International Graduates Research Articles

International Graduate Students’ Experiences of English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) Courses in a Korean University

Owing to to the internalization of higher education, many universities in East Asia provide English as a medium of instruction (EMI) courses for international students. However, previous studies may not have strategically explored the perception of EMI courses for graduate programmes. Recognizing the gap in the literature, this study specifically focused on international graduate students' experiences of EMI courses in a Korean university. By implementing a mixed-method design, this study explored English language learnes’ (ELLs) perceptions of EMI courses regarding i) ELLs’ opinions on the effectiveness of EMI courses, ii) ELLs' attitudes towards EMI, and iii) their self-evaluation of English language ability. Data collection consisted of an end of the semester survey (n=70) and focus group interviews (n=9). The study results showed that i) ELLs showed positive attitudes towards EMI courses; ii) they perceived that the faculty's teaching methods are the core element to EMI course effectiveness; iii) their listening and reading skills were enhanced, and iv) ELLs with low English proficiency found EMI courses challenging to follow. Based on these results, several pedagogical implications are discussed regarding how to implement EMI courses effectively for diverse international students in ELT.

JAX, THE ARCHITECTURE: Designing a Chatboat Architecture to Reduce Ajax Fancare’s Logistical Problem and Enhance Fan Experience

This paper is the documentation of a graduation internship at Digital Society School (DSS) in which they teamed up with Ajax Fancare to solve their logistical problem and enhance the fan experience. Ajax Fancare is facing a logistical problem in manually answering every fan’s question via calls, emails, social media, or live chat. They believe that chatbot is the solution to this problem. The goal of this project is to research, design, and prototype a chatbot that could tackle the logistical problem and enhance the fan experience. The deliverable is a chatbot prototype and architecture in which Ajax Fancare could build upon for their future customer service chatbot. The main question of the research is answered by the chatbot architecture: Jax the Architecture, a conversational tree of all the possible interactions between a user and the chatbot. The final chatbot architecture answers the research question by mapping together the main elements of the chatbot such as the information fans needed from Ajax Fancare and additional features that create a new and inclusive experience. The prototypes and final chatbot architecture are ready to be tested for further research and serve as a cornerstone for future development of the Ajax Fancare chatbot.

Using Administrative Data to Explore Potentially Aberrant Provision of Virtual Care During COVID-19: Retrospective Cohort Study of Ontario Provincial Data.

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has led to a rapid increase in virtual care use across the globe. Many health care systems have responded by creating virtual care billing codes that allow physicians to see their patients over telephone or video. This rapid liberalization of billing requirements, both in Canada and other countries, has led to concerns about potential abuse, but empirical data are limited.ObjectiveThe objectives of this study were to examine whether there were substantial changes in physicians’ ambulatory visit volumes coinciding with the liberalization of virtual care billing rules and to describe the characteristics of physicians who significantly increased their ambulatory visit volumes during this period. We also sought to describe the relationship between visit volume changes in 2020 and the volumes of virtual care use among individual physicians and across specialties.MethodsWe conducted a population-based, retrospective cohort study using health administrative data from the Ontario Health Insurance Plan, which was linked to the ICES Physician Database. We identified a unique cohort of providers based on physicians’ billings and calculated the ratio of total in-person and virtual ambulatory visits over the period from January to June 2020 (virtual predominating) relative to that over the period from January to June 2019 (in-person predominating) for each physician. Based on these ratios, we then stratified physicians into four groups: low-, same-, high-, and very high–use physicians. We then calculated various demographic and practice characteristics of physicians in each group.ResultsAmong 28,383 eligible physicians in 2020, the mean ratio of ambulatory visits in January to June 2020:2019 was 0.99 (SD 2.53; median 0.81, IQR 0.59-1.0). Out of 28,383 physicians, only 2672 (9.4%) fell into the high-use group and only 291 (1.0%) fell into the very high–use group. High-use physicians were younger, more recent graduates, more likely female, and less likely to be international graduates. They also had, on average, lower-volume practices. There was a significant positive correlation between percent virtual care and the 2020:2019 ratio only in the group of physicians who maintained their practice (R=0.35, P<.001). There was also a significant positive correlation between the 2020:2019 ratio and the percent virtual care per specialty (R=0.59, P<.01).ConclusionsDuring the early stages of the pandemic, the introduction of virtual care did not lead to significant increases in visit volume. Our results provide reassuring evidence that relaxation of billing requirements early in the COVID-19 pandemic in Ontario were not associated with widespread and aberrant billing behaviors. Furthermore, the strong relationship between the ability to maintain practice volumes and the use of virtual care suggests that the introduction of virtual care allowed for continued access to care for patients.

