Understanding of International Graduate Students' Academic Adaptation to a U.S. Graduate School

Abstract

This study explored how academic relationships, acculturation strategies, and graduate experiences influence international graduate students' academic adjustment to U.S. graduate life in a large Midwestern university in the United States.To understand international graduate students' academic experiences, ten international graduate students from different countries were interviewed about their academic experiences and three research questions were examined, including: a) what are international graduate students concerned about in their academic lives; b) how do the themes and s ubt hemes influence their adaptation to a U.S. graduate schoo l; and c) what are the major and the minor subt hemes related to their academic adaptation?Qualitative methodo logy was employed, including purposeful participant selection, obs ervations, interviews, data coding, and data triangulation.In addition, mixed da ta analyses were used in this study to enlarge the effect sizes of the qualitative findings.The findings show that international graduate stude nts' learning behaviors and attitudes are heavily influenced by the interactions with professors and fellow stude nts, pr ejudice from schoo l services, and family concerns.Unlike international undergraduate students, international graduate stude nts are also affected by research concerns and graduate assistant work in U.S. graduate schoo ls.Such working experiences have brought international graduate assistants both opportunities and difficulties in their transition to U.S. graduate education.Despite their iii similarities in circumstance, these stude nts' adjustment processes may vary due to their language proficiency, cultural knowledge, learning attitudes, and the utilization of school services.The above findings of this study will not only help international graduate become aware of their academic needs and expectations, but also help U.S. institutions understand the ir international graduate stude nts' academic adjustment processes, needs, and dissatisfaction.Moreover, giving the increasing trend of international education in the world, this study may also contribute to the scholarly inquiry of international stude nts' cross-cultural acculturation in the larger society.

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