International Graduate Students Research Articles

The impacts of perceived access to public open spaces on non-physical wellbeing: focused on international graduate students in Seoul

ABSTRACT The growing trend of international student mobility in Asia and the associated challenges, advocating for the use of public open spaces to enhance students’ wellbeing. Using a case study of Seoul, South Korea, this research offers an investigation into the interplay between access to these spaces and the non-physical wellbeing of international graduate students. It primarily contrasts perceived access and the actual frequency of visits to these spaces. Variables derived from literature were compiled into a questionnaire in which then was analyzed with both descriptive and inferential statistics. The study underscores the pivotal role of perceived access to public open spaces both in the city context and campus context, in enhancing the non-physical, highlighting the need for urban planning to prioritize quality access and awareness over mere frequency of visits. This study also emphasizes on the importance of perceived scale, safety, beauty, and ambiance attributes in moderating the positive impact of access to public open spaces. This result emphasizes on spaces that are not only physically accessible but also psychologically inviting and culturally resonant. This finding challenges the traditional focus on the quantitative expansion and underscoring the importance of perceived access for creating inclusive urban environments for an educational hub.

Decoding Factors Influencing Mental Health Help-Seeking in Asian International Students: A Correlational Survey Study

This study investigates the effects of gender, age, perceived socioeconomic status, and attitudes toward mental health treatment, alongside the awareness and accessibility of mental health services, on the propensity of Asian international undergraduate and graduate students in U.S. colleges to seek mental health support. Utilizing an online survey, responses from a diverse group of 116 participants, aged 18 and above, from universities across the nation were examined through correlation analysis. Findings indicated no significant gender differences in attitudes toward mental health treatment. However, factors such as higher educational level, superior socioeconomic background, longer U.S. residency, and increased awareness and accessibility of mental health services positively influenced attitudes. This quantitative study extends previous qualitative research addressing similar questions, filling a gap by offering broader empirical insights into this population’s mental health service utilization. The outcome underscores the need for university counseling centers to develop targeted interventions that acknowledge the needs of Asian international students. Future research should explore the longitudinal impacts of these factors on mental health help-seeking behaviors to inform ongoing service improvement.

Social and Cultural Barriers Reported by STEM International Graduate Students of Color

This article explores international students’ experiences in their graduate STEM programs at predominantly white US institutions through in-depth qualitative interviews and thematic analysis. International students reported encountering social and cultural barriers with American peers and sometimes even with other international students. These barriers include language, popular cultural, and social norms. Some students, who were less culturally represented in their cohorts, felt isolated but later found other people outside of their departments, often people from their same cultural background. The experiences of our participants varied by the representation of their culture in their departments, where students from less represented countries experienced more isolation. Connections to current acculturation theory will be discussed, as well as further implications and possible solutions for increasing intercultural exchanges.

A New Theoretical Framework for Researching Female Chinese International Students’ Experiences

This article critiques the prevailing damaged-based framework used in research on Chinese international students, advocating for a shift towards a desire-based framework inspired by Tuck's critique. While gender differences are often overlooked, recent studies highlight distinct challenges faced by female Chinese international graduate students. Centering on their experiences, this study introduces the "Women Strength" framework to amplify their voices, remove stereotypes, and foster empowerment within academia and society. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of their lived experiences and advocates for their recognition and empowerment.

Creating opportunities and spaces for social interactions in online contexts: Academic discourse socialization of L2 international graduate students

Addressing potential research paucity on L2 international graduate students’ academic discourse socialization in online contexts, this study investigated students in graduate programs in the United States. The study focused on how graduate students perceive the impacts of online learning on their academic discourse socialization experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. Adopting a qualitative approach, four participants’ perceptions were investigated through semi-structured interviews. The findings reveal that while digital tools, including Zoom, created some spaces for academic discourse socialization for L2 international graduate students during the pandemic, the tools also disrupted their learning in some areas. Importantly, the lack of informal social interactions in online contexts affected graduate students’ learning and participation in their communities of practice. This study suggests that in addition to in-class Zoom interactions, informal interactions are important for L2 international graduate students’ academic discourse socialization in online contexts. Pedagogical implications on incorporating Zoom and other digital tools to facilitate academic discourse socialization in online contexts are provided.

