This qualitative study explored the experiences of six Chinese and South Korean graduate students in the United States. Semistructured interviews and an interpretive phenomenological approach were used in which three major themes emerged: (a) academic challenges and acculturation, (b) academic support from host institute, and (c) cultural and pedagogical nuances. Challenges included language barriers during lectures, discussions and writing assignments, and lack of support services for international students. One significant finding was Chinese and South Korean students do not have the same graduate experiences in the United States. Participants shared how their prior homeland learning experiences (course delivery, relationships with instructors and assessments) impacted their learning, relationships, and academic challenges in the United States.

Previous research studies about mathematics performance have continuously reported race/ethnic or gender gaps. Learners have different educational experiences depending on not only their ethnicity or gender, but also grade and sociocultural factors. However, only a few studies have considered all these factors integrally. Hence, the need of examining academic performance differences across ethnicity, gender, grade, and sociocultural variables led this study. The purpose of this study was to examine mathematics academic achievement of 4th and 8th grade African, Latinx, and Asian American students related to students’ ethnicity, gender, grade, and sociocultural variables such as student bullying, parental involvement, and engaging teaching. The guiding research question for this inquire was: Which factors (gender, student bullying, parental involvement, and engaging teaching) do predict the mathematics achievement of 4th and 8th grade African, Latinx, and Asian American students? The participants were total 9,605 fourth (n=4,785) and eighth grade (n=4,820) African, Latinx, and Asian American students in TIMSS 2015 U.S. national public-use data set. According to the results of multiple linear regression analyses, parental involvement was a significant predictor for all students across grade and ethnicity. In addition, engaging teaching from mathematics teachers significantly predicted 4th and 8th grade Latinx American students’ mathematics achievement. This study revealed that gender, student bullying, parental involvement, and engaging teaching had different level of impacts on mathematics achievement of each group of students.