13. Saim Kayadibi, Şahnoza Kayadibi, and Surayyo Shaamirova: Turkey as a Popular Hub for Higher Education Learning Among Muslim Countries: Challenges and Opportunities for International Students

Turkey as a Popular Hub for Higher Education Learning Among Muslim Countries: Challenges and Opportunities for International Students (Joining virtually)

Higher education can be regarded as a high level or a specialized form of human capital, the contribution of which to economic growth is very significant. Thus Higher education is an important form of investment in human capital. It is rightly regarded as the “engine of development in the new world economy” (Castells, 1994). However, there are challenges faced by students in continuing higher education studies. They even leave the university unwillingly due to the increased cost of education fees as a result of global financial crisis. Indeed, Turkish government allocates enormous amount of spending on education. Turkey known to be the one of few countries that offers full scholarships for international students (Aras & Mohammed, 2019). It is also important to mention that Turkey is among the few countries offering free education for locals. Essentially, this study aims to investigate the university identity in the eyes of international students as well as significant antecedents related to the dependent variable of this study.

The constructs of this study include emotional intelligence, academic excellence, religiosity, self-efficacy, reciprocity and university identity. Age and gender as a moderating variables will be tested in order to further understand the demographic influence. This research, especially, addresses the literature gap in terms of technological acceptance towards acquiring education by international students. In the learning process, technology is becoming an integral part of higher education systems. This study is curious about the usage and international students acceptance level of technological tools and applications in Turkish universities. With that respect, does students’ social life declined through technology embedded education? This study develops the research model through integrating social identity theory (MacKay et al., 2019) and technology acceptance model in the context of higher education (Estriegana, 2019).

Şahnoza Kayadibi is a PhD student at the Department of Business Administration, Karabuk University (UNIKA), TURKIYE. She started first her PhD at International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) in 2018. She holds MSc in Marketing with honors (IIUM, 2017) and Business Administration Degree with honors (IIUM, 2013). During her master’s degree, she has contributed to the higher education academic field by proposing a research model to fulfill students’ needs in order to ease their financial difficulties to pay tuition fees. She is interested in higher education, marketing, and business fields. Her current research interests are focused on artificial intelligence and its advantages for the consumer market.

Dr. Saim Kayadib has been the Head of the Finance and Banking Department at the Faculty of Business Administration in Karabuk University since 2020 and served as the Director of the Vocational School of Social Sciences in 2021 and currently working as the Dean of the Faculty of Islamic Sciences at Karabuk University (UNIKA) as of March 2022.

He, served as the Chairman of the European Union Halal Standards Committee (CEN/TC 425) between 2013-2016. He worked as the Vice President of the International Relations Department (IAD) of the International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM) within the Rectorate for 3 years.

In 2007, he completed his Doctoral Study (M.Phil, PhD) at Durham University, England, with his thesis titled “Istihsan (Juristic Preference): The Forgotten Principle of Islamic Law”. He has many international and national books, articles and papers published in English, Turkish and Arabic languages, and continues scientific researches in the same field.

Surayyo Shaamirova is an Assistant Lecturer at Westminster International University Tashkent (WIUT), at the School of Business and Economics. She is specialized in teaching Finance and Islamic Finance modules at WIUT. Her research areas are Islamic Banking and Finance, Islamic Economics, Social Finance, and Islamic Marketing. She also works as an independent researcher for the organizations to conduct market studies (CIS countries) in the area of Islamic finance.

Her education background is from International Islamic University Malaysia. She completed her Bachelor’s degree from the Kulliyah of Economics and Management Sciences, and Master’s from Institute of Islamic Banking and Finance. Currently, she is a PhD Candidate from Istanbul University, Turkey. Her PhD thesis is about “Financial engineering of IF products including the risk of concealment of Riba”.