Duality of Persistence

International students have been a growing presence in U.S. higher education institutions for over a decade. However, how feelings of belonging shape their adjustment to these institutions has only recently become a subject of inquiry. In particular, there has been limited examination of how university-level factors interact with feelings of belonging to shape the persistence of international students within the U.S. This research takes a step towards addressing this scholarship gap by examining how social and academic belonging interact with the presence of on-campus co-nationals in engendering aspirations to persist in the U.S. after graduation for international graduate students. We demonstrate the presence of, what we call, an academic enclave effect wherein large communities of co-nationals have a positive influence on the aspirations of international students with initial low levels of social belonging.

Mentorship matters: the value of graduate internships

In this article, three recent graduates in book and paper conservation report on the value of graduate internships and advocate for more opportunities. They reflect on their personal experiences of internships at the British Library, Chester Beatty and Getty Research Institute. Results from a survey and questionnaire on graduate internships in the UK and Ireland between 2010 and 2020 are shared and discussed. In particular, the authors note a lack of longer-term recurring internship programmes. Four main aspects shared across the graduate internship experience are highlighted: projects, mentorship, continued professional development and interdisciplinary collaboration. Conscious integration of these elements within an internship structure increases learning potential. The authors conclude that there is an ongoing need for paid graduate internships as they are a key entry route for emerging conservators joining the profession and offer significant benefits to host institutions.

Changing Demographics of NIDDK-Funded Physician-Scientists Doing Kidney Research.

Although US physician-scientists have made enormous contributions to biomedical research, this workforce is thought to be getting smaller. However, among kidney researchers, changes have not been fully quantified. We mined National Institutes of Health RePORTER to explore demographic changes of early-career and established physician and nonphysician principal investigators doing kidney-focused research. We searched for National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK)-funded K series and R01 awards focused on the kidney that were active between 1990 and 2020 and determined if their emphasis was basic or clinical science. We then used public databases available on the internet to determine if these funded investigators were physicians or nonphysicians, the year in which they received either their MD (physicians) or their terminal graduate degree (nonphysicians), their sex, and whether they received their terminal degree from a US or international institution. Kidney-focused R01-funded principal investigators are aging, particularly among physicians. Moreover, the relative representation of physicians among both early-career and established principal investigators is falling, particularly among those doing basic science research. In contrast, the number and relative representation of nonphysician-scientists are increasing. There is also greater representation of women and international graduates among physician and nonphysician R01-funded, kidney-focused NIDDK investigators. However, although there are greater numbers of women physician principal investigators doing both basic as well as clinical research, women physician principal investigators are increasingly more likely to do clinical rather than basic science research. The physician-scientist workforce is increasingly made up of women and international medical graduates. However, the physician-scientist workforce is older and represents a smaller proportion of all principal investigators, particularly among those doing basic science research.

