Global Student Mobility Research Articles

Differential Adjustment Outcomes of International Students at U.S. Universities

We present a methodological example of an initial use of critical quantitative analysis (CritQuant) in international education research focused on international students to explore differences in social-emotional experiences intersectionally. Drawing on a sample of 558 international students attending 14 colleges and universities in the United States, we examined students' belonging, social support, academic stress and confidence, COVID-19 related stress, and social integration by students' gender, graduate level, and region of origin as well as by combinations of gender, graduate level, and region of origin. Key findings include that graduate and undergraduate female students as well as graduate male students reported better social-emotional experiences compared with undergraduate male students and that students' region of origin accounted for a range of differences in student outcomes. Findings are discussed in relation to the current literature and with respect to opportunities in the field of international student engagement and global student mobility.

Nonlinear relationships between human development and international student mobility: The prominent role of employment prospects and cultural and linguistic ties

AbstractHigher education is a key global market and considerable literature has focused on investigating the determinants of international student mobility (ISM). However, less is known about the extent to which the relative influence of these factors is moderated by local conditions and vary across origin countries. Drawing on a unique data set of undergraduate applications from the UK Colleges and Admissions Service, we analyse variations in the contextual determinants of ISM flows to the United Kingdom across countries of origin over a 10‐year period (2009–2019). We run a suite of negative binomial gravity models to understand the key influences of ISM and uncover the spatial heterogeneity of these influences. Our findings reveal a nonlinear relationship between the level of development of origin countries and ISM flows. Although countries from higher development levels are more likely to send students to the United Kingdom, there appears to be a dip in applications at the mid‐levels of development. Given the nonlinearity of this relationship, we seek to understand how countries across different levels of development respond to the typical factors that are seen to influence flows of international students. We also see substantial heterogeneity of the influence of different factors for origin countries, with some countries being influenced by employment opportunities and others by cultural and linguistic ties. However, this variation is not necessarily determined by the countries’ level of development. Our findings have implications for policy makers, educators and researchers seeking to navigate and influence global student mobility trends. Our study highlights the need for tailored strategies to attract and retain international students from specific origin countries, recognising the multifaceted nature of ISM determinants.

Acculturation and linguistic ideology in the context of global student mobility: a cross-cultural ethnography of anglophone international students in China

ABSTRACT This cross-cultural ethnography explored the global student mobility patterns of international students from English-speaking countries in China and asked research questions about (a) their motivational factors and acculturation expectations before arrival; (b) linguistic factors influencing their acculturative stressors in the host group community’s culture and its academic, social, and public systems after arrival; and (c) their reflections on intergroup ideologies with the host community after graduation, based on looking ahead. This study collected data through fieldwork by observing and interacting with approximately 80 individuals from the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand in university towns in East China during the academic years from 2012 to 2023. In turn, 17 individuals who graduated before 2021 were selected as the final sample to conduct in-depth interviews. The study placed the concepts of acculturation expectations and intergroup ideologies at the nexus of linguistic hegemony, symbolic power, and social space. The overarching findings showed that despite positive motivations to visit China, language barriers led participants to express confusion, culture shock, anxiety, and perceived discrimination in their academic, social, and public domains. However, some participants who remained in China after graduation expressed their authentic voices regarding changes in attitude toward the host community culture and their heritage language. Therefore, this study focused on a different dimension of acculturation and linguistic ideology by examining how a linguistically and culturally dominant cohort faced acculturative challenges and negotiated to cope with their stressors in power dynamics.

The Cross-Cultural Adaptation of Tertiary International Students in South Korea

South Korea’s demographic problem has spurred Korean universities to expand their outreach and increase their stake in global student mobility. The desire for global expansion and diversity in Korean higher education clashes with the sensibilities of a nation lacking a multicultural tradition. This study documents this conflict of competing interests by narrating the cross-cultural adaptation experiences of 14 international students at a private tertiary institution in South Korea. Within the framework of cross-cultural adaptation theory, the researcher utilized questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, and a focus group to better understand how international students are affected by their encounters with Korean society. From the qualitative analysis, the key themes of cultural affinity, language fluency necessity, and implicit discrimination were found to impact an individual’s cross-cultural adaptation. The results demonstrate that students' perceptions of Korea and their experiences constitute a feedback loop: either a positive cycle of adaptation stemming from a high interest in host language and culture that manifests into a higher student-perceived satisfactory experience in the host country or a negative cycle of dissatisfaction and rejection of the host society and culture. 
 
