Typology of concepts studying domestic student mobility

• In Event: Examining the effects of student learning and mobility

Proposal

Student mobility is an important characteristic of the contemporary higher education scene. It takes place internationally as short-term student exchange between universities in different countries. There are over 4 million international students who seek full higher education degree outside their country od residence (OECD, 2017). Naturally, student movement is not only an international phenomenon. It takes place also nationally, within local higher education systems where students move without crossing the borders of their country.
While there is large and growing body of research on international student mobility, research on student mobility within national higher education systems appears to come mostly from North America, at least in sources available in English language. Also, while research literature on international student mobility appears to have reached consensus about how to call and measure the phenomenon, reaching a great degree of consistency in terms of definitions used, then research which focuses on domestic or national student mobility presents a greater variety of key-words to just describe this phenomenon. For example, research on international student mobility by now largely agrees that international students are those who go abroad with the intention to acquire higher education. Such consensus it seems has been reached thanks to the unintended yet coordinator role of international organizations such as OECD and UNESCO, which also work in this area of studies (Verbik & Lasanovski, 2007). In research on domestic student mobility this consistency is lacking and terms used vary from one education system context to the next. It is understandable since each country has its own set of terms established and derived from legislation which governs the given education system. Although this terminology in the European context might be slowly converging due to the coordinating effect of the European Higher Education Area, there is not such solid body of research using identical terms to describe the phenomenon as in the US context, for example. And understandably so because higher education systems in the European countries still maintain their rather specific differences.
The purpose of the present paper is following. First, this paper will provide a review of the terms used in research published in English language to describe the phenomenon of domestic student mobility. Second, it will describe what phenomenon each of these terms associate with and what they measure. Third, it will develop a typology of these terms and apply them to better understand the evidence on domestic student mobility in a specific country context. In this case it will be Kazakhstan.
Kazakhstan is the ninth largest country on the globe in terms of the territory. It has young and growing population due to high birthrate in recent years. The country is strategically investing in priority areas for development (Aitzhanova, Katsu, Linn & Yezhov, 2014). Human development is placed in the center of this country’s strategic development approach and education is one of the main areas for human capital building. Domestic higher education student mobility in Kazakhstan is recognized as one of the levers to achieve some of the strategic development goals.
This paper will provide information about the framework for domestic student mobility in Kazakhstan. Then, as mentioned, it will proceed with analysis of the evidence available on domestic student mobility in Kazakhstan.
There are different models of domestic student mobility identified in research. These include lateral transfer, reverse transfer, concurrent enrollment multi-institutional attendance, credit transfer (Gross & Berry, 2016). Terms such as vertical mobility and horizontal mobility are used to describe international student movement (Teichler, 2017). However, as concepts they can also be applied to study and better understand the dynamics of the domestic movement of students. This paper will apply the aforementioned concepts to the analysis of the evidence which exists on domestic student mobility in Kazakhstan in order to understand how the existing evidence on student mobility in Kazakhstan captures the dynamics of this phenomenon. This will allow identifying what we do know about the actual student mobility in Kazakhstan and what, perhaps, remains unrecorded.
Thus, the proposed paper will attempt to achieve the following two goals. First, it will attempt to develop a classification of concepts used in Anglophone research to identify domestic higher education student mobility. Second, it will apply these concepts to examine evidence available on domestic student mobility in Kazakhstan. In this way the paper will contribute to systematizing scholarly knowledge about domestic student mobility research characteristics and also it will advance the understanding of domestic student mobility evidence in the country with the largest gross higher education enrollment Central Asia (World Bank, 2018).
This paper proposal is developed as part of Nazarbayev University Graduate School of Education research project Methodology of financing higher education in Kazakhstan as condition for the development of internal student mobility and sustainability of institutional budget financed by the Ministry of Education and Science, Republic of Kazakhstan, grant number AP05136037/ГФ.

References
Aitzhanova, A., Katsu, S., Linn, J., & Yezhov, V. (Eds.) (2014). Kazakhstan 2050: Toward a modern society for all. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Gross, J., & Berry, M. (2016). The relationship between state policy levers and student mobility. Research in Higher Education, 57(1), 1 – 27.
OECD (2017). Education at a glance 2017: OECD indicators. Paris: OECD Publishing.
Teichler, U. (2017). Internationalization trends in higher education and the changing role of international student mobility. Journal of International Mobility, 1(5), p. 177-216. DOI 10.3917/jim.005.0179
Verbik, L., & Lasanowski, V. (2007). International student mobility: Patterns and trends. Accessed on February 1, 2014 at http://www .obhe.ac.uk/home
World Bank (2018). School enrollment, tertiary (% gross). Available at https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.TER.ENRR?end=2017&start=2009&view=chart

Authors

• Rita Kasa, Nazarbayev University

• Ali Ait Si Mhamed, Nazarbayev University

• Adil Ashirbekov, Nazarbayev University Graduate School of Education