A collective inquiry into betweenness: emerging scholars of color navigating the socialization process

PurposeAs emerging scholars of color with transnational backgrounds, we collectively recount our socialization experiences in US higher education institutes. We explore moments of betweenness as catalysts for envisioning a more inclusive academia that operates beyond the tokenism of diversity.Design/methodology/approachEmploying betweener autoethnography (Diversi and Moreira, 2018), we inquire into the sense of impasse encountered by South Korean female emerging scholars in the field of education in becoming an outsider within the academic system.FindingsChronicling our shifts in perspectives of our positionality, we interweave inquiries motivating us to challenge normative pressures and map our betweener experiences onto the Wiedman and DeAngelo’s (2020) socialization model. Through this process, we wedge open in-between spaces in the socialization process that accommodate the nuanced positionality of transnational scholars.Originality/valueIntegrating postcolonial critiques on the Western-centric meritocratic academia, this piece sheds light on the complexity and fluidity of emerging transnational scholars’ socialization processes. The thick, nuanced description deepens the understanding of the complexity of their identity negotiation within the dominant logics of academia. Our inquiries interwoven through betweener autoethnography serve as guidance for mentoring international graduate students and transnational scholars.

White International Graduate Students and Whiteness

This emerging scholar’s piece explores the construct of whiteness and how it both shapes the experiences of white international graduate students in the United States as well as how they enact whiteness themselves. This dissertation study seeks not to recenter whiteness in scholarship, but to name and disrupt it in relation to a scarcely researched student population, namely white international graduate students. By way of a Post-Intentional Phenomenology grounded in Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS), the study interrogates prevalent power structures in international higher education grounded in whiteness in addition to exploring the role white international students play in it.

Internationalizing ATHE: A Roundtable Discussion

Abstract: This roundtable of international graduate students explores the challenges of studying, teaching, and researching at institutions in the United States and proposes action items for individuals and institutions to foster a more inclusive and supportive environment for all.

International Graduate Student Parenthood: Engaging in Closeting Labor to Constitute Productive Work-Family Negotiation During Transitions to Parenthood

ABSTRACT Guided by the Intersectional Theory of Closeting (ITC), our study analyzed in-depth interviews of how international graduate student-parents (IGSPs) negotiate their new parental identity, which was considered as deviating from the ideal graduate student norms at a U.S. public research university. Findings revealed that IGSPs enacted various closeting configurations— fully closeting, involuntary uncloseting, and coming out of the closet— to conceal and/or disclose their parental identity to workplace contacts. We developed the concept of closeting labor to capture IGSPs’ efforts to achieve work and family goals including labor outside the closet to “pass” as “normal” graduate students; inside the closet as IGSPs engaged in privatized work-family negotiations often without institutional support, and inbetween the closet door as IGSPs constantly assessed the necessity to (un)closet and crafting strategies to minimize negative career impact. Our analysis captures the adaptive and transformative negotiations with normative structuring of academic workplaces and advocates for systematic changes to queer ideal graduate student norms.

A multilingualism-as-resource approach in a graduate-level English-medium instruction (EMI) program at a Korean university

ABSTRACT The trend of internationalisation of education has resulted in the wider implementation of English Medium Instruction (EMI) programmes in education, especially at the tertiary level. While some of these programmes adopted strict English-dominant policies, others embraced flexible bilingual or multilingual policies to ensure students’ learning and wellbeing. This study explored international graduate students’ learning and languaging experiences in an EMI graduate classroom with flexible multilingual policies in a Korean university. Data included field notes, students’ work and language samples, and focus group interviews with students. Using thematic analysis of qualitative data, the authors reported that students’ experiences with multilingualism as a resource approach were mostly productive since it created third spaces for the participants to deploy their multilingual resources to construct, promote and demonstrate learning in their class reports. Participants also reported increased compassion for each other through collaborative learning and enhanced understanding of both home and new languages during their studies in the graduate programme that was mediated through multiple languages. This study offered implications for EMI practitioners, higher education institutions, and policymakers regarding language planning, language policy, and language support in EMI contexts.

Experiences of International Graduate Students at Makerere University

The enrollment of international graduate students is declining at Makerere University. Yet, Makerere aspires to be a research-led institution with an internationalization agenda. There is a need to increase the number of international graduate students as this would help Makerere University to realize its vision. This study, therefore, explored international graduate students' experiences at Makerere University, and the following objective guided it: to explore the experiences of international graduate students at Makerere University. The study was based on the interpretive worldview, subscribing to the transcendental phenomenology of Edmund Husserl, which states that those who have experienced a phenomenon can give it meaning. Eight international graduate students at Makerere University were interviewed, and they were selected from different academic disciplines, which were categorized according to Becher and Biglan's classification. Data were thematically analyzed, whereby two themes, namely non-academic experiences and academic experiences, emerged. It was therefore concluded that international graduate students at Makerere University had both positive and negative non-academic and academic experiences. This study recommends that Makerere University Management should strengthen measures that lead to positive experiences for international graduate students, such as the provision of financial resources, strengthening the operations of the International Office, organizing events for graduate students to facilitate their interactions with the domestic students, and putting in place peer mentors for new international graduate students to foster a sense of community. This study also recommends that the International Office work very closely with the Deans of Schools in the different colleges of Makerere University. This will improve their academic experiences and, ultimately, their numbers at Makerere University. Finally, the university management should strengthen and streamline the activities of the International Office at Makerere University

