International students describe uneven transitions into university digital systems

Updated Sep 07, 2026

Updated, 7 September 2026: We checked the complete article and clarified that these were one-off retrospective interviews. The paper describes an iterative transition, not a longitudinal test of a fixed sequence or an intervention’s effectiveness.

What the study examined

Rahmat Fadhli, Shanton Chang and Antonette Mendoza interviewed 51 international students undertaking full degrees in Indonesia. Participants had arrived within the previous year and reflected on their initial digital experiences, particularly the first six months.

Interviews took place from August to October 2024. Recruitment used university channels and snowball sampling across several cities. The sample was geographically uneven, with 30 participants based in Yogyakarta. Interviews were conducted in English or Indonesian, in person or by Zoom.

The authors organise their interpretation into six themes: digital shock, transition, engagement and disengagement, outcomes, enablers and barriers. Participants describe unfamiliar systems, language and usability difficulties, information overload, access constraints and the help they sought from peers or university support.

These experiences did not form a simple progression. Students could adapt to one system while encountering a new difficulty elsewhere. Some valued digital access while finding aspects of it confusing or burdensome. The analysis treats transition as iterative and dependent on circumstances.

What the findings can and cannot show

The interviews provide accounts of experience and perceived support. They do not measure the causal effect of a particular support service or establish that the same process applies in every country. The researchers did not repeatedly observe the same students over time or include staff and system developers’ perspectives.

The paper discusses contextual and sampling limits and the researchers’ position in interpreting the accounts. Variation within this sample is useful for developing questions; it is not a population estimate of how commonly each barrier occurs.

Questions for digital induction teams

Our suggested review is to ask students to describe a recent task: what they were trying to do, which systems were involved, where they became stuck and what helped. A system-access count alone will not capture whether the task was understood or completed.

Distinguish language, device access, navigation, timing and support issues while leaving room for experiences outside those categories. Check whether a proposed fix addresses the problem described. Revisit the task after a change and record whose experience is still missing.

These are our local evaluation suggestions, not a tested support model from the paper. The comment-analysis governance checklist can help plan how accounts are collected and reported. Any claim about improved learning or continuation requires evidence for that outcome beyond the interviews.

Reference

Fadhli, R., Chang, S. and Mendoza, A. (2026). Charting the initial digital journeys of students in a new digital environment: a qualitative study. Higher Education. Published 28 March 2026. Open article.