Implementation Dilemmas of Learning Support for International Students: A Multi-Stakeholder Perspective

This qualitative case study examines how academic support for international students at a Korean university is shaped through interactions among multiple stakeholders (students, faculty, and administrative staff) and how the policy-implementation gap is manifested as implementation dilemmas. Semi-structured interviews (11 individual and 4 group sessions) were conducted from late March to early April 2025 with 22 participants (8 international students, 4 faculty members, and 10 staff). Using thematic analysis, themes were refined by focusing on segments where competing goals, attempts at coordination, and limits of coordination co-occurred. Three dilemmas emerged. First, in teaching and assessment, the institutional push to expand English-medium instruction(EMI) has not necessarily guaranteed learning accessibility in non-native instructor-to-student interaction classrooms. This creates tensions in language choices and participation as well as in balancing standardized fairness with flexible support. Second, in information delivery, increasing the volume and channels of announcements did not ensure reach, comprehension, and enactment; reliance on informal networks partially filled the gap but reproduced information inequality and accountability voids. Third, in governance, expectations for one-stop support concentrated responsibility in a central unit while problems were dispersed across departments and classrooms, leading to downward burden shifting and calls for distributed coordination. The study reframes academic support as a coordination problem rather than a simple matter of adding programs, and proposes coordination principles for institutionalizing minimum conditions for learning accessibility, designing information architecture that links reach-understand-act, and developing meta-governance for distributed collaboration.