation, embracing the process, and discovering strengths within.

I thought these researchers had an interesting and insightful approach to examining international students' experiences. The focus on the positive aspects of their experience does seem to be a unique approach to gaining understanding and insight. They did a thorough job of describing how they established the credibility of their methods, citing Guba and Lincoln's techniques which they used to test their own methods.

Perhaps because of the page limitations put on a journal article, the authors left me with some questions. For example, the article starts with statistics regarding foreign student populations in the U.S. but this study was conducted in Canada. I didn't figure that out until I was about halfway through the article. I think that authors could have explicitly acknowledged this and reflected on whether or not patterns and experiences for international students vary in Canada as opposed to the U.S. Perhaps they don't vary, but I would have liked some kind of explanation. Qualitative research is about focusing on singularity--not trying to create broad conclusions. The authors could have shed further light on their context by discussing the fact that it was Canadian.

Further, in the introduction, the authors mention, in passing, the applications of their research to college counselors--an application that they expand on in their implications. Since the article was published in the Journal of College Student Development (which is feasibly read by non-counselors), I would have liked some explanation as to how coming from a counseling perspective shaped this study--as opposed to if it had come from some other branch of student services.

Also, just because of my own recent experience in conducting interviews, I would have liked a more in-depth account of the seven interviews--what kind of questions the authors asked and whether they had any difficulties eliciting information (maybe they didn't). It just seems that these kind of interviews would require a certain understanding of researcher expectations (cultural norms) that the international students may not have had. The authors do mention briefly that all interviews were conducted in the students' second language which may have interfered with the material elicited.

Along these lines, the authors also mention that perhaps the students felt constrained by the request for only positive incidents (although some negative incidents were mentioned). I can see how this may have limited the authors' results. I think they could have cast their net wider and collected both positive and negative incidents and then interpreted them through the positive psychology lens, but I'm not sure if that approach would have served their aims. The focus solely on the positive aspects of the students' experiences does seem limiting to me, however. I suppose I just believe that positive incidents inform negative incidents and vice versa. It would have been nice to read a discussion about this at least.