 Received: 9 July 2023 / Accepted: 17 October 2023 / Published: 5 November 2023

Does academic freedom matter for global student mobility? Results from longitudinal network data 2009–2017

Academic freedom and global student mobility are both topics high on the scientific and political agenda. However, the relationship between transnational student mobility and academic freedom in national higher education systems has not yet been investigated cross-nationally. This study intends to answer the question on how a countries’ level of academic freedom impacts on its’ attractiveness as a study destination. We analyse this connection from a network analytic perspective. While our data covers 167 countries as receivers and senders, our network analysis takes the attributes of countries and their relationship to each other into account in order to estimate the net effect of academic freedom ties in the network of global student mobility. We expect global student mobility to be directed from countries with low levels of academic freedom to countries with high levels of academic freedom. At the same time, academic freedom might be an attractive characteristic of a country to retain students in its domestic higher education system.

PVGoesGlobal: Reimagining Intercultural Learning & Global Student Mobility at Prairie View A&M University

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) across the United States met the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and increased social unrest caused by George Floyd’s death head on to provide quality instruction and to support students in and out of the classroom. For many of these institutions, global and intercultural efforts struggled as administrators, faculty, staff, and students pivoted to online instruction. Through storytelling, ethnography and narrative analysis, this essay describes how Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU) navigated the continuing challenges presented by COVID-19 by reimagining what global education and student mobility could be. This case study highlights the impact of intentional collaborations with stakeholders within and outside of the university, the development of a themed living and learning communities focused on glocal learning, and the infusion of global competencies into core curriculum courses through faculty development. Data indicate learning gains and improved satisfaction with programming. By employing a glocal framework, PVAMU has demonstrated how an HBCU can bring the world to their students when confronted with a global shutdown.

University branding: student experience, value perception, and consumption journey

ABSTRACT This study provides empirical insights into university branding and links it to student experience, value perception, and consumption journey. It also explores the relationship between these factors and their assistance to university brands in tackling the global issue of international student mobility. A review of branding literature, consumer experience, customer value, and consumer journey from extant studies on consumer behaviour and relevant studies on branding in the higher education sector provided a theoretical background for the study. Using focus group interviews, data were collected from international students in the Japanese higher education sector and analysed using content analysis. Empirical evidence of the interactions among these factors and branding supports the importance and feasibility of integrating these aspects into university branding. Thus, this study theoretically contributes to branding research by introducing the concepts of consumer experience, customer value, and consumer journey into the studies of branding in the context of higher education and their associations with university branding. It also provides managerial implications for branding a university from the aspects of student experience, value perception, and the consumption journey to address the issue of global student mobility.

Building Textual Fuzzy Interpretive Structural Modeling to Analyze Factors of Student Mobility Based on User Generated Content

Many factors influence student mobility across regions and countries. The roles of these factors, along with their interrelationship and interaction, make student mobility a complex decision-making issue. Many textual data generated on social media can answer many open questions about factors affecting human behavior, particularly social mobility. We have developed a novel methodology, called Textual Fuzzy Interpretive Structural Modeling (TFISM), that automatically analyses large textual datasets to identify the internal and external relationships between management or decision-making problems. This computational social science methodology enhances Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) approaches to allow the input to be textual data. It is multi-disciplinary and integrates ISM with Artificial Intelligence, Text extraction, and information retrieval techniques. TFISM is a domain-free method, while we have validated this methodology on two different datasets from social media and academic articles. In this paper, we present the results of our study to identify the critical factors and most influential factors for global student mobility.

Evolutionary Analysis of International Student Mobility Based on Complex Networks and Semi-Supervised Learning

With the expansion of globalization, the internationalization of education has become an essential strategy for developing in various countries. To obtain higher education, more and more students decide to study abroad. Many countries have been recruiting talented people to promote education and technology innovation in recent years. In particular, emerging and developing countries have improved systems on talent introduction. Meanwhile, the internationalization of education has become one of the important factors affecting the economic development of a country. Thus, the environment for talent development has been improving, and the international talent flow mode has become increasingly diversified, and it is of certain guiding significance to analyze and formulate corresponding laws according to the behavior of foreign students. This article constructs a weighted directed network to analyze the network’s evolution by global student mobility data from 2007 to 2016. The results are as follows: first, the network has a small average path length and significant average clustering coefficient, showing small-world characteristics. Second, the density shows a trend of first reducing and then rising. It explains that emerging countries also improve the ability to attract talents, and interactions between countries are becoming more frequent. Moreover, degree and degree centrality gradually increase, indicating that the number of students is rising, and the study abroad path is also growing in the network. Finally, the division of community based on the label propagation and semi-supervised learning to demonstrate the club’s change reflects the communications of these communities during the decade.

