Many English language proficiency (ELP) tests used for university admissions and placement now include integrated writing tasks that require examinees to use external sources when writing. Integrated writing tasks improve test authenticity and impact, but they raise several validity questions, such as what academic language skills they engage and…

Saudi students are required to take the General Aptitude Test (GAT), achieving a certain competency, in order to gain acceptance in matriculation programs, or to study abroad. GAT is surrounded with a great deal of controversy regarding it as a reliable admission factor for measuring a student's aptitude for success in higher education. The…

Investigating the comparability of students' performance on TOEFL writing tasks and actual academic writing tasks is essential to provide backing for the extrapolation inference in the TOEFL validity argument (Chapelle, Enright, & Jamieson, 2008). This study compared 103 international non-native-English-speaking undergraduate students'…

This viewpoint article provides a critical reflection on the gatekeeping and academic language practices of Anglophone universities, evaluating these in light of the promotional claims universities make about internationalization and global reach. I then consider the arguments put forward in each of the main articles in this special issue from…

This study examined the relationship between attachment, travel experiences, and English proficiency and international students' acculturative stress and depressive symptoms. A total of 91 graduate international students completed online surveys. Pearson correlations showed that both attachment anxiety and avoidance were positively correlated with…

Amid profound changes to student placement systems at universities and colleges, the placement of English language learners has remained largely the same. Generally speaking, international students, and in some places other English language learners, face single measure testing and required remediation. Single measure high stakes testing goes…

This study examines the predictive validity of the TOEFL iBT with respect to academic achievement as measured by the first-year grade point average (GPA) of Chinese students at Purdue University, a large, public, Research I institution in Indiana, USA. Correlations between GPA, TOEFL iBT total and subsection scores were examined on 1990 mainland…

Data from 787 international undergraduate students at an urban university in the United States were used to demonstrate the importance of separating a sample into meaningful subgroups in order to demonstrate the ability of an English language assessment to predict the first-year grade point average (GPA). For example, when all students were pooled…

This article will consider using TOEFL scores for purposes of placement and advising for international graduate students at a northern California research university. As the number of international students is on the rise and the funds for the graduate ESL program are diminishing, the way in which the university is handling the influx of…

The purpose of this study was to examine adult international students' English learning beliefs and their use of different learning strategies at a four-year institution. This study was conducted to analyze English learning strategy use and beliefs about English language learning, and the relationship between beliefs and use reported by 84…

Many American universities require international applicants whose native language is not English to submit English proficiency exam scores presumably because of proficiency's potential to predict future academic success. The present study provides evidence, however, that such applicants can succeed academically despite struggling with English.…

A quantitative study was conducted to measure the acculturative stress of international students and investigate the predictors of acculturative stress. A total of 186 students participated in the survey. Results showed that 22.4% of the students in this study exceeded the normal stress level and might need counseling or psychological…

This study examined the role of academic self-efficacy, acculturation difficulties, and language abilities on procrastination behavior using a convenience sample of 264 Chinese international students studying at three public universities in the United States. While there were no significant mean gender differences on any of the measures, results…

Are international undergraduates struggling academically, and are their struggles due to weaknesses in English as a second language? The present study showed that 1) at most 10% of these students in three cohorts (ranging in size from N = 322 to N = 695) at an American west coast public university struggled (quarterly grade point averages below C)…

The number of international students attending American educational institutions is increasing annually. Based upon Maslow theory of needs, it was hypothesized that the acculturation process contributes to stress and anxiety among international students; therefore, it is important to understand some of the variables that influence this process for…