Reviewing Literature of International Students Adaptation in Higher Education

MA   Education Full time (MX3AC)
                                                  Studying at Master’s Level (7PE 299)

Reviewing literature of international students adaptation in higher education

(10 November, 2012)

The top three countries exporting higher education services internationally are the United Kingdom (UK), the United States and Australia. Universities from these nations mainly draw international students from eastern countries; mostly from China (Marginson & McBurnie 2004, p168).The term   ‘international students‘ used in this literature review refers to the students who travel to a country different from their own for the purpose of higher education. International students’ adaptation to higher education generally has been the subject of a fairly large body of literature. It is impossible to analyse all of these papers/articles one by one in this short review. I therefore scoped five relevant research articles, ranging from theoretical models of adaptation, patterns of adaptation, experiences on pre-sessional programme, adaptation in teamwork and challenges on tutorial participation to explore international students’ acculturation process. I also adopted a research article which studies the challenges involved in supervising international students. This report provides a quick access to the analysis of international students’ adaptation from a teacher’s point of view.
Types of research and methodology
According to the sources where the data are collected, research may be classified into the following three types: empirical research, library-based research and mixed research (Ridley 2008). Among six reviewed journal articles listed above, two of them belong to library-based research, three empirical researches, and one mixed research. The three empirical research articles use quantitative, qualitative, and quantitative and qualitative mixed methodology, respectively. Research methods applied in these articles are mainly...