Investing in International Graduate Students for the Scientific Endeavour Keeps the United States Competitive

As the global scientific and engineering powerhouse, the United States has pioneered numerous inventions such as the telephone, alternating current, radio broadcasting, and controlled nuclear chain reactions. Some may be surprised to find that these were products of immigrants, who pushed the boundaries of science and technology. In the past years, however, the U.S. has been losing its competitive advantage in the global labor market. A key reason for this is that the U.S. is failing to attract and retain international graduate students in STEM fields. Historically, a large portion of these students stayed after graduation and drove innovations that fueled the nation’s trillion-dollar economy. That trend is changing, with many now opting to go elsewhere for their graduate education. Critical flaws in U.S. visa and immigration policy and a lack of federal funding mechanisms for international graduate students are exacerbating this trend. As a result, the U.S. is losing promising junior scientists to other countries with more aggressive foreign recruitment strategies. To counter this trend, we outline in detail the areas with room for growth and propose policy solutions to be implemented by the federal government. These solutions will help the U.S. excel in STEM research workforce diversity, equality, cultural competence, and ultimately, retain its global leadership.

Crossvergence in International Management Education: Acquisition of Skills and Career Outcomes

Organizational crossvergence is the identifying framework in this study of the emerging similarities between both educational systems and business systems in India and the United States. A sample of 237 international MBA graduates was examined relative to the education they received in a combined United States and India management program. They studied in both countries, and pursued careers in either country. We confirm that the applied value of advanced business education originating in India was enhanced, but not significantly surpassed, by the Western learning experience. The applicability of graduates’ acquired skills was as relevant for employment in India as in American organizations. Implications for policymakers resulting from the findings highlight the clear justification of deepening management education collaboration amongst educators and employers in emergent and developed markets.

Correction to: Communication Competencies and International Graduates’ Employability Outcomes: Strategies to Navigate the Host Labour Market

Correction to: Communication Competencies and International Graduates’ Employability Outcomes: Strategies to Navigate the Host Labour Market

International education and graduate employability: Australian Chinese graduates’ experiences

ABSTRACT This article investigates how international educational experiences affect the employment opportunities of Chinese who graduated from an Australian university. Findings based on 26 semi-structured interviews highlight that Chinese students who graduated from Australia gained a web of capital (i.e., human, cultural, psychological and identity), which facilitated their employment upon return home. However, social capital, which is critical in China, was a weakness for Chinese students who graduated from overseas institutions. The findings have provided strong evidence that Chinese students’ employability benefited from studying overseas. This research utilised the Tomlinson’s Graduate Capital Model to an international education context. It has implications for Chinese students on how they could benefit from studying overseas and for universities that recruit Chinese international students.

The Impact of Place of Origin on International and Domestic Graduates’ Mobility in China

This article addresses the cumulative effect of graduate migration and opportunities for career development. Using data from an online survey of 756 master’s-level graduates educated in China and the UK, it examines their geographical mobility patterns and reveals significant differences between Chinese students who graduated from domestic universities and those who were educated abroad. Spatial autocorrelation analysis shows that international returnees, who usually had more privileged family backgrounds, clustered in China’s highly developed core cities of the Bohai Economic Rim and Yangtze River Delta regions, such as Beijing and Shanghai, while domestic graduates tended to work and live in less affluent medium-sized cities around these regions. Women international graduates were more mobile than their men counterparts. Our results provide new evidence that draws attention to migration’s role in graduate career development opportunities and highlights inherent economic discrimination within China, which is perpetuated by the national residency permit system — Hukou. The case of Chinese graduates shows that the mobility patterns of international and domestic graduates are influenced by and contribute to growing regional inequalities for career development in China.

International Graduate Students’ Positionality in a U.S. Critical Multicultural Education Course

This study describes the experience of four international students after taking a class in critical multicultural education at a predominantly white institution in the Midwest, U.S. Utilizing narrative inquiry and narrative coding to analyze students’ positionality papers, the researchers found two overarching themes: (1) Prior Experiences and (2) Perspectives on multicultural identities, with several sub-themes. The first overarching theme, prior experiences, has three sub-themes that reflect students’ identities in relation to their sociocultural backgrounds: (a) origin and national identity (b) family background and exposure (c) education and sociocultural experiences. The second overarching theme, perspectives on multicultural identities has five sub-themes that emerged from students’ personal learning and through socialization: (a) race and ethnicity (b) religion (c) gender and sexuality (d) class and privilege, and (e) culture shock. We conclude with a discussion of the findings and implications for this work.

