The expectancy and value of international education among Vietnamese doctoral students in Malaysia

Abstract

As an emerging study destination for international students, Malaysia contributes to the changes in student mobilities from the traditional South-North to the South-South direction. However, research on doctoral students’ expectancy and values for their international education in Malaysia, as well as the factors that have changed the international student geographies in the global South, including recent student flows from Vietnam, receives scant attention. By using in-depth interviews situated in the expectancy-value theory and thematic analysis, this study explores the expectancy of international education among 22 Vietnamese doctoral students studying at Malaysian universities. The data analysis reveals that the social construction of these international doctoral students’ expectancy for international quality and experiences stems from their embeddedness in interrelated personal, social, and academic domains. The intrinsic, utility, and attainment values expressed in their expectancy enable them to confront challenges to meet their quest for this quality by utilizing their academic abilities and transnational relationships. The paradox in foreign students’ perceptions and experiences of international quality makes Malaysia a study destination in-betweenness, which manifests a bargaining power relation between rankings and costs and materializes transnational mobilities within the South-South direction through their encounters with others. Their international education is socially consumed and shared.

Keywords

• Expectancy-value theory
• international quality
• international student mobility
• Malaysian international education
• Vietnamese doctoral students
• transnational mobilities