The purpose of this study was to expand the extent of available literature in regard to the factors that contribute to students’ academic performance in college. It focused on a neglected segment of the student population, which is Saudi Arabian students studying in the United States. This study utilized a nonexperimental quantitative research design in order to investigate the relationship between the independent variables (the characteristics of the student, the characteristics of the program, and the academic and social integration between the student and the program) and the dependent variables (degree GPA, ability to graduate within academic program time frame, or dropout). The data were collected from Saudi Arabian students who previously enrolled in the King Abdullah Scholarship Program (KASP) and had graduated or dropped out between the period of 2005 to 2016. A Web-based electronic survey was sent and made available for Saudi students who entered KASP via any of the entry methods in the United States. There were 1,020 students who participated in the survey, and only 543 of them fully completed the survey. Only completed surveys were considered for analysis. The results showed that some students’ characteristics, some program characteristics, and some academic and social integration attributes were strongly correlated with students’ academic performance in college. This study presented empirical evidence about which factors can impact students’ performance in college. It provided some answers to why some students succeed, while others fail. It also offered insights and recommendations for higher education policymakers as well as for scholars in the field of higher education policy, especially those concerned with admission policies of academic programs.

The main subject of this Diploma Thesis is a description of psychological aspects of staying in foreign culture with focus on interpersonal and group processes and their influence and importance for the stay in foreign culture. Central theme of interpersonal relationships and social networks formation is discussed in terms of stay in foreign culture with regards to new forms of electronic communication and its characteristics. This Diploma Thesis focuses on social networks formation and its process and dynamics in electronic communication environment in contrast to real environment. Furthermore, it applies to interpersonal relationship changes, maintaining original far-distant relationships and formation new ones through electronic communication when being in foreign culture. Empirical part of thesis concerns a study of a degree of psychological and sociocultural adaptation with emphasis on electronic communication and its influence of interpersonal relationships and social networks when being abroad. Empirical part of thesis consists of quantitative data analysis. Data obtained from questionnaire, that was filled by international university degree students, who are just experiencing international study sojourn, were analyzed in terms of sociocultural and psychological adaptation. These two areas...

<p>In order to comfortably and effectively function in U.S. classrooms, both international students and domestic students benefit from the development of interactive and intercultural communication skills. At Purdue University, a large, public, R1 institution with a substantial international population, the internationalization of the student body is a priority. To examine the relationship between academic and social integration of international and domestic students on campus, international (ESL) undergraduate students (L2 English, n=253) from the Purdue Language and Cultural Exchange Program (PLaCE), and domestic undergraduate students (L1 English n=50) from the first-year composition program (ICaP), participated in a voluntary survey. The framework for investigating students’ interaction with peers and teachers was derived from Severiens and Wolff (2008). Four aspects of new, incoming students’ adaptation (Global Perspective, Intercultural Competence, Acculturation Mode, and Willingness to Communicate) were addressed by the survey. Although there were similarities between international and domestic students, the results revealed international students had more opportunities to interact with peers from diverse language backgrounds in formal academic contexts, including classroom activities, peer-group work in first-year programs and language programs. However, in informal, social contexts, neither international nor domestic students took advantage of opportunities to interact with each other. The tendency to prefer social interactions with co-nationals may contribute to social isolation and limited integration of international and domestic students within broader social contexts outside of classrooms. Yet, rather than resisting this trend, instructors and administrators might enhance opportunities for interaction in academic contexts where both groups are most willing to participate. Findings from this study can contribute to the development of first-year programs that provide realistic solutions for the enhanced internationalization of both domestic and international students on campus. </p>