The Impact of the Japanese Graduate Education System on the Experiences of International Students

This paper examines how the experiences of international graduate students are influenced by the graduate education system applied in higher educational institutions in Japan. It is based on the author's ethnographic study on Indonesian students who studied in Japan from 1991 to 1992. The follow-up studies on the returnees after their study abroad were conducted from 2011 to 2013. The paper is likewise based on the author's work on international students at a Japanese university. This paper studied the experiences of Indonesian graduate students in the Science field with the graduate education system at Japanese universities. It focused on the koza research unit, which usually had the head professor and other faculty members in different ranks and the students in different years. The study found that this koza unit could be described as a

Factors influencing international and U.S. dentists\u2019 interest in advanced periodontal education: a pilot study

BackgroundThe enrollment of international periodontal students in U.S. dental schools has been increasing in recent years. Interest in applying to a periodontics specialty program may differ between U.S and international dental school graduates. The purpose of this study is to assess, from the perspective of periodontal residents, (1) factors that interest dental students to apply to periodontics programs and (2) differences in background and interest between U.S and international graduates.MethodsA 20-question survey was sent out electronically to periodontics residents. The survey questions were designed to obtain information on the participants’ backgrounds, factors that influenced them to specialize in periodontics, and their preferred features of graduate periodontics programs. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics for socio-demographic variables, a Wilcoxon two sample test to compare mean Likert scale scores, and Fisher’s exact test for associations between comparison groups.ResultsOf the two hundred residents invited to participate, 28% responded. The majority of the respondents stated that interest in implantology, previous exposure to periodontal procedures, interest in improving periodontal surgery skills, a good relationship with periodontics faculty, the residency curriculum, advanced program and faculty reputation as influencing factors in selecting periodontics as specialization. The majority of international graduates have up to $50,000 dollars in student debt; by comparison, half of the domestic graduates have a debt of over $250,000 dollars (p ≤ 0.05). Working experience as a dentist was significantly greater among international residents (73%) in comparison to U.S graduates (32%). In contrast with international graduates, U.S graduates more frequent reported that good relationships with the periodontics predoctoral faculty contributed to their interest in periodontics (p ≤ 0.05). Program cost and location had a greater impact on the decision of U.S. graduates than international graduates (p ≤ 0.05).ConclusionsOverall, factors associated with personal finance and predoctoral education have a greater impact on the decision of American graduates than international graduates to pursue an advanced education in periodontics, which may influence the increased enrollment of international students.

The effects of topic familiarity on emotionality and linguistic complexity in EAP writing

Focusing on the relationship between linguistic, cognitive, socioemotional factors in writing English for academic purposes (EAP), this study investigated whether topic familiarity as an important cognitive factor of task complexity influences different levels of emotionality and linguistic complexity in EAP writing and whether there are relationships between emotionality and linguistic complexity. To do so, 64 international graduate learners enrolled in EAP writing courses participated in the present study. Each wrote on familiar and unfamiliar topics determined via a questionnaire at the onset of the study. Their writings were then measured for textual emotionality and linguistic complexity using automatic assessment tools. Results showed that EAP writings differed systematically in terms of both emotionality and linguistic complexity due to the influence of topic familiarity. Unfamiliar topics led to writing performance with a significantly higher level of emotional negativity and significantly lower linguistic complexity levels as compared to familiar topics. A follow-up correlation analysis also revealed significant relationships between emotionality and linguistic complexity measures, indicating complex interactions between linguistic and socioemotional factors. Implications of these findings are discussed relative to deploying writing topics with varied levels of cognitive complexity for encouraging classroom engagement and improving L2 learners’ writing performance by effective task sequencing.

