The Use of the Methodology for Determining the Levels of Organisational and Structural System in the Study of the Efficiency of Foreign Students' Social and Pedagogical Support (on the Example of the US HEIs)

Abstract

The article examines the problem of foreign students’ social pedagogical support in the context of the effectiveness of preparatory systems in the educational institutions, which determines the relevance of the scientific research – the definition of an effective methodology for analysing the level of structure of the adaptation system of foreign students’ training in the educational institution. Due to the relevance of the research, the purpose of the article is to investigate the system of social and pedagogical support for foreign students in higher education institutions of the United States of America using the method of determining the levels of the organisational and structural system of elements of the acculturation triad. That’s why a method of determining the levels of the organisational and structural system has been proposed, which provides the distribution of the analysed branching program into four levels. In addition, the research required the use of a systematic method (to determine the integrity and structure of the process of socio-pedagogical support), the method of classification (which allowed to distribute the preparatory programs by the elements of the acculturation triad) and the abstraction (aimed at a visual representation of the levels of organisational and structural system). It is emphasised that the support consists of elements of the acculturation triad, such as: educational and cultural, psychological, and linguistic. Each of these elements should be presented as a programme branch, coordinated by the preparatory centres. It was found that the number of levels at which the programmes of the analysed unit or educational institution are presented is directly related to the effectiveness of the process of foreign students’ training. As an example of the analysis with the use of this method, the higher educational institutions representing the United States of America were selected (since this country (according to UNESCO) has the largest number of foreign students). As a result, the following HEIs were selected: University of Texas at Austin, Florida Institute of Technology, Ohio State University, and Yale University. The performed analysis allowed saying that the most branched organisational and structural system is presented (among the selected HEI) in the linguistic orientation of Yale University and is characterised by four levels of program branching. The lowest level (only highest) of branching was found in the educational and cultural direction of the Florida Institute of Technology. The presented methodology can be used in theoretical researches and practical analysis of the effectiveness of adaptation centres for foreign students