Developing transformative pedagogies for transdisciplinary education – Resources and competencies students need

ABSTRACT International field trips provide opportunities for interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary learning experiences which can be transformative. Whilst these projects are becoming popular with increasing focus on internationalisation of the curriculum, tackling global challenges and encouraging student mobility, there is scant literature on the critical pedagogical approaches which support the design and delivery of transformative learning experiences. The study described herewith examined the transformative pedagogies used to facilitate learning during interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary field trips and placements. Objectives of the study included (1) evaluating the impact of two projects related to student interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary field trips; (2) identifying best practice of teaching and learning design; and (3) providing recommendations for future higher education (HE) arrangements. The findings show that transformative learning experiences must be carefully integrated into the design of international field trips, setting up pivotal learning moments and suitable challenges which enhance reflexivity, shared learning and problem-solving.

Aspiration for cosmopolitan capital and ambiguous loss: Chinese exchange students’ experiences in U.S. higher education institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT This study adopts a critical phenomenological approach to explore the impacts of COVID-19 on the transnational educational experiences of Chinese college students in short-term academic exchange programmeshosted by universities in the United States. This study uses concepts of cosmopolitan capital and ambiguous loss to interpret the pandemic experiences of Chinese students. Accordingly, the current study promotes scholarly conversation about the meanings of global student mobility in the time of COVID-19, especially international exchange students who have missed learning opportunities in their academic, social, and cultural lives and have lacked social and emotional supports. Overall, this study expands the growing body of evidence on the impacts of COVID-19 on global student mobility and provides critical insights into the nexus between cosmopolitan elite positions and structural problems of the cosmopolitan social hierarchy within the specific cross-national context of higher education between the U.S. and China.

Visualising global currents of international students between 1999 and 2018

The flows of international students are like the currents of the oceans, not only affecting the individuals adrift in them but the global circulation of policy, economics and academics as a whole, bearing pros and cons for each country or region along the way. To date, there has not been a detailed and elaborate description of the fluxes of international students over decades. In light of the research gap, the article utilises the chord diagram to draw threads between each pair of origin and destination of international students in the last 20 years and divides the periods into four main phases. With each phase exhibiting its specific features, we have tentatively concluded that the global student mobility structure has evolved from Arterial (1999–2003), Breakthrough (2004–2008) to Catch-Up (2009–2013), and lastly, Diversification (2014–2018). Corresponding reasons underpinning each change of the migration flows are also discussed briefly in the article.

Detecting the Institutional Mediation of Push–Pull Factors on International Students’ Satisfaction during the COVID-19 Pandemic

In this study, we designed a structural model to determine the relationships among push–pull factors, institutional situations, and satisfaction during the COVID-19 pandemic. The 17 selected indicators fell under five domains, namely push factors, pull factors, institutional leadership, international strategies, and satisfaction. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to verify the assumptions of the model. Based on 1005 degree-seeking international students’ views, this study found that push and pull factors may coincidentally exist, and their functions can be modified by institutional situations. The findings suggested pull factors will, through institutional leadership, impact students’ satisfaction, while push factors will not. Moreover, the detection of institutional mediation can provide useful information for specific institutes to develop their future recruiting or retaining strategies. These findings enriched our knowledge of the field for higher education sustainable development. For future studies, this design may be useful to interpret the phenomena of global student mobility in higher education settings.

International Students’ Perceptions of and Attitudes towards their Chinese Accented English in Academic Contexts

Dominant processes of economic and cultural globalization have accelerated the use of English as a medium of instruction and precipitated diverse, yet intersected global student mobility, which have resulted in varied forms and uses of English in academic contexts. The present study reports on the findings of research into the attitudes and perceptions of a group of Chinese students studying English as an Additional Language (EAL) towards the legitimacy of non-native speaker (NNS) accents, including their own, as used in cross-cultural interactions in academic contexts. The research aims at unpacking students' views of their Chinese accented English to better understand the ways in which their attitudes towards English accents help negotiate and sustain their ethnic identities in academic contexts. Drawing on a qualitative paradigm, the study utilized in-depth interviews with a sample of four participants. The results suggested that intelligibility is highly regarded at least at the cognitive level, which gives their idiolectal varieties of English greater legitimacy. However, such a hard-developed belief is seriously thwarted by their lived experiences of discrimination over their accented speech, which pushes them back, yet again, to a position of perceived inferiority that hinders their active participation in their academic contexts.