Support Services for International Graduate Students at Makerere University

Makerere University is focused on being a research-led university, which necessitates it embrace an internationalisation agenda to fit into the global research network. There is a need to boost the number of international graduate students to help Makerere University realise her vision. This qualitative study explores how international graduate students are supported at Makerere University. The following objective guided it: to explore how international graduate students are supported at Makerere University. The study was anchored in the interpretivism world view, subscribing to the transcendental phenomenology of Edmund Husserl to uncover the support given to international graduate students. Eight international graduate students at Makerere University were interviewed and selected from different academic disciplines categorised according to Becher and Biglan's classification of academic disciplines. Both unstructured interviews and documentary check data generation strategies were used in this study. Data analysis followed a thematic approach whereby various forms of support were provided to international graduate students at Makerere University, and how it is provided was identified. It was concluded that those international graduate students received non-academic and academic support at Makerere University. This study recommends that Makerere University Management provide financial, human, and physical resources to the International Office as ways of facilitating international graduate students to complete their study programs and attracting many more to join the University. The International Office may work with the Office of the Dean of Students to organise events for graduate students to facilitate interactions between international and domestic students, and they may also put in place peer mentors for new international graduate students to foster a sense of community. This study recommends that the International Office work very closely with the schools in the different Colleges of Makerere University, especially establishing a desk officer in each of the Dean's Office to handle issues of international students as this may improve their numbers at Makerere University. Finally, the university management should strengthen and streamline the activities of the International Office at Makerere University

Associating Academic Identity with Language Socialization in Virtual Community: A Case Study of a Chinese Graduate Student’s Learning Experiences in Religion Studies

This longitudinal case study explored the academic identity and language socialization of a Chinese graduate student enrolled in an online religion course at a U.S. university during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were collected via online classroom observations, oral interviews, and artifacts. The theoretical framework was taken from language socialization and identity, together with positioning theory. The study differs from previous research, arguing that instead of language competence, the constructed academic identity is occasionally crucial for the successful academic discourse socialization of international students in bilingual and virtual settings. Moreover, the inclination toward interactive positioning between students and instructors can arise and advance in virtual academic communities and, while students’ academic identities might be resistant to change, they can be negatively impacted by disorganized course design. The conclusion sheds light on first and second language socialization through which international graduate students can navigate and maintain their academic identities within digitally mediated and multilingual learning environments.

Navigating Chinese international graduate students’ experiences and mobility during US-China geopolitical tensions

International students have played an important role in bolstering the soft power of host countries. However, despite their significant contributions to enhancing soft power, Chinese international graduate students, in particular, have faced a less-than-welcoming environment. As US-China geopolitical tensions grow, we know less about the effects on Chinese international graduate students’ experiences and mobility. Through a phenomenology study of eleven Chinese international graduate students’ narratives, this study draws interrelated theories of soft power and the push-pull model to explore how US-China geopolitical tensions shift Chinese students’ experience and mobility. The findings indicate that Chinese students are changing and have more academic and career options. Chinese students have also encountered stereotypes, xenophobia, and Sinophobia, which might shift their decisions on future mobility.

Iraqi Graduate Students’ Analysis of the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) Verbal Reasoning Content: A Think-Aloud Study

This study describes difficulties Iraqi graduate students encounter while answering Verbal Reasoning Measure (VRM) questions of the Graduate Record Examination (GRE). Participants thought aloud while answering questions from three VRM subsections: Reading Comprehension (RC), Text Completion (TC), and Sentence Equivalence (SE). Data were collected via audio recordings, from seven Iraqi graduate students, and transcribed orthographically, coded, and analyzed. The analysis yielded several themes: Difficulties related to the structure of the question and/or the meaning of its answers, the content is pertinent to USA culture and history, SE is the most difficult part followed by TC, and RC is time consuming. These findings are consistent with previous research results that the structure of the GRE VRM questions and/or the answers are difficult to understand, SE items were much harder than TC and RC items due to their unfamiliar content and vague meanings, and RC is time consuming for international graduate students. Pedagogical implications were identified and recommendations for ETS and students were suggested.