Communication Competencies and International Graduates’ Employability Outcomes: Strategies to Navigate the Host Labour Market

Communication Competencies and International Graduates’ Employability Outcomes: Strategies to Navigate the Host Labour Market

International and Domestic Graduate Student Satisfaction with Life

With increasing mental health problems witnessed among students, adequately addressing their well-being is becoming important on college campuses. This study compares international and domestic graduate students in the USA on domains that are relevant to both student groups (perfectionistic personality, academic stress) and how these factors combinedly predict satisfaction with life. With 531 international and 359 domestic graduate students, results found support for perfectionism and academic stress predicting life satisfaction in both groups with notable similarities and differences. For perfectionists in both student groups, the level of academic stress was an important factor that determines satisfaction with life. Interestingly, for international students only, a perfectionism dimension that has been traditionally considered adaptive (“Standards”) functioned in a maladaptive way. Findings from this study suggest that international and domestic students share similarities and differences that should be noted.

Navigating Through Uncertainty in the Era of COVID-19

With the spread of COVID-19 around the world, the lives of international students became affected by a sudden shift to online learning, sheltering in place, and travel restrictions. Drawing upon the stress and coping framework, this study explores the experiences and coping of international graduate students at a large Western research university in the United States. We employed a phenomenological inquiry of in-depth interviews with 20 participants. Findings reveal the increased levels of stress and anxiety among participants as they faced academic challenges, personal challenges, and immigration-related uncertainties. Over time, students developed emotion-focused and problem-focused coping strategies to minimize the impact of the pandemic on their lives. Participants’ concerns about the host country’s treatment of international students raise important questions about the future of international student mobility. Finally, this study demonstrates the need to develop emergency responding mechanisms of the host institution.

Collaborative Autoethnography as a Pathway for Teacher Learning

In this article, we present lessons learned through the use of Collaborative Autoethnography (CA), a qualitative research method where two international faculty members use their stories constructed from the year-long participation in a Faculty Learning Community (FLC) at a midwestern university in the US. The FLC aimed at providing a safe shared space where international faculty and graduate students discussed the struggles, challenges, and joys of their ‘international-ness’. The autoethnographic reflection illustrates how participation in a FLC has helped them to mediate their initial worries and dilemma of being international faculty (Galina) and reconceptualize teaching (Henny) in a productive way. Additionally, the study demonstrates how reflecting on one’s experience through autoethnography helps them to draw tangible lessons connecting their participation in FLC to their individual teaching contexts and personal struggle in performing a viable teacher identity. The article ends with pedagogical implications on how future FLCs can be better structured to meet the needs of international faculty.

Survey of training experiences and clinical practice in assessment for autism spectrum disorder by neuropsychologists

Objective: The primary purpose of this study is to better understand current practices in the assessment of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) by neuropsychologists. Methods: A 21-item survey regarding ASD assessment beliefs and practices was sent via email through neuropsychology listservs. The survey was accessed by 445 licensed psychologists who identified as neuropsychologists. A total of 367 surveys were deemed usable for data analysis. Descriptive statistics were used to characterize the full sample. Exploratory analyses were conducted between groups of interest, including primary population served (pediatric, adult, or lifespan), primary practice setting (medical center vs. private practice) and years in practice (< 5 years, 5 to 14 years, or 15+ years). Results: Respondents were well-distributed across age range, years in practice, primary practice setting, and primary practice location. Almost all respondents (most of whom self-identified as pediatric-focused clinicians) believe that neuropsychologists should be able to competently rule in or out ASD and most received training in ASD assessment. Approximately 40% of respondents endorsed wanting more training in ASD assessment to increase their competence and confidence in making this differential diagnosis. Minimal differences in ASD beliefs and assessment practices were seen across years of practice or primary practice setting. Pediatric and lifespan clinicians had similar experience with ASD assessment practices, and both generally differed from adult clinicians. Conclusions: Our findings suggest many respondents desire further specialty ASD training for neuropsychologists. Additionally, the large majority of respondents indicated that future neuropsychologists should receive training in ASD assessment during graduate school, internship and/or post-doctoral fellowship.