Page 17 - Movers, Shapers, and Everything in Between: Influencers of the International Student Experience

their fellow students, the universities in which they are enrolled, and the societies to which they belong.
This work underscores the importance of incorporating student voices into research when it comes to influencing higher education policy and practice. Understanding students’ perceptions is critical to meeting their needs because it is their subjective experiences that make up the reality of their lives. The research in this thesis uses data collected from students themselves to update and renew models for understanding the student experience. “All models are wrong, but some are useful,” said statistician George Box. The most useful models provide an understanding of a phenomenon based on reality. Ultimately, this work offers an understanding of students’ multiple realities based on their perceptions of their lived experiences.
Benefits for Students and Universities
A campus community that includes international students is of great benefit to the entire student body. Research shows that domestic students who interacted regularly with international students had stronger networks (HEPI, 2015), more self-confidence, and better leadership skills than peers who did not have such interactions, and that these effects persisted for at least twenty years after graduation (Luo & Jamieson-Drake, 2013). Another study found that exposure to international students led to less prejudice toward international students (Quinton, 2019), illustrating the link between interaction and prejudice. In addition, research suggests that contact with people from other groups leads to cognitive growth and lower levels of prejudice (Pettigrew, 2008). Taken together, these research findings suggest that higher education institutions can achieve benefits for enrolled students by fostering high-quality interactions between international and domestic students.
The benefits that international students bring to campus are important because many students do not have the resources or opportunities to study abroad. This means that many domestic students come into contact with students of other nationalities almost exclusively on their
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General Introduction
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