Page 43 - Movers, Shapers, and Everything in Between: Influencers of the International Student Experience
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Analysis strategy
To investigate the role integration plays in understanding differences in international student satisfaction, we sought to create constructs of social and academic integration. A factor analysis of 13 Likert scale questions from the ISB was conducted on a sample of 5,242 subjects who answered all 13 questions. An examination of the Kaiser-Meyer Olkin measure of sampling adequacy suggested that the sample was factorable (KMO= .912) and resulted in a sound model of two constructs of integration: social and academic.
The first construct, “Social Integration”, was comprised of 7 items reported on a 4-point Likert scale that explained 44.8% of the variance with factor loadings from .574 to .813. The second construct, “Academic Integration”, was comprised of 6 items reported on a 4-point Likert scale that explained 14.0% of the variance with factor loadings from .715 to .810. Cumulatively, the two constructs explain 58.8% of total variance.
Table 2.2 Factor loadings and communalities based on a principal components analysis for 13 items from the International Student Barometer (ISB) Varimax with Kaiser Normalization. (N = 5,242)
Element from ISB
Making friends from my home country
Making friends from this country
Making friends from other countries
Opportunities to experience the cultures of this country
The social activities
The social facilities
Making good contacts for the future
Academic staff whose English I can understand
Getting time from academic staff when I need it/personal support with learning
Feedback on coursework/formal written submissions
Advice and guidance on long-term job opportunities and careers from academic staff
Studying with people from other cultures Help to improve my English language skills
Note: Factor loadings < .2 are suppressed.
2
The Role of Integration
   Social Integration
.574 .796 .792 .802
.773 .813 .810 .298 .355
.346 .412
.488 .476
Academic Integration
.326 .374 .368 .406
.383 .406 .418 .743 .810
.778 .715
.735 .758
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