DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION OF STUDENT ACCOMMODATION

Design and Construction of Student Accommodation

Table of Content

Chapter One: Introduction4

Background of the Study4

Physical Accommodations8

For Learning8

For Access9

Universal Design10

Chapter Two: Literature Review12

Overview12

Access to Educational Opportunity12

Characteristics of Test Accommodations14

Psychometric Issues and Accommodations15

Comparability Studies18

Chapter Three: Methodology22

Methodology22

Data Collection Techniques24

Chapter Four: Presentation of Data25

Identifying Current Student Accommodation Design and Standardisation25

Figure 1: University of Exeter Student Accommodation26

Source: Hogg 2009.26

Figure 2: Woolverhampton Student Halls with Modular Construction27

Source: WorldArchitectureNews.com 2009.27

Figure 3: Wembley Student Housing28

Source: WorldArchitectureNews.com 2009a.29

Interpreting Recent Changes in Awareness and Management of Student Accommodation29

Chapter Five: Interpretation of Findings32

Chapter Six: Conclusions and Recommendations34

Conclusions and Recommendations34

Improvements to the Study36

Future Research37

References38

Chapter One: Introduction

Background of the Study

Spurling (2006) asserted that much of the research on the experiences of international students is situated in assimilation theories. Nonetheless, assimilation theories have come under intense criticism in recent decades (Alba & Nee, 1997). In general, traditional assimilation theorists espoused explanations about the sociology of immigrating people as they accepted or failed to accept the languages, cultures, and practices of their new country (Gordon, 1964). Typically, the process of assimilating into a new environment was that of a minority group's acceptance of the majority group's dominant culture (Gordon, 1964). In Gordon's (1964) view, this was inevitable. Gordon's conceptions of assimilation have been mostly from a view of understanding the American experience with “change on the part of an ethnic group in the direction of the hegemonic middle-class Euro American culture” (Alba & Nee, 1997, p. 833). Scholars (e.g., Glazer, 1993) have critiqued assimilation “as a worn-out theory which imposes ethnocentric and patronizing demands on minority peoples struggling to retain their cultural and ethnic integrity” (Alba & Nee, 1997, p. 827). Speaking to this, Alba and Nee (1997) prompted researchers to rethink assimilation theory for a new era of immigration. They proposed:

In the most general terms, assimilation can be defined as the decline, and at its endpoint the disappearance, of an ethnic/racial distinction and the cultural and social differences that express it. This definition does not assume that one of these groups must be the ethnic majority; assimilation can involve minority groups only, in which case the ethnic boundary between the majority and the merged minority groups presumably remains intact. (Alba & Nee, 1997, p. 863)

Notwithstanding Alba and Nee's definition, there still exist reasons to challenge assimilation theory in the study of international students' matriculation at PWI. The relevancy of assimilation theory must be questioned. Traditionally one-sided conceptions of assimilation, espoused as ethnic minority groups' changing in the direction of the hegemonic Euro American culture, are no longer acceptable (Alba & Nee, 1997). Further contrary to Gordon's (1964) argument assimilation is not an inevitable process (Spurling, 2006). Moreover, the process of assimilation suggests a permanent end sought (e.g., citizenship) on behalf of those who migrate from one place to another, which is not consistent with a more temporary status typifying international students' sojourn experiences. Arguably, not only are today's international students transformed by entering college but also they transform the college environment itself (Dey & Hurtado, ...