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This study aims to present a design for a tool for sustainable integration of international students at KTH in Stockholm, Sweden. Integration has 3 main parts, social integration which is interaction with natives, structural which is concerned with a civic number, a job, and last but not least cultural integration which deals with customs, traditions, and religion. The tool has two main features, both of which are aiming to create favourable conditions for all three subsets of integration. The tool was developed by conducting 18 interviews, two rounds of prototyping and two rounds of user testing. It is made out of two main parts, namely informational and social. The information provided is both structural about institutions and getting around, whereas also information about cultural events, attendance at these by international students has the potential to strengthen social integration as well. The social part is designed as a 1-on-1 randomised chat that aims to encourage forming new friendships between international students and natives. This part allows new students to ask questions about anything, the process will get them randomly assigned to any native who shall answer which will create favourable conditions for forming new friendships between newcomers and natives. / Denna studie syftar till att presentera en design för ett verktyg för hållbar integrering av internationella studenter på KTH i Stockholm. Integration har tre huvuddelar, social integration som är interaktion med de infödda, strukturell integration som berör ett personnummer, ett jobb, och sist men inte minst kulturell integration som handlar om sedvänjor, traditioner och religion. Verktyget har två huvuddrag, som båda syftar till att skapa gynnsamma förutsättningar för alla tre undergrupper av integration. Verktyget utvecklades genom att genomföra 18 intervjuer, två prototyper och två testundersökningar. Den består av två huvuddelar, nämligen den informativa delen och den sociala delen. Denna information är både strukturell om institutioner och hur man tar sig runt, och information om kulturella evenemang, även deltagande i dessa av internationella studenter har potential att stärka social integration. Den sociala delen är utformad som en 1-till-1 randomiserad chatt som syftar till att uppmuntra skapandet av nya vänskaper mellan internationella studenter och de infödda. Denna del tillåter nya studenter att ställa frågor om vad som helst, processen kommer att slumpmässigt tilldela dem en infödd som är tillgänglig, vilket kommer skapa gynnsamma förutsättningar för att forma nya vänskaper mellan nykomlingar och infödda medborgare.

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<p>The purpose of the first paper is to serve as a critical review of the international student research. Particularly, the paper will explore current barriers in international student research specifically for Asian international students. The paper will use three frameworks for the critical review: neo-racism, critical race theory, and postcolonial theory and suggest three main barriers in international student research because of this: homogenization, overemphasis on individual factors, and the impact of stereotypes present about Asians in the U.S. Based on the frameworks used for critical review and the identified barriers, the paper will explore systemic racism in the experiences of Asian international trainees and suggest recommendations to support trainees in counseling psychology.     </p> <p>The study within the second paper explored the experiences of neo-racism for 13 Asian international doctoral student participants at Purdue University using qualitative thematic analysis. The study demonstrated a wide variety of experiences with racism, including interpersonal racism and the impact of racism that participants viewed as occurring to other Asian and Asian international students in the U.S. Results indicated that participants’ experiences of neo-racism were different based on social identities, language abilities, and nationality. The study proposes implications of these experiences, including ways higher education institutions can better support doctoral students during this sociopolitical time. </p>

With the vast and continued growth of international students in the U.S., it is important to focus on this expanding group and identify factors that aid or hinder academic performance, achievement, expectations, and competence. Factors known to affect academics among international students, such as language barriers, acculturation to American society, university support and structure, social integration at the university, family support, and motivating factors to study in the U.S were examined. It was hypothesized that these known factors would negatively correlate with the academic outcomes of international students examined in the current study. It was also hypothesized that these factors can combine to best predict the academic outcomes of international college students. First, intercorrelations were conducted with the independent and dependent variables to determine if the factors examined in the study (i.e., language barriers, acculturation to American society, university support and structure, social integration at the university, family support, and motivating factors to study in the U.S.) are negatively correlated with the academic outcomes of international students. Then a series of linear regressions was conducted to test the hypothesis that these factors can combine to best predict the academic outcomes of international college students. Results found significant relationships between the predictor variables and the outcome variables in this study, specifically among support (university, familial, and social), acculturation, language barriers, motivating factors to study, and self-efficacy.

Willingness to Communicate (WTC) in the second language (L2) is the "readiness to enter into discourse" which is considered to be the direct precursor of students' communication in L2 (MacIntyre et al., 1998). Oral language is thought to precede written language which creates an assumption that ongoing refining of oral skills may impact writing fluency. In respect to WTC model, there have been several versions that describe the construct (MacIntyre et al., 1998; Wen & Clement, 2003; Matsuoka, 2006). This study references self-efficacy, a cognitive variable in Matsuoka's (2006) proposed model, when analyzing writing as a phenomenon in relation to WTC. Two sequential writing samples collected from 12 international students are closely examined for key themes, which are informed by the responses to the WTC and Language History questionnaire. The results show a moderate correlation (rs=.646) between self-efficacy and willingness to communicate among the surveyed participants as well as a moderate correlation between the error frequencies and WTC scores (rs=.536).

This study investigates the role that family communication patterns may play in predicting student experiences by looking at the experiences of native United States and international college students. Experiences in college are shaped by various factors including self-efficacy, stress, loneliness and depression. Data were collected from a sample of 152 students – 90 being U.S. natives studying at UCF and 62 being international students studying at UCF. Results indicated that conversation orientation, or a more open-conversation household, was positively linked with higher academic self-efficacy and negatively linked with stress, mainly for U.S. students. Conformity orientation, or a less open-conversation household, was positively correlated with loneliness and depression for both U.S. and international students.

Sociocultural identity is defined for this study as the element of identity affixed to a social or cultural group. Previous research on sociocultural identity has recognized the need for further study of its effect on second language performance, particularly pronunciation. Previous studies have found contradictory results when studying the relationships between sociocultural identity and various measures of second language pronunciation. This thesis takes a quantitative correlational approach to the study of sociocultural identification with the United States and English pronunciation comprehensibility and accent in a group of 68 international students learning English in the United States. Participants completed a survey indicating the strength of their identification with the United States, after which a group of three native speaking raters rated speech samples from the participants for both comprehensibility and accent. Scores from the identity survey were compared with those on the comprehensibility and accent ratings through a FACET analysis. Results showed no correlation between sociocultural identification with the United States and ESL pronunciation in either comprehensibility or accent. These results add further complexity to existent scholarship on identity and pronunciation and lead to a discussion of implications for future study.

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