Page 84 - Movers, Shapers, and Everything in Between: Influencers of the International Student Experience

Chapter 4
to compare these scores in the two groups, while considering other factors, a One-way Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was selected (Field, 2016). The ANCOVA tests for differences in mean satisfaction with these three constructs between international students enrolled at IBCs and home campuses, while controlling for student gender, study stage, and institution. Comments written into the ISB by students who responded were analyzed to gain further insight into the results. Verbatim comments were included when relevant in order to “add life to the narrative on often convey the point very expressively – without it being mediated or softened by the academic language of the researcher” (Cohen, Manion, & Morrison, 2011, p. 553). A table of comment frequency and sentiment, categorized by enrollment type (IBC/Home Campus) was created. Though positive/negative sentiment coding has limited power on its own (Cohen et al., 2011), it is used in this study to search for patterns in the comments that relate to satisfaction with the academic experience.
reSultS
Results indicate that academic satisfaction does differ between international students enrolled at IBCs and home campuses. Specifically, international students enrolled at home campuses demonstrate higher mean satisfaction with Academic and Teaching Quality, Academic Environment, and Academic Engagement than international students enrolled at international branch campuses. While significant differences in satisfaction were found even without inclusion of the control variables, including these variables as controls explained part of the variance. In particular, satisfaction with Academic Environment and Academic Engagement are both sensitive to at which university the student was enrolled. Student gender and stage of study did not significantly affect their satisfaction with the academic experience.
Levene’s test indicated that equal population variances for home and IBC-enrolled students could be assumed for satisfaction with Academic and Teaching Quality and Academic Engagement (p>.05). The variances for home and IBC-enrolled students in satisfaction with
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