Engagement and Experiences of International Onshore Postgraduate Coursework Students in Distributed Learning Model

The flexible teaching and learning possibilities associated with the Distributed Learning Model (DLM) have become integral to higher education in Australia. However, the issue of how International Onshore Postgraduate Coursework Students (IOPCS) experience and engage in DLM remains underexplored. This paper responds to this gap and examines the Master of Business-International (MBA-I) program offered by the University of New England Business School (UNEBS) across three different campuses. It adopts a four-tiered student engagement framework and reports on the first phase of the research, in which a focus group discussion (n=1) with six academics and semi-structured interviews with a diverse cohort of IOPCS (n=11) were carried out. The findings highlight that technological barriers, lack of professional development initiatives, and pedagogical limitations have impeded IPOCS experiences and engagement.