Page 14 - Movers, Shapers, and Everything in Between: Influencers of the International Student Experience
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Chapter 1
include the economic and social forces that arise in the student’s home country and motivate his or her decision to study abroad, while pull factors arise in the host country and influence the choice of study location. For example, a study by Wilkins and Huisman (2011), which looked at international students at Western universities and in Western countries, found that the most important push factors were “the lack of places in higher education in students’ home countries, the unavailability of certain subjects, insufficient quality or recognition by employers, and the lack of post-study employment opportunities when study is done at home". Some of the pull factors were “the prospect of studying a greater range of subjects, the chance to study with other international students and with world-leading academics, the opportunity to develop English language skills and to experience living in a different culture, the possibility of gaining a qualification that will be more highly regarded by employers both in their home countries and internationally and possibly the provision of the means to aid migration from their home countries on a permanent basis” (p. 67).
A study of international degree-seeking students at public universities in Malaysia identified non-academic push factors such as the opportunity to have a study abroad experience and international social experiences, and non-academic pull factors such as expectations of comfort, lifestyle, and particular aspects of the destination country (Zulkifli et al, 2021). Beyond push and pull factors, evidence suggests that home country population, distance between home and host countries, and university enrollment have a significant impact on international students’ choice of destination country (Chemsripong, 2019).
International students are an incredibly diverse group, varying widely in terms of their background and demographic characteristics, the type of education they seek, and their particular motivations for doing so. The myriad types of international students-and types of education-make it difficult to assert that, for example, the experience of an undergraduate student participating in a two-week study abroad






























































































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