See, these big potatoes they all think this way: International students' experiences in constructing knowledge in higher education

Various studies explore the difficulties international students encounter in Australian higher education. Relatively little research has however focused on the challenges arising from the students' negotiation of different ways of constructing knowledge in doing specific tasks for their course and compare their perceptions with the academic staff's expectations. Drawing on an interdisciplinary framework for discourse analysis which I have developed based on Lillis' (2001) heuristic for exploring student writing and positioning theory (Harré & van Langenhove, 1999), this study examines international students' experiences to construct knowledge in their first texts at an Australian University and the lecturers' views on this aspect. This paper argues that the students' understandings of the possibilities to incorporate their previous working experiences embedded in their home countries in constructing knowledge in Australian higher education and the academic staff's expectations appear to be dissimilar. These mismatches may disadvantage the students in their attempts to take control of their academic life. The discussion indicates that in order to make the curriculum accessible to the increasing diverse student population, there seems to be a need to demystify the opportunities and the relevant ways for students to articulate and reflect different dimensions of knowledge, including international students' past working experiences, into pedagogical practices in specific disciplines.