There is concern over international students' low academic achievement at the college level. Due to language challenges and cultural differences, international students' academic achievement is not satisfactory that resulting in a decrease in the retention rate. Note-taking strategies such as the concept-mapping method may enhance international…

Mental health problems commonly prevail among international students as a result of acculturative difficulties. In light of this, the study attempted to determine the role of cultural intelligence, age and prior travel experience on acculturative stress and depression and also whether acculturative stress mediated the cultural…

In this dissertation, I investigated how cognitive resources as well as formal, and informal language experience impact language learning in two studies. In the first study (Chapter 2), I examined the learning of Spanish grammatical gender by Chinese international students who were studying abroad in the US. The goal of that study was to uncover…

Willingness to communicate (WTC) has recently been researched as a dynamic variable, with some investigations viewing it as a complex dynamic system (CDS). One important property associated with CDS is the notion of attractor states, which are characterized by stable patterns of behavior. The present study employed an idiodynamic method to monitor…

Since 2006, the enrollment of African students in Chinese universities has been increasing steadily. A majority of the students have been recruited through the China Scholarship Council. Cast against that background of growth in the number of African students in Chinese universities, it is important that their educational experience in a country…

Despite a burgeoning body of empirical research on "the international student experience", the area remains under-theorized. The literature to date lacks a guiding conceptual model that captures the adjustment and adaptation trajectories of this unique, growing, and important sojourner group. In this paper, we therefore put forward a…

Adaptive e-learning materials can help teachers to educate heterogeneous student groups. This study provides empirical data about the way academic students differ in their learning when using adaptive e-learning materials. Ninety-four students participated in the study. We determined characteristics in a heterogeneous student group by collecting…

International students have become an important part of many universities, both through the income they provide and the diversity they bring to student populations. Studying in a foreign country can be challenging, requiring students to adapt to unfamiliar educational cultures. With the integration of online technologies into higher education,…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine variables explaining students' positive and negative experiences of groupwork and connect country of residence with the perception of generic skills development and self-reported satisfaction with groupwork. It also aims to examine the effect of prior training in groups from the perspective of…