The impact of cross-cultural issues on perceptions of teaching quality: do staff and students agree?

The issue: The aim of this paper is to report on a substantive piece of research conducted with staff and students here at Middlesex University Business School. The focus of this research was to identify and explore the impact of cultural diversity on the quality of teaching and learning as perceived by both our students and our academic colleagues.
The context: We have a high number of overseas students; in 2004 there were 794 undergraduate students and 798 taught postgraduate students from all parts of the world; this amounted to approximately one quarter of the student population. In the light of this increased diversity we felt it was appropriate to take a systematic view of the implications of these changed circumstances on staff and students.
Methodology: Our research project utilised both focus groups for staff and questionnaires for students. 30 staff participated in the former and 953 students responded to the latter, which represents approximately one quarter of each total population. Data from the focus groups was content analysed and the questionnaires have been subject to an exploratory descriptive analysis. The results of the two elements of the study were then compared to see the extent to which they support or contradict each other, and the particular areas where this occurs.