Page 60 - Movers, Shapers, and Everything in Between: Influencers of the International Student Experience

Chapter 3
reSeArCh QueStion
Existing research notwithstanding, there is a lack of large-scale quantitative studies examining international student satisfaction; this study seeks to contribute to both theory and practice by delving into this topic. This study explores the following research question:
How do aspects of the student experience, including university reputation, undergraduate enrolment, proportion of international students, and local population7, as well as student gender and stage of study, predict the satisfaction of undergraduate international students?
Hypotheses: Looking at university characteristics, we predict a significant positive relationship between universities’ reputation and the satisfaction of their undergraduate international students. We predict a significant negative relationship between undergraduate enrolment, proportion of international students, and local population and the satisfaction of undergraduate international students.
Looking at student characteristics, we predict a significant relationship between stage of study and satisfaction of undergraduate international students, with first year students reporting significantly higher levels of satisfaction than other and last year students. We predict a significant relationship between gender and satisfaction of undergraduate international students, with female students reporting significantly higher levels of satisfaction than male students.
methodoloGy
While there are many ways to evaluate the international student experience, self-reported satisfaction is a useful metric as it considers the varied experiences of international students. Subjective measures are well suited to investigate psychometric variables (i.e., student experience, quality of life, sense of belonging, etc.) that are conceptualized differently by individuals (Elasy & Gaddy, 1998). In this study, student satisfaction is defined as “the extent to which students are satisfied with the organization and management, quality of
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7 Local population is defined as city size (in thousands) as reported in the 2011 UK census.