Page 81 - Movers, Shapers, and Everything in Between: Influencers of the International Student Experience

The ISB is a survey launched in 2005 by the International Graduate Insight Group Ltd. (i-graduate). It encompasses nearly 3 million student responses across all student types, levels and years of study including more than 30 countries and 200 institutions, making it the largest and most widespread dataset of student responses in existence. The ISB tracks satisfaction levels of international students across specific areas of key importance, including the academic, living, and support experiences. Students are asked to indicate their satisfaction with a particular element of their experience on a Likert-style scale of 1 to 4 (1= very dissatisfied, 2= dissatisfied, 3= satisfied, 4= very satisfied). While there are many possible metrics that could be used to measure the experience of international students, self-reported satisfaction provides a direct, subjective measure of how the student rates their experience in each area. Additionally, using an ordinal 1 to 4 scale results in a ‘forced choice’, which requires respondents to deeply process each question and response option (Allen, 2017).
This study draws on the 2018 ISB dataset, which contained over 65,000 student responses. Data was filtered to contain only institutions that had international branch campuses that also participated in the ISB in 2018. It was further filtered to contain only undergraduate international students studying full time, on campus, in degree-awarding programs21. Applying these parameters resulted in a subset of 2,145 responses, of which 812 (38%) responses came from international students at IBCs and 1,333 (62%) responses came from international students at home campuses. Universities had varying levels of international student responses, ranging from 256 responses at one university up to 1,127 responses at another. In total, there were four universities included in the dataset, resulting in four home campuses, and six IBCs.
Two of the universities had multiple IBCs included in the sample, accounting for the difference in total number of IBCs home campuses. The identities of the home campuses and IBCs are not revealed in this study to protect their anonymity. All of the institutions were based in
21 The data does not include students studying in exchange programs, short courses, and part-time and/or distance learning students.
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Satisfaction at IBCs and Home Campuses
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