This study uses a sociocultural framework to trace the experiences of 24 Chinese international undergraduate students studying business and information sciences in a New Zealand university, using community of practice perspectives recognising the university as a site of complex discourses requiring negotiation of new identities and practices. The students’ expectations, the issues that emerged and the processes of change they went through to meet their goals were investigated from retrospective and longitudinal viewpoints, using semi-structured interviews supported by schematic representations developed by the researcher and photographic representations compiled by participants were. The findings suggest that preparation before departure focused largely on expected English demands, rather than wider matters of academic culture, and this was only partially rectified during prior study in New Zealand. Students thus entered the university unfamiliar with its specific discourses and found conditions for resolving difficulties more limited than previously experienced. The anonymity and extreme time pressure pertaining in large first-year classes led to bewilderment about requirements, threats to the sense of identity as competent students which they had arrived with, and often, failure of courses. Nevertheless, the investment, personal and monetary, which this journey represented provided the incentive to persevere. Most students were resourceful in negotiating a fit between their learning preferences and the affordances of the university, resulting in very different journeys for each of them. Measures adopted included those sanctioned by the university, such as developing skills to meet the demands of academic literacies, and others less valued, such as extreme dependence on teacher consultation. Success was gained through personal agency which proved more important than the university goal of student autonomy. Beyond the academic arena, other activities such as part-time jobs were significant in contributing to a sense of identity as competent and educated adults, and to new viewpoints which contrasted with original cultural norms. They continued to identify as Chinese, but in a “third space” owing something to New Zealand influences. The study concludes that entry criteria should include a component of university preparation. It also recommends measures by which the university might enhance the experiences of such students.

Previous research using future time perspective or possible selves frameworks provided evidence that learners with definite and elaborate goals, and future self-guides are more motivated in school tasks (Reeve, 2009; Yowell, 2000), exert more effort, demonstrate persistence, and show greater performance (De Volder & Lens, 1982; Lens et al., 2002; Simons et al., 2000), and learners with positive possible selves were better able to face failure, demonstrated better performance, had higher levels of self-esteem, showed more persistence on tasks, and depicted greater motivation (Cross & Markus, 1994; Oyserman et al., 2004; Unemori et al., 2004). The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of future orientation constructs, future time perspective and possible selves, on Turkish college level learners' motivation to learn English and their identity construction, and how future projections of themselves as L2 users (the ideal L2 self, the ought-to L2 self, and feared L2 self) impacted their motivation to learn English and their identities. A total of 299 Turkish graduate students studying in the United States participated in the study. Also, this study examined the extent to which adding a measure of the feared L2 self construct contributed to explaining motivation to learn English and identity construction. The data were collected via surveys and interviews, and they were analyzed quantitatively, using qualitative data for triangulation. Findings suggested that the L2 motivational self-system (Dornyei, 2005, 2009) contributed to explaining Turkish learners' motivation to learn English and their oriented identities. Also, adding a feared L2 self variable to measures of the L2 motivational self system could help explain learners' identity construction but not their language learning motivation. In addition, future time perspective connectedness and value were not useful in explaining the L2 motivation, but future connectedness was found to be related to the ideal L2 self and feared L2 self, and valuing the future goals was related to the ought-to L2 self. Qualitative data showed that learners presented combination of several identities, including national and oriented. They imagined themselves as professional and successful English users, and their L2 related worries included losing their native language and being seen as "assimilated" or as "showing off" individuals. / text

In this thesis I explore issues of food security and food-identity relationships among international students at the University of Guelph and the University of Windsor. I argue students who attempt to maintain traditional diets are more likely to experience food insecurity than students who explore diverse foods because they are more likely to be negatively affected by food availability, food access and structural barriers. What students eat can also have implications for identity maintenance and identity creation. Thus in this thesis I also explore the relationship between food and identity by considering how identity and food-security can be closely related to preferred food availability and accessibility. I argue that students consume certain foods as a means to maintain and create identities, and as such I suggest that familiar food eaters may experience a sense of losing their identities as their food insecurity increases.

The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of four racialized, male, first-year, international students attending a university in southern Ontario and living in university residence. Through four one-on-one interviews, my qualitative study sought to uncover the challenges, needs, and opportunities of these students. In addition to cultural and academic adjustment, my study focused on how the participants preserved their masculine and cultural/religious identities in a Western university. A secondary purpose of my study was to examine how these four international students experienced living in university residences, what challenges they faced, and how their specific needs were met. Four themes emerged from the interviews. First, the participants outlined their difficulties adjusting to Canadian university culture. While some enjoyed the transition to Canada, others found adjusting their cultural identities challenging. Second, these participants struggled to adjust to the academic rigour and workload during their first year at university. Despite the demands of university academics, the participants generally welcomed the freedom and flexibility of university life, which allowed them to create their own work schedules and engage in their social lives. Third, the participants maintained their masculine and cultural identities, to more or lesser degrees, despite being immersed in the social and cultural norms of Canadian university life. While some felt isolated within Queen’s University because of their different cultural and masculine identities, overall, these participants valued their own identities and resolved to preserve them. Finally, the participants discussed the benefits and challenges of living in university residences. While residences tended to provide the participants with a sense of community and belonging, sometimes it was challenging living in a loud and hectic environment. / Thesis (Master, Education) -- Queen's University, 2012-09-19 17:28:16.91