Hosting an International Graduate Student Orientation

Hosting an International Graduate Student Orientation

Amplifying test-taker voices in the validation of L2 writing assessment tasks

Studies have documented how L2 writers utilize digital tools to mediate the process of writing, yet little is known about test-takers’ perceptions of the utility of digital tools in writing assessment tasks. In a previous investigation (Pusey & Butler, in press), we found that international graduate students’ writing performance was different on assessment tasks that varied in terms of access to external writing resources (e.g., spell-check, dictionaries, internet content searches). To better understand the mechanisms underlying these different outcomes, participants’ (n = 20) perceptions of the two task conditions (with or without access to external resources) were examined based on a questionnaire. Results indicated that participants tended to perceive writing tasks that permit access to external resources as more similar to university writing and as better vehicles for demonstrating their academic writing ability. However, they also perceived this task condition as more difficult than the one which disallowed use of external resources. Regarding enjoyment, test-takers’ perceptions were almost evenly divided. Moreover, additional construct-irrelevant factors (e.g., topic, time, task characteristics and processes) appeared to influence perceptions of the tasks. The findings demonstrate the value of listening to test-taker voices to identify construct-irrelevant factors in writing assessments within the context of an increasingly digitalized world.

Assessment of Academic ESL Writing in an Online Tutorial for Graduate Students

English-as-a-second language (L2) graduate students often face challenges in developing academic writing skills, which can be exacerbated by a lack of timely support at institutional level. To help address this concern, an original set of online academic writing tutorials with a focus on the genre of Literature Review was designed by the authors to assist international graduate students enrolled in graduate programs in Canada. This paper introduces and compares multiple assessment tools employed in the online tutorial set for international English L2 graduate students. Our project pursues two major goals: First, to address the above-identified gap in Academic Writing support to English L2 graduate students with minimal costs and faculty involvement through designing the online tutorial set; second, to contribute to the research on e-learning of Academic English as a second language (ESL) writing in terms of developing integrated tools for online tutorial building, analysis of texts produced by learners, and assessment of learners’ writing progress. The research questions are: 1. What resources can be combined to develop an online tutorial set for graduate students at minimal costs?  2. How can the learners’ progress in academic ESL writing be assessed with different assessment tools? First, the paper describes the tools employed in the tutorial construction: MoodleCloud platform, H5P interactive e-book designed by the authors, surveys, and assessment tools. Second, we present and compare assessment tools employed to evaluate learners’ writing progress: Expert assessment with an analytic rubric, self-assessments of progress by the participants, and automated text analysis with corpus-based tools as reported in Li, Makarova, and Wang (2023). A comparison of the scores across the three assessment tools shows some discrepancies, which seems to suggest that combined tools yield a more comprehensive picture. The expert assessments and self-assessments demonstrate improvement in the writing quality over the course of the tutorial series, which are partially supported with the findings from corpus-based analysis of participants’ texts. The findings are of relevance to e-learning scholars, faculty, and administrators of English-medium universities with substantial intakes of international graduate students in Social Sciences and Education whose native languages are other than English.

Social Exclusion and Conversion Factors

Scholarship on international students shows that despite university policies designed to create a welcoming atmosphere, international students still face social challenges. This paper applies the capabilities approach to reveal mechanisms that facilitate or constrain the social inclusion of married international graduate students. For married international graduate students, the personal factors (their level of study and marital status) bring with structural factors (e.g., visa policies, healthcare policies, cultural and linguistic barriers), which in combination lead to social exclusion. With one university case study, including original survey and interview data, we unpack these intertwined processes and find that married graduate students’ social relation and network patterns significantly differ from single graduate students and undergraduate students. They are less likely to attend campus events, interact with their colleagues, and interact with friends from other countries. As such, we challenge the conventional wisdom that access to higher education alone leads to social inclusion.

Sounds of Wisdom: Unveiling the Hidden Pedagogical Power of Musical Instruments of World Music Ensembles

This article explores the transformative power of musical instruments on pedagogical strategies within music ensembles, with a focus on world music ensembles at the tertiary level. Drawing from my unique perspective as an international graduate student in the U.S. and having had no prior exposure to world music ensembles, I share my experiences with the saron metallophone from the Javanese gamelan and the mṛdaṅgam, the principal rhythmic instrument of South Indian Karṇāṭak music ensemble. I argue that the interaction of sound between instruments and learners offers a deeply enriching, immersive educational journey. Recognizing this sonic interaction broadens our understanding of world music education and suggests that instruments inherently carry pedagogical value. By embracing this notion, educators can cultivate a more holistic teaching methodology, enhancing the pedagogical landscape within and beyond world music ensembles.