学校および留学生・日本人学生が直面した留学交流に関する令和2年の課題（4月末から5月にかけてのアンケート調査報告）

学校および留学生・日本人学生が直面した留学交流に関する令和2年の課題（4月末から5月にかけてのアンケート調査報告）

FinTechs and payments for international education

This paper examines the landscape of global student mobility, giving special attention to the emergence of FinTechs in the international education payment space. Banks, which have at best been participants in the market for crossborder remittance of person-to-person and personto- business/university payments, are now seeing new innovative FinTechs solving customer pain points, making transactions more efficient and simple. This paper maps the huge market demand for speed, safety and security in educationrelated payment instruments. With COVID-19 creating a new normal, the paper also describes how various FinTechs have launched creative solutions to solve payment issues for students and reconciliation-related challenges for universities and other beneficiaries by setting up smart digital interfaces. The issues faced by students and parents at a larger level are very similar to the frictions and challenges seen with peer-to-peer payments.

Packaged Deal: Effective Support Systems for International Student Spouses

Global student mobility is growing in importance as students increasingly turn their interest worldwide. International student spouses and their personal experiences is an emerging problem of practice in higher education due to their connection to international student retention rates. In particular, what support systems are provided to this demographic is especially important. Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was used to examine international student spouses’ perception of support services at an urban private institution of higher education in the United States. A qualitative approach addressed the following research question: What role do international student spouses perceive institutions of higher education have in terms of offering support services? This study focused on five international student spouses who came to the United States on F2 dependent visa status.

Revisiting the ‘university image model’ for higher education institutions’ sustainability

ABSTRACT Global student mobility has reached far beyond Europe, North America, and Australia. Malaysia, Singapore, and South Korea have become the ‘emerging contenders’ focusing on attracting international students, primarily from other Asian countries. This heightened competition among higher education institutions (HEIs) challenges their sustainability. This study, therefore, aims to investigate Alcaide-Pulido, Alves, and Gutiérrez-Villar's university image model and its influence on students’ citizenship behaviour in the context of HEIs’ achieving sustainability. Data were collected from 223 international students at two reputable Malaysian universities. The results, showing that ‘image’ is a ‘higher-order construct’, extend the university image model and reveal a reformation of the ‘image’ variables. The findings further reveal that the extended and reformed model is capable of building satisfaction among students, which, in turn, contributes to enhancing students’ citizenship behavioural outcomes (advocacy, feedback, helping behaviour, and tolerance). This can indirectly support HEIs’ sustainability.

International Student Mobility: Recent developments and prognosis with special reference to India

This paper examines global student mobility. It finds that student mobility has been on the rise rapidly in the last five years, mostly of a global nature, rather than intra-regional, especially in the case of Indian students. Students are highly aspirational and seek an edge in the labour market through specialist studies and post study work rights, and are focused on obtaining a strong return on educational investment. Universities around the world increasingly seek to cater to these aspirations. Beyond the traditionally dominant inbound countries, a number of others, including especially in Asia, are becoming hubs of international student activity both as senders and receivers. Australia is becoming an increasingly key location for students, especially in recent times for Asian students. From a strategic standpoint, it will be important to maintain freedom of movement for students to benefit individuals and host and home countries.

INTERNATIONAL MOBILITY AS A MEANS OF ENSURING INCLUSIVE GLOBAL HIGHER EDUCATION SPACE

The paper deals with the notion of international mobility analysed within the context of internationalisation process in higher education as a means of ensuring inclusive global higher education space. International mobility is looked upon as a two-way process – on the one hand, for countries mobility is of vital importance since they are competing to attract top talent and thus benefit economically, diplomatically, and academically in keeping their academic doors open to students from all over the world. On the other hand, students’ interest in mobility programmes, international internships and other forms of mobility is growing and has become a crucial component of the current higher education landscape since having the experience of participating in international mobility programmes has an overall positive impact on the development of a wide range of twenty-first-century job skills that result in career promotion. Based on up-to-date statistics an attempt has been made to prove the following – as more countries around the world become active hosts of international students and implement national strategies to attract them, the competition for top global talent in higher education will intensify; as the result, the role of global student mobility and international experiential learning as components of internationalisation process will become more prominent. It has also been stated that as the context of higher education has gradually been changing in the result of international mobility process, comprehensive data is crucial for affirming institutional goals of enhancing internationalisation and correspondingly implementing new policies in order to meet new students' and competitive job market's demands.