This study aims to investigate the foreign language anxieties Japanese international students at American universities have and the relationship between these anxieties and length of stay in the U.S. 151 Japanese international students answered a modified version of the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (Horwitz, Horwitz & Cope, 1986) followed by demographic questions. The findings from the questionnaire were analyzed through SPSS 21 software. Results indicated a statistically significant relationship between students’ level of anxieties and the length of stay in the U.S. Implications for teachers and government officials in Japan, as well as for teachers and university administrators in the U.S., are discussed.

Since the mid-1990s, New Zealand has become a popular study destination for international students. In its neo-liberal knowledge economy policies including an export education policy, international education agenda, and skilled immigration policy, international students are conceptualised as ideal policy subjects: free, rational and self-interested knowledge consumers and globally available human resources. International postgraduates are expected to contribute to New Zealand’s knowledge economy with their knowledge and skills. However, both the statistics and empirical research suggest that these students’ experiences do not always coincide with the policy expectations owing to the involvement of multiple political and non-political factors and actors including international students themselves. Cultural differences in particular, generate extra challenges for these policies to recruit and serve international students and retain international graduates from non-Western cultural backgrounds including those from Mainland China. The gap between the policy intentions and these students’ experiences draws our attention to the roles of multiple regimes of government and individual students as active agencies in overseas study and raises the question of how the two aspects can converge to achieve a ‘good’ overseas study in a complicated culture-crossing policy environment. This thesis takes a post-structuralist approach and uses an adapted Foucauldian conceptual framework that develops the concept of governmentality to explore the experiences of a group of postgraduate Chinese international students studying at two New Zealand universities. It combines documentary research, an online survey and 56 in-depth interviews for data collection with culturally informed discursive, Foucauldian descriptive statistical and Foucauldian narrative analyses of data. The findings show that the convergence between New Zealand’s knowledge economy policies and Chinese students’ experiences of ‘good’ overseas study is not straightforward. This thesis argues that Chinese international students are not made and governed by a singular political power like the New Zealand Government but by multiple regimes of practices through which these students are assembled. Chinese cultural mechanisms such as filial piety, reciprocity and loyalty, play a crucial role in constituting the field of international education and assembling regimes of subjectification. Moreover, these cultural mechanisms are not only embodied in governmental technologies themselves as technical means, but also activated through the coexistence of multiple rationalities, the hybridisation of regimes of subjectification and cross-cultural applications of these technologies. This thesis helps explain both ways in which Chinese students get ‘made into’ subjects who are willing to constitute themselves as international students obliged to come to New Zealand and contribute to the knowledge economy and also the constellations of factors motivating them to move away from on-going, constant and regular engagement with New Zealand as a knowledge economy. With its findings, the thesis attempts not only to provide valuable policy recommendations but also to contribute to sociological understandings of the global governance of border-crossing population movements and comparative studies in the sociology of education.

The special learning needs in Initial Teacher Education of international postgraduate students whose own education was linguistically and culturally different to that of New Zealand students are often unacknowledged and under-researched. This qualitative study, based on narrative inquiry, presents case studies of six participants from six different countries, languages and cultures. The findings point to challenges faced by pre-service teacher education students from other languages and cultures. Tensions created by language difficulties, new pedagogies and social and educational cultural differences lead to feelings, at times, of disorientation, heightened “otherness” and unease. Students who are crossing the border between one culture and pedagogical belief system to another require specific support. This study did, however, find evidence of students developing new understandings about teaching and learning. The findings carry implications for the content, delivery and pedagogy of Initial Teacher Education programmes. The introduction of a Foundation Course and a Support Group, modelling of good practice by ITE lecturers using a variety of interactive teaching strategies and targeted reflective practices are suggested. In a time of teacher shortages, changing demographics in schools and the changing nature of university-based ITE it is important that the assumption that one size fits all in ITE all needs to be put aside. From the perspectives of social justice and acceptance of diversity it is timely to pay attention in ITE to the learning of students from other languages and cultures. This study suggests ways of